What Gives a Game ‘Heart’?

For a long time, I thought that good games, games with “heart” or “soul” were those that were made painstakingly from the ground up. They needed original gameplay, original music, original characters and artwork custom made to fit the developer’s vision. Whether it was an indie project or AAA giant didn’t matter, only that it…

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Top 10 Levels from Donkey Kong Country 3

I’ll be honest, the third Donkey Kong Country isn’t exactly my favorite.  It’s a bit too cutesy, a bit too gimmicky, and…Kiddy exists.  With that said, this is still a pretty fun game if you don’t compare it to its predecessors.  As I recently replayed it for the purposes of research, I accumulated a nice,…

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The Outer Worlds 2: Rifts, Whiffs, and Friendships

In my first impressions post for The Outer Worlds 2, I asked the all-important question: is the game more than just a pretty face? Now that I’ve completed the game after some 50(ish) hours of traipsing about its Arcadia system, I can safely say that it is. The end. Alright, maybe not. But here’s the…

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Croc’s World 1, 2, & Run: Demo Reviews

Not to be confused with the equally obscure Croc series by Argonaut Software, I’ll be reviewing all three Croc’s World demos that I could find because they’re all pretty much the same and very, very short.  Croc’s World 1, 2, and Run are very colorful platformers starring a crocodile.  Powerups include a helmet for breaking…

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Cary’s Most Anticipated Games of 2026

Much like last year, here at the start of another new year, my gaming plate is rather full. Most notably, I recently started up Elden Ring for the first time, and with it, I still have a very long way to go. Elden Ring was a holiday gift, as were copies of Super Mario Odyssey…

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The Duck’s 2026 Gaming To-Do List

Last week, I wrote about how and why I didn’t play any games released in 2025.  And yet, as we begin 2026, it appears the trend will likely stay the same.  But I’ve still got plenty of games, or at the very least, general categories of games that I’d like to play during the upcoming…

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Cary’s 2025 Game of the Year – Herdling

I played a handful of solid new games this year, from romping through the afflicted Living Lands in Avowed, to exploring myths and legends of the American South in South of Midnight, to traveling the stars and then some in The Outer Worlds 2. Before my personal Game of the Year pick came along, any…

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Reminiscing Over the Duck’s 2025 Year in Gaming

Every January, we each pick our choice for Game of the Year and discuss what exactly made it stand out above the rest.  But this is the very first year since the tradition began that I, well…I didn’t play any new games.  Sure, I did play a lot of games.  Just none that were released…

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Listmas 2025: Five False Starts Worth Revisiting

Like most folks who play video games, I maintain a perennial backlog of games that I want to play…someday. In recent years, a growing portion of my backlog is becoming populated with games that I started but never finished. Sometime me and the game at hand didn’t click; other times, I dropped these titles in…

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Listmas 2025: Ranking the Bosses of Kingdom Hearts

As you can no doubt tell, I’m in a big Kingdom Hearts mood, which means I’m ending my Listmas posts with yet another KH list!  Today, I’ll be ranking the boss battles from the first game, ranging from the absolute worst to the most fun.  Pretty simple, right?  Except, since there are so many bosses,…

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Listmas 2025: Top Songs from Games Played This Year

One of the newest additions to my music roster is a playlist of favorite songs from games. It’s something that was a long time coming, too! I listen to gaming soundtracks regularly, but until recently, I had never put together a playlist of individual songs from them that stood out from the rest. It contains…

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Listmas 2025: Ranking KH2.5’s Data Battles

Keeping with the Kingdom Hearts theme, I have been playing the Final Mix versions of the first two numbered games in the series, which features new boss fights, including battles against the members of Organization XIII who had originally appeared (and perished) in Chain of Memories.  This is great because I never enjoyed CoM’s card-based…

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Listmas 2025: Kingdom Hearts 2 World Ranking

Last week, I wrote a world ranking about the very first Kingdom Hearts game, and now it’s time to cover its even more impressive sequel, the aptly named Kingdom Hearts 2.  This game has some really good worlds…and some really dull ones.  I’ll be ranking these based off of everything, the general theming, the story,…

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Listmas 2025: Kingdom Hearts World Ranking

One of my favorite game series of all time is Kingdom Hearts, a mashup of Disney and Final Fantasy that is surprisingly deep and works far better than you’d expect.  With memorable characters and lore that rivals that of Five Nights at Freddy’s, the first two numbered games of the series in particular will always…

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The Jumping Donut: Demo Review

I don’t usually do much research when I download demos.  They’re free, so there’s really nothing to lose but a little bit of time.  With that said, I didn’t expect much from The Jumping Donut, and I didn’t get much, either.  I guess I’d kind of describe this game as a puzzle-platformer.  As the name…

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Happy Home Paradise is any Budding Interior Decorator’s Dream

Animal Crossing: Happy Home Paradise is the DLC for New Horizons for the Switch.  The premise is simple.  You get a job on a tropical island separate from your own, where you design vacation homes for various animal clients you meet on the island.  After picking a location amongst various settings, including mountains, sandy beaches,…

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Cozy Grove is Like Animal Crossing with a Plot

Cozy Grove is, to put it simply, kind of like Animal Crossing, but with a greater emphasis on story.  You play as a Spirit Scout and must help out the ghostly bears that inhabit the island by completing various fetch quests for them.  Along the way, you’ll feed your sentient campfire Flamey with logs to…

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Unravel 2’s Smooth Gameplay is Unravelled by a Weak Story

The original Unravel was a sweet and unique platformer where you play as a little creature named Yarny (made from yarn, as the name suggests) who can solve puzzles and traverse photo-realistic environments (spanning natural Swedish landscapes to industrial locations) using yarn.  You can swing from yarn, make bridges with yarn, and even make trampolines…

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Spooktober: Animal Crossing’s Tarantula and Scorpion Islands

The last game you’d expect to be discussed during Spooktober is most assuredly the cute and relaxing life sim, Animal Crossing.  After all, what could possibly be scary about decorating your house or meeting new animal friends?  Well, ever since the franchise’s debut on the Nintendo GameCube, there has been one, no, make that two…

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Spooktober: The Many Traumas of Outer Wilds

Outer Wilds is a fantastic game where you discover the mysteries of your galaxy, while a supernova occurs every 22 minutes.  (And time travel is involved or else it would be a very short game indeed).  Nothing else can truly compare, making this one of my favorite games of all time.  There’s just one teensy,…

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Spooktober: Just How Far Will the Aberrations in Dredge Spread?

Whereas some horror games have you getting chased by terrifying monstrosities that scream and moan as they shuffle or outright bolt after you, the horror of Dredge is far more understated.  In fact, the game could almost appear relaxing on the surface.  You play as a new fisherman who just moved to the island of…

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Spooktober: The Time Hogwarts Legacy Turned Into a Horror Movie

Hogwarts Legacy is a massive Harry Potter RPG that I played off and on for roughly a year, spanning 80+ hours.  The world of Harry Potter is, undoubtedly, a spooky one indeed, with giant spiders (the acromantula is just the worst!), undead inferi, super sus dark magic, and lots of ghosts and poltergeists.  To my…

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Barely Scratching the Surface of Undertale Easter Eggs

Undertale was groundbreaking in its time.  A game that broke the mold, where you had the potential to spare every enemy instead of fighting them.  Filled with lovable characters that you may or may not have chosen to massacre depending on the route you were taking, this game also boasted a jarring mix of quirky…

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Silent Hill f Wasn’t Quite What I Expected

One of the games I was really looking forward to last year was Silent Hill f, the long-awaited continuation of Konami’s landmark horror series. True, we’d gotten the Silent Hill 2 remake just a year earlier, but Silent Hill f is the first new full installment in the series since Silent Hill: Downpour in 2012….

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PlayStation Store Has a Slop Problem

It seems gamers have found the first big stinker of the year in Teamkill Media’s Code Violet, with discourse around it focused almost entirely on just how bad it is. By all accounts, it’s a short, shallow, thrown-together buggy mess of a game that doesn’t even come close to the same galaxy as the game…

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Triple A Gaming is Heading for a Crash

I’ve already touched on this topic several times over the past year or so, but my mind just keeps coming back to it. The ballooning prices, the insane budgets, the ever-more predatory monetization schemes, lazy design, bad writing and altogether way too lengthy development cycles…it all just has me thinking that there’s no way that…

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