Though he was a xenophobic racist, H.P. Lovecraft was also an inventive writer of occult horror stories that have inspired and influenced everything from the Hellboy comics and misspelled Metallica songs to episodes of South Park and, just recently, The Simpsons. And that’s not even counting all the books and comics by Alan Moore, Clive Barker, William S. Burroughs, and many, many others. And yet, attempts to translate his works into the medium of video games have largely fallen flat or just been superficial in their liberal use of tentacles. But in the new adventure game Call Of Cthulhu (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC), Lovecraft’s unique aesthetics are well crafted into an interesting adventure game. Well, if you’re in the mood for observation over action.
Category: PlayStation 4
At the risk of sounding like Homer Simpson, the term “arcade game” is thrown around a lot these days…. But while there are a lot of games that are arcade-esque, most of them wouldn’t actually work in an arcade, where you’d have to insert a quarter or two to start playing. And then there’s the turret shooter Heavy Fire: Red Shadow (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC), which really does feel like something you’d find in an arcade…and is all the better for it.
For the first time since the series began fifteen years ago, the new Call Of Duty does not have a story-driven single-player campaign. And yet, the good people at Treyach who made Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC) have repeatedly said that it still has something for people who prefer to play solo.
As one of those people, I decided to put their assertion to the test, and found that while you can play this on your own, it may not be for very long.
For years, the video game Pinball Arcade offered faithful recreations of real pinball tables, while Zen Studios’ Zen Pinball, Pinball FX, and their sequels featured original tables that paired realistic physics with unrealistic mechanics. But that’s no longer the case now that Zen Studios have secured the rights to tables by the iconic pinball company Williams. The first three of which — 1992’s The Getaway: High Speed II, 1996’s Junk Yard; and 1997’s Medieval Madness — are now available for Pinball FX3 (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC) as Williams Pinball: Volume 1. (A fourth, 1992’s Fish Tales, will also be available, but will be free, and wasn’t sent with the other three, hence it’s not included in this review). But while they are almost as authentic as the versions made for Pinball Arcade counterparts, there are some differences that will delight pinball fans but annoy purists.
At its core, Shadows: Awakening (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC) is an isometric, third-person, action-centric role-playing game in the vein of Diablo III. But what sets it apart, and helps make it one of the more engaging games of the year, is how it not only lets you switch between parallel dimensions, but also how it has you using this mechanic in clever ways.
While it’s silly to speculate about what Han Solo would eat if he was in our galaxy, or what TV shows he would binge, it’s a safe bet that he’d probably enjoy pinball. Maybe not obsessively, but when Chewie’s not around to play darts and Lando is off flirting with some waitress, it’s easy to image Han dropping a couple quarters into a pinball machine. But what makes me think he’d like the three tables included in the Star Wars Pinball: Solo pack for Zen Pinball 3 (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC) — well, two out of three of them, anyway — is that they honor him and his recent biopic, Solo: A Star Wars Story, as well as his friends, in a way that’s fun for fans of pinball, the Star Wars saga, and smooth criminals alike.
Donut County Review
At first glance, the physics-based puzzle game Donut County (PlayStation 4, iOS, PC) seems like it’s devoid of any challenge. But while it may not be as difficult as Dark Souls or Super Meat Boy, there is some thought needed if you want to beat this rather clever game.
Having learned survival skills in 2013’s Tomb Raider, and honed them in 2015’s Rise Of The Tomb Raider, Lara Croft is putting them to the test in Shadow Of The Tomb Raider (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC), the final game in this prequel trilogy. But while this third-person action-packed adventure is as effortlessly fun as the other two, this isn’t just the same game in a new outfit.
It’s funny how all the talk of licensed games always being terrible goes right out the window when the thing being licensed is a comic book. Take the interactive adventures of our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. While he’s had some terrible games, people mostly remember such good ones as Spider-Man: Web Of Shadows, Ultimate Spider-Man, and, of course, Spider-Man 2. Thankfully, it is the latter category that that we find Spider-Man (PlayStation 4, PS4 Collector’s Edition), the wall-crawler’s newest adventure, and first from the good people of Insomniac Games.