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...
As of February the twentieth, it will have been thirty-five years since the release of Konami’s popular run-and-gun title Contra to arcades. The action genre in gaming did not emerge with Contra , but it was helped along by that property as the medium inched ever closer to the new millennium. Though games about muscle-bound soldiers and plentiful gunfire had existed before, the Contra series leaned into the absurdity of the setup while refining and building upon the basics of the side-scrolling action template. So, in honor of this anniversary and the property's significance to gaming, let’s take a look back and see how that beloved title fares now… The Experience One’s experience of the original game’s aesthetic leanings absolutely depends on the version chosen. There’s the initial arcade release from 1987, which sports the more detailed backgrounds and character sprites, and the later edition for the Nintendo Entertainment System (or Famicom, for Japanese players) that simpli...