It’s a well-worn sentiment that the Madden series is just the same game, year after year. It’s a view that may seem accurate on the surface, but those who play the games more closely know that the franchise releases in phases, with a particular model being iterated and improved upon for a few years before being totally revamped. These years are interesting ones, as they bring huge gameplay changes, but often end up with a smaller (if fresher) feature set as a result of the extra work on the basics.
Madden NFL 13‘s Vita iteration is the best portable football game ever made. Those familiar with previous releases know how low that bar has been; while other sports have had interesting twists to make up for the low power of a handheld, football has always been a painfully-shoehorned downgrade of the console formula. With the Vita, that approach finally works, as the system can handle it. Mostly. READ MORE
Games, even cooperative ones, aren’t always a field of equals. There’s been some controversy lately about what to call this brand of asymmetrical co-op, but I choose to credit the first popular instance of the concept: Tails in Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Tails was fully-playable by a second player, but he was invincible, re-spawned when he left the screen and wasn’t given any credit for the team’s exploits. As a little one particularly lacking in skill in Sonic games, I appreciated it then as a way to get through the game by basically only using Tails. These days, I appreciate it because it allows for a cooperative experience in a game with design elements that should have precluded a second on-screen player. READ MORE
In the new episode, we’re talking about the news out of Gamescom, the arrival of the 3DS XL, the Neo Geo X’s strange existence and Remember Me, which some didn’t. Andrew tells us about Retro/Grade and Papo & Yo, Graham explores Sound Shapes, Shawn puts his degree in Evil Physics to work in A Virus Named TOM and we all discuss the games we’re most anticipating for the rest of 2012.
With this week’s release of the 3DS XL, many are picking up the system for the first time. (Some of them are picking up that regular 3DS from the ones upgrading, too.) Want to know what you should play on it? We’re here to help! Here are the five best so far (plus two eShop games to download).READ MORE
