Epilogue Gaming: Video Games as Art, Literature and a Storytelling Medium
Written by Ben Vollmer When we’re first introduced to Paper Mario, the most notable difference is the shift from platforming to turn-based combat. Mario has never moved at Sonic speeds, but he’s always been...
Written by Ben Vollmer When Nintendo announced that Pokemon would eventually be making its way over to the Nintendo Switch, the mind’s of many went wild. Why wouldn’t they? After the recent successes of The Legend...
Written by Ben Vollmer This is a review of the first game in the “N. Sane Trilogy” and is not indicative of the package as a whole. On a mechanical level, Crash Bandicoot is broken. This...
Written by Ben Vollmer Super Meat Boy is hard. The kind of difficult that will shake your faith, more than once, in what kind of gamer you really are. Difficulty is Super Meat Boy’s most...
Written by Ben Vollmer Yooka-Laylee is a return to form for the “3D Collectathon” genre. The tight movement, compelling worlds and off-kilter writing all serve an homage to a genre that has long lost...
Written by Ben Vollmer Atmospheric horror has an obligation to walk a thin line. Simultaneously, a game must ensnare a player’s interest enough for them to enjoy their stay, but frighten them enough...
Written by Ben Vollmer About halfway through my play through of Outlast 2, I realized that a video game had never terrified me so much. Not because Outlast 2 is in the master class of the genre,...
Written by Ben Vollmer The Legend of Zelda is largely a tale of time and space. The most recent entry, Breath of the Wild, in large part, is a commentary on this. Zelda disappears and Link...
Written by Ben Vollmer Ori and the Blind Forest is beautiful. It’s pretty rare that a game is so jaw-droppingly gorgeous that it’s the appearance, rather than the mechanics that lay beneath, that takes...
Written by Ben Vollmer Kingdom Hearts is a lot like picking through a bowl of fruit. For every bit that you enjoy, there’s something else that leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Only, in...
Written by Ben Vollmer There will come a moment in Breath of the Wild where you will figure out that you can’t do everything that comes to mind. For me, that moment game about...
Written by Ben Vollmer It takes about ten minutes. That’s how long you have in Resident Evil 7 until it flips humanity on its back and shows off its grotesque underside. Perhaps that’s what makes the...
Warning: This review contains spoilers of the entire game. Due to the episodic nature of the title, it would be impossible to review the game without speaking to its content. Written by Ben Vollmer...
Written by Ben Vollmer There’s something about the incredibly rampant pace of the Doom reboot that lights your hair on fire. It’s hard to say whether it’s the music, the brutal melee system that has...
Written by Ben Vollmer Where did the term “open world” come from? I recently played through Super Mario World and The Legend of Zelda and thought I knew. Being able to move backward and forward felt...
Written by Ben Vollmer Everything about The Last Guardian feels memorable. From our seemingly normal protagonist to our majestic sidekick, everything about the game is just different. It isn’t always good, and it defies a lot...
Written by Ben Vollmer By almost every measure, Super Mario Sunshine is the single biggest step outside the box for Nintendo’s lucrative plumber franchise. For the first time in the series, there’s voice acting (and...
Warning, the following review contains story spoilers. Written by Ben Vollmer When Hidetaka Miyazaki first designed the world of Dark Souls, there was no intent on developing a sequel, or even two. That...
Welcome to the Retro Review section, where Ben reviews older games and looks at how they’ve held up. As Mario races from the beginning of a level to the end, the player is met...
Welcome to the Retro Review section, where Ben reviews older games and looks at how they’ve held up. The first thing you’ll notice about Luigi’s Mansion is that it’s missing Mario. That seems obvious when you...
Written by Ben Vollmer Released for the NES in 1987, Mega Man is infamous for its long run of success in the late 20th century. Most importantly, the franchise has titles that hold up...
