There are more than a few reasons why you won’t find me reviewing games for Snackbar anytime soon. Besides the fact that we already have an excellent review staff, I simply can’t be objective enough to calmly rationalize why a game is good and why it’s bad based purely on design. I’m too emotional.
I’ll overstate how awesome I thought one cutscene was, and give the game an incredible score that doesn’t reflect the quality of the entire product. If you saw my list of games that I’ve beat and ranked, you’d say I was crazy. I have Final Fantasy XIII ranked higher than Fallout 3. I have BioShock 2 ahead of the original. I have Mirror’s Edge ahead of The Wind Waker, Enslaved ahead of Metal Gear Solid 3 and Blue Dragon ahead of Tales of Symphonia. I’m susceptible entirely to how I felt about a game, rather than the core criteria a reviewer should look at and the rational thinking a critic should possess. READ MORE
The coolest thing about Koei’s Dynasty Warriors (or Musou) series in the past few years has been the occasional branching away from the same old Three Kingdoms song and dance and exploration of really great, classic anime franchises. It started with Mobile Suit Gundam, followed that up with Fist of the North Star and most recently tackled Eiichiro Oda’s insurmountable cash cow One Piece. The first game based upon Buronson and Tetsuo Hara’s classic post-apocalyptic martial arts saga, Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage was a bit of a divisive game; some found it sluggish and limited in scope, but others (including myself) enjoyed it as a hard-hitting, accurate tribute to the classic manga (and anime) that made a few interesting changes to the typical Musou formula. READ MORE
Most retrogaming discussions tend to focus on the most evergreen design elements of each title. The controls, the art direction and graphics, the little nuances of level design… they are often the focus, the measure against the tide of time and the reason they stand up against their dated brethren.
But there’s also value in those more ephemeral designs, those clear products of their time. Retrogaming is not just about the age of the games but a different experience, a different frame of mind and goal. It’s a vindication of the past and all the greatness that was in it. And no game shows it better than The Tower of Druaga. READ MORE
Toki Tori is exactly what everybody needs sometimes: a game to relax with that isn’t insultingly easy. Toki Tori moved as quickly or as slowly as the player wanted, it was beautiful to look at, and each level presented a challenge without feeling stressful. Toki Tori 2 changes the formula from the first game but, so far, retains the charm of the original. READ MORE
There are a lot of game projects that just didn’t happen for one reason or another, but to me, it’s most heartbreaking when a game’s completely finished and just doesn’t see the light of day. Propeller Arena, a first-party flight combat game for the Dreamcast, is one of those games. Why didn’t it release? Well, it was a late-2001 game about planes flying around tall buildings, so it suffered the fate that the original Advance Wars avoided by a day: a world that just wasn’t ready to have fun with that setting. READ MORE
