In theory, it sounds like a great idea: “James Bond meets Edge Of Tomorrow.” But in practice, the deeply flawed time looping sci-fi first-person shooter Deathloop (PlayStation 5, PC) is just okay.
If South Park, Rick & Morty, and Saints Row IV have shown us anything, it’s that you can smart and stupid at the same time, even if the stupid stuff is immature or scatological, so long as it’s ultimately fun. It’s something I thought about while playing the third-person hack & slash action game No More Heroes 3 (Switch), which would be idiotic and immature, and also kind of annoying in how flawed it can be, if it wasn’t so much silly fun.
Twenty years after writing The Ultimate History Of Video Games, video game journalist Steven L. Kent has finally released a sequel: The Ultimate History Of Video Games, Vol. 2: Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, And The Billion-Dollar Battle To Shape Modern Gaming (paperback, Kindle). Though as he reveals in the following email interview about it, this second installment — like many video game sequels — not only offers something new, but it fixes some of the bugs from the first one.
I’ve been very open about the fact that if you remake a classic game, you need to update it to modern standards (my reviews of the Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2 remakes speak for themselves). But I’ve apparently found the exception with the 2021 Enhanced Re-Release version of the sci-fi first-person shooter Quake (Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch, PC), which is mostly just a better looking version of an old game, but adds something new (maybe two) that makes it worth buying…especially at this game’s low price.
The entertainment industry is just that: an industry. And the objective of any industry is to make money. Which is why entertainment people sometimes make cutesy versions of adult or all-ages things in hopes of expanding their (paying) audience to include children. We’ve seen it with The Muppets and Muppet Babies, with the Loony Tunes and Tiny Tunes, and now we’re seeing it with Earth Defense Force: World Brothers (PlayStation 4, Switch, PC), a cartoony take on the titular third-person sci-fi shooter series. But by doing more than just making it LEGO-fied, the good people at Yuke’s who made this goofy gun game have managed to make something that’s as fun as the previous ones, regardless of your age.
Let’s cut to the chase: the sci-fi, third-person, open world, action-packed role-playing game Biomutant (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC) is epic, effortlessly engaging, and entirely worth your time. But man, I wish it had gotten to the point as quickly as I just did because this sure takes its sweet time getting good.
Though inspired by and connected to the Aliens movies, the science fiction space opera horror novel Aliens: Infiltrator (paperback, Kindle, audiobook) is better qualified as a direct prequel to the upcoming video game Aliens: Fireteam (out later this year for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC). But as its writer Weston Ochse explains in the following email interview, it’s also got connections to a certain sitcom.
Given how 2017’s Resident Evil 7: Biohazard was called a “return to form,” it should come as no surprise that the sequel would try to follow in its footsteps. But rather than rest on their laurels, and spend their time sipping Mai Tais as the money rolls in, the good people at Capcom have instead decided to progress once again by making Resident Evil Village (PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC, Stadia) essentially Resident Evil 7 crossed with Resident Evil 4 for a game that — yeah, you know — goes up to 11.
There’s a fine line between repetition and redundancy, especially where video games are concerned. But while the time loop conceit of the third-person sci-fi shooter Returnal (PlayStation 5) may have goal-oriented gamers thinking they should take a pass, this game’s lather-rinse-repeat motif actually works to its advantage.