Author: Jessica Thompson

Credit: Injustice 2 via Facebook. When it comes to a brand or franchise people love, no stone is left unturned when it comes to fan interaction. The ability to spread out a fandom across offline, online, physical, visual, and audio platforms to engage fans enables exponential growth and success. You don’t have to look too far to find online versions of games you love to play – especially when you’re craving more and more interaction with a fandom. Let’s take a popular fandom – the superhero one, worth billions of dollars – to see just how interactive it can be.…

The Warhammer 40.000: Dawn of War franchise isn’t exactly a tale of consistent core gameplay. The original game was a pretty straightforward RTS. The follow-up, Dark Crusade mixed RTS with grand strategy a little bit, giving the player a map full of meaningful choices of the next areas to conquer. Dawn of War 2 felt more like a tactical action-RPG with slightly larger squad, but then it got tossed aside in DoW2: Retribution, which featured both heroes with individual progression, and armies which could become quite large, depending on your choices. The point is, Relic has always seemed eager to…

Source: Jadorendr on Facebook. WB Games’ Injustice 2 got a new trailer on April 18 that highlighted the many talents of insane horticulturist Poison Ivy in battle with Batman and Catwoman and something that wouldn’t look out of place in the Little Shop of Horrors, a bit of greedy foliage planted towards the trailer’s end. With just under a month remaining till Injustice 2’s May 16 launch date, let’s take a quick look at the heroes and villains announced so far. Focusing on lesser known characters and super folk from Zack Snyder’s big screen romps, the roster of Injustice 2 is…

ArmaGallant: Decks of Destiny (not that Destiny) is a PS4 exclusive RTS deckbuilding game based around fast paced 1v1 or 2v2 multiplayer arena battles from developer Rock Nano Global. The game boasts a quick tutorial and many different elements to pick from, rather reminiscent of Magic: The Gathering, but lacks a story mode to better get to know the workings of each faction, leaving the player to flounder on his or her own on a pretty steep learning curve. The integration of RTS into what would otherwise likely be another Hearthstone clone is an interesting idea that doesn’t pan out…

Military strategy games might be in shortly supply, but there are still many gems to be informed about. This article takes a look at the top 10 military strategy games currently available.

Danganronpa 1.2 Reload brings two titles previously only available on the PS Vita (Trigger Happy Havoc and Goodbye Despair) together in one package for the PS4. This quirky mystery game mixes great story telling with a twisted sense of humor brought to life in anime style. You play an ordinary high school student named Makoto selected to attend the Peak Academy for geniuses.  The other students have unique skills and backgrounds including the highest ranked baseball player and the most accomplished swimmer.  Everyone attending is at the top of his or her game. This sounds great until you find out…

Maximum Games presents Troll and I (rated T), a third-person game developed by Spiral House. The game opens with you playing Otto, a teenager who befriends a giant Troll. After evil forces destroy Otto’s village, he must find a way to stop the invading horde and avoid hunters bent on killing and capturing the mythical troll. This puzzle action adventure title (available for PS4, XO and PC) promised a lot in the trailer but unfortunately, does not deliver on almost all fronts. The voice acting and music are passable, but nothing special. On the other hand, the graphics, animation, gameplay,…

Nintendo is really having a great time in life right now. They released the Switch which is selling very, very well. Time will tell what happens for this console but any positive news is a great thing for them to have after the failure of the Wii U, so that’s great for them. And they also released one of the best rated games in all of history. No, not against just Nintendo’s history, I mean the entire run of any game from any company ever. Things are truly looking great for them. But the Switch isn’t the only thing that…

How would you personally define the biggest year in gaming? Are we set for a year like never seen before? Let’s take a look over some of the possibilities. scores? Is it a year where the gaming industry makes more money than ever before? Is it a year when we get the most games released, whether big or small? How about a year where a lot of great memes follow a game (or several games) release? Well, depending on whom you ask and where their place is in the gaming world, the answers will vary greatly. But I think I…

Sonic Forces is coming! We knew that 2017 was supposed to be a return to form for Sonic the Hedgehog. We have the return to the Genesis days in Sonic Mania, and I personally cannot wait for this game! No matter what Sonic has been since the Genesis days or what he can become (hopefully all for the best) he’ll always mean the most to me in a 2D sense. That is the game series that caused me to first fall in love with video games and make them much more than a simple hobby. Sonic the Hedgehog started up…

Every now and then, there comes along a game that I review that I stand back and say I really don’t look forward to. This started out one of those games and quickly turned into something that I actually wanted to play when it was all said and done. The game has a very basic and generic feel to it, but when you get to playing the game, you quickly discover that the game is anything but generic. The game is a lot like that of Tetris except that the music is set to that of a pulsing electric mix…

LEGO Worlds has been long anticipated, especially with the recent returning glory of LEGO since the LEGO movie’s release. Available across PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows and Nintendo Switch, LEGO Worlds is a bright, amusing action-adventure game with, as you’ve probably guessed, the chance to become a Master Builder. There are literally thousands of items to build, a whole world you can explore to your hearts content and a chance to experiment with and mould your surroundings at will. You have the ability to demolish and reassemble terrain using some pretty awesome landscaping tools making it a rather impressive…

Sometimes a person just wants to zone out and relax while playing a game without all of the hassle of having to worry about plots or tough controls to have to remember. Keeping it simple, like it used to be back in the day is what Dystoria is all about. This is a game that has proven to have a serious throwback to a time when video games were fun and we would spend hundreds or even in my case thousands of dollars in quarters trying to save the universe. Nonetheless, dystoria is a game that will challenge you to…

Much of the talk happening within the gaming community right now surrounds the Nintendo Switch. Recently launched, gamers and journalists are beginning to unravel what they think of this new console. Initial sales figures are more than encouraging and, of course, excitement levels are always high when a new console launches. This article explores what the future might hold for the Switch. Let’s begin. Nintendo has entered their new console with the ambition of providing something different. It isn’t entering a race of which console is the most powerful, but rather, it wants to take the crown for offering the…

The Nintendo Switch just came out, to glowing reviews and apparently some record setting sales for the Big N, which is great for them! Whether you’re a Nintendo fan or not, it’s always a good thing to see one of the Big 3 (Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony) have good launches and sell well. It benefits the entire gaming industry when any one of the companies does well, even more so when all 3 are hitting a good stride. But alas, as with any new major hardware launch, there have been troubles with the Switch. Folks are finding that the screen of…

Nintendo Switch seems like the perfect platform to host it’s first launch game, Super Bomberman R. It can be played on a big television or on a portable device and it sticks to the classic Bomberman style of it’s predecessors. The thirty-third in a line of Bomberman classics, the latest one stands true to the game’s original formats. However, it is a little overpriced for what’s included, selling at a whopping $50 a pop. The Bomberman franchise has long been considered one of the greatest multiplayer games out there, so launching the comeback of fun-loving robots in Super Bomberman R…

By now the Nintendo Switch is on the minds of people everywhere. The question is should you go ahead and buy one or wait around and see how things go? There are those that will say that buying one of these when they first come out will be a mistake as you should wait and see if any bugs appear, and if they do, then you need to make sure that you get a model that comes out later after all of the bugs have been fixed. However, I provide an argument as to why you need to go out and…

The Nintendo 3DS’ library is stocked full of some of Nintendo’s best titles and doesn’t just include titles developed for the 3DS but, through the virtual console, most major titles in Nintendo’s franchises like the Legend of Zelda, allowing gamers to experience classics on a modern handheld like the 3DS. Out of the bevvy of Zelda titles available on the 3DS however, one stands out from the rest and that’s Ocarina of Time. Now Nintendo are choosing to give you even more of a reason to pick up this classic by rereleasing it in the form of The Legend of…

Players often use arcade sticks for fighting games to gain more accuracy and people find, on a technical level, that they better to use than a regular controller. Sometimes people like it just because it reminds them of old-school gaming from their youths or just to try to mix it up. But mostly the choice of using an arcade stick or a pad comes down to preference. The arcade stick has been around forever in the gaming industry, so a lot of players find it a natural way to game, even if they also use regular pads. But if you’ve…

Forestry 2017 is a simulator game where the player acts as a stereotypical lumberjack who must build up a company through the cutting and selling of trees. The player goes out searching for trees, accompanied by a horse companion, with their trusted chainsaw and cuts the trees to haul them back to the mill. A simple concept with a realistic, natural setting. Living in flatlands, surrounded by nondescript mountainous ranges, the location resembles a small suburban American farming community, just without the community. You can run around and explore the area, looking for trees. Then bring the horse with you…

Set in a dark and ominous fantasy version of the Sengoku period in the 1600s, Nioh is a vibrant, gory and deeply intense action role-play game centered around the English samurai character, William Adams, who is hunting down his antagonist and fellow historical figure, occultist Edward Kelley. Williams Adams is based on a real-life samurai who was the first of his nation to land in Japan alongside his second mate Jan Joosten. Though William appears to lack developmental depth as a character, the supporting network of characters within Nioh’s dark fantasy world certainly make up for this lack. Throughout the…

Semispheres is one of those games that is part game part relaxation tool. That is in my book an alright type of game. What is it about this game that has addicted me as well as so many other people that love to play puzzle games? The answers are many and often will vary, but there are a few basic things that makes this game awesome as everything and it is also a very relaxing type of game, that is when the puzzles are not driving you bonkers. Duel puzzles makes this seem like a breeze at times, but that…