If you can believe it, Nintendo has released a new update for Mario Kart Tour to celebrate the launch of Mario Kart World. Coming just over a month after the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2, this latest update is surprising not just because there’s a new Mario Kart game…
Every developer under the sun has dabbled in the 3D platformer space at one point or another, but Nintendo has consistently proven that no one does it better than it does — and Donkey Kong Bananza is no exception to that rule. It’s a master class in level design and…
A second Playtest Program has been announced for Nintendo Switch Online, which will allow successful applicants to help test the online service. It will be similar to the playtest held in October 2024, though this time the number of users will jump from 10,000 to 40,000. It will take place…
Welcome back to Season 2 of the Character Column, where we run down all manner of royal, ruffian, and rough-around-the-edges rube in a weekly analysis of various characters. Last week we ran down the nuances of Inklings and avatars in Splatoon. This week, I’d like to begin by demanding that…
Welcome back to Season 2 of the Character Column, where we run down all manner of royal, ruffian, and rough-around-the-edges rube in a weekly analysis of various characters. Last time we covered the questions of self-inserting avatars as they pertained to Corrin of Fire Emblem Fates. Nintendo has had no…
It’s the 20th anniversary of a video game that has truly stood the test of time, as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time celebrates a whopping two decades of being hailed as one of the best, if not THE best, video games of all time. The action-adventure title garnered…
One genre that has sadly gone the way of the dinosaurs, it seems, is the wacky, arcadey sports game. I love titles like NBA Street, Daytona USA, and even extreme sports like Tony Hawk and Snowboard Kids. In this day of overly-involved sports simulators full of loot boxes and microtransactions,…
Welcome back to Season 2 of the Character Column, where we run down all manner of royal, ruffian, and rough-around-the-edges rube in a weekly analysis of various characters. Last time we kicked the season off with a look at one of my favorite villains, the horrifyingly complex Porky Minch. The…
While I’m not the resident reverent roguelike rapscallion (that title goes to the superior spelunky savant Matthew Weidner), I do enjoy a jaunt through an ever-changing dungeon or two every now and then. The cyclical design of the genre allows for a perceptible change of skill growth in your own…
It was whispered of only in legend; a long-forgotten series of analysis pieces on various video game characters that once resided on this website — so ancient, it saw the time of the Inquirer. Tidings of its returns have been muttered, yet never come to pass… until this day. For…
Modern video games love stealth. It seems like a large chunk of single-player games that come out have some sort of stealth mechanics, from first-person shooters, like Wolfenstein, to hefty adventures like Spider-Man. Good stealth, however, is not as common. The aforementioned Spider-Man has relatively entertaining stealth sections, but they’re…
When the meat of Dragalia Lost was revealed about a month or so ago in a special Nintendo Direct, I felt fairly underwhelmed by what was on display. The story seemed cookie cutter, the overall aesthetic didn’t grab me, and the gameplay looked pretty banal. Nothing about the concept seemed…
Before I ever owned a home console, arcades were where my interest in games truly started, with more quarters spent than I’d ever want to sit and count. Within those hallowed grounds of lights and sounds two types of games managed to wring the most out of me: fighting games…
When Shovel Knight released in 2014, it was an immediate critical and commercial success, setting off a wave of praise (and cameos) for years to come. The horned-helmeted hero has grown into such a modern indie icon that he’s become the first indie character to become an Assist Trophy in…
I grew up with a healthy number of classic game franchises, but there are some that I didn’t really get into or understand until relatively recently. Mega Man is one of them — I’ve played the first two on NES, but that’s the extent to which I’m familiar with the…
