In the ashes of the Electronic Entertainment Expo, amid the bloat and pretense of the games industry, always must there be a presentation... always must there be game trailers... and always must there be those who commentate. So it is we find ourselves in the aftermath of this year's collected summer showcases, a cavalcade of announcements and information to parse in its wake. For my part, I set forth to once again note the games (and, occasionally, people or moments) that stood out - for good or ill. Today, we tackle that which was displayed at Sony's State of Play, the OTK Games Expo, and the Summer Game Fest... Sony State of Play The High Point: Astro Bot Is it nakedly playing off of lingering nostalgia for various Sony properties, current and forgotten? Yes. Is it unmistakably taking cues from other more successful platformer series? Absolutely. Nevertheless, the team at Sony seem to have nailed the charm when it comes to their robot mascot, which is half the battle for cr...
I’ve sat on some opinions about a handful of games, most of which released in the hell year that was 2020, for a while now. This is owed largely to having being previously occupied by other concerns – professional and personal – as well as not feeling inclined to dedicate whole articles to them (at the very least, not while the pay for such work is... limited, let’s say). However, that ends now. I’ve decided to compile these together as a kind of loose round-up of sorts, a highlight reel of the highs and lows of a year in gaming where so much went wrong... but sometimes a few things turned out alright. Before we go any further: if you enjoy this piece and want to support the creation of more work like it, please consider checking out (and potentially signal-boosting) the Kurt of Cambridge Ko-Fi and Paypal pages. With that out of the way, LET'S BEGIN. Carrion So this is easily the best thing Devolver Digital has published since Hotline Miami . The remarkable simplicity of the gam...