VIRTUAL BASTION

Super Mario Maker 2: Making is Even More Fun than Playing

When the original Super Mario Maker released for the Wii U back in 201X, I remember feeling rather dubious about it. Sure it sounded interesting, but would it really be able to match a proper Mario game? It turns out that the answer was a resounding “YES!” Mario fans took to the game almost instantly,…

Google Stadia Worries Me

As we near the end of this eighth generation of consoles draws to a close, more and more information about what the so-called future of gaming is becoming available. Some of it, like Nintendo’s and Sony’s plans, is encouraging. The rest, not so much. It seems every major publisher wants to launch their own game…

Thirty Hours and Counting in Fallout 76

A couple factors played into my decision to continue riding the Fallout wave with Fallout 76. Among the biggest was words from regular gaming bloggers. While most big gaming sites had seemed to give up on the game, many fellow game-players who had invested in the title seemed to really enjoy it, at least as…

Remedy Finally Recovers Full Rights to ‘Alan Wake’

At long last, there’s some light at the end of the tunnel for fans of horror series Alan Wake. The first game release to both critical and commercial acclaim in 2010, and it was almost immediately followed up by pseudo-sequel Alan Wake’s American Nightmare in 2011. After that though, absolutely nothing. One would think that…

YouTube Highlights, Weekly Edition #112

Up this week: Sonic Adventure 2 (GameCube, 2002) – 3D platforming with everyone’s favorite speedy hedgehog Star Fox Adventures (GameCube, 2002) – blast off with Fox, Falco, and the rest of the Star Fox crew in this launch title for the GameCube Neverwinter (PS4, 2016) – an action combat MMORPG set in the Dungeons &…

These Days, What Makes a Game Worth Pre-Ordering?

In case you’ve not been on the Internet for a minute, news of a nominal discount on Cyberpunk 2077 pre-orders (for the standard edition on the PS4 and Xbox One) has been popping up all over the place. No one knows how long the “sale” will last, but if you pop over to Amazon or…

Close to the Sun Looks a Lot Like BioShock, and I’m Psyched

It’s been a while since we’ve seen anything even remotely close to a new BioShock. It’s not too surprising of course; Kevin Levine did close his studio (Irrational Games) after completing work on BioShock Infinite, but it’s still kind of odd since 2K still owns the rights to the series. Whatever the case, we’re in…

I Almost Got a VR Headset

Despite finding the idea of virtual reality fascinating, the thought of actually buying a VR headset, of taking the next step into immersive gaming, has always…kind of scared me. Those bulky headsets are just a bit intimidating, to be honest.

Pushing All The Wrong Buttons

I’m usually not the sort to buy a game and leave it unfinished. Games are expensive things afters all, so spending all that money only to not wind up getting your money’s worth doesn’t really make sense to me. There are times though where a game just doesn’t jive with me. I’ll do my best…

YouTube Highlights, Weekly Edition #111

The Call of the Lore

Despite some of the personal positives that came out of E3 this year, I am still left wanting with two games that were absent from the proceeding: Fable 4 and Dragon Age 4. The original Fable was there for me when things went south with me and Nintendo via Super Mario Galaxy. Dragon Age introduced…

Cities: Skylines Industries Comes to Consoles

Most PC gamers likely know about Cities: Skylines by now. The popular city building and management game has been available on PC for four years now, and it has even gotten a full expansion by now. Meanwhile, console gamers have had to content themselves with simply looking at the incredible creations of their PC peers….

Banjo and Kazooie Are Coming to Smash!

It’s happening, folks. Once again, a recent trailer has blown my mind…and the minds of pretty much every other gamer in existence. Banjo and Kazooie are coming to Super Smash Bros Ultimate as DLC fighters!

E3 2019 Had Some Great-Looking Games

Many seem to be rather disappointed by E3 2019 for some reason. Sure, we didn’t get any earth-shattering reveals or peeks at the new console generation, but there was still plenty there to get excited about. I watched everything live this week, and I saw quite a few games that had me raising an interested…

YouTube Highlights, Weekly Edition #110

These are a Few of My Favorite Things…from E3 2019

Even though the grand ol’ Electronic Entertainment Expo may have lost a bit of its luster over the years, I can’t deny that I still look forward to watching its developer conferences and panels while maintaining a shred of ambition for a really good surprise or two. Granted, my hopes are usually dashed, but each…

Animal Crossing: New Horizons Finally Has a Release Date!

One of the games I absolutely was dying to see at this year’s E3 was the new Animal Crossing game for Nintendo Switch. Nintendo has been teasing it for at least two years now, and I was going to be incredibly bummed if I didn’t get either gameplay or a release date this time around….

A Few Times When Wii Motion Controls Were Actually Good

Like many of us, the Wii motion controls were something special when I first purchased the Wii and got to witness the Wiimote and nunchuck in action. But, as my gaming library grew, I quickly began to realize that…motion controls, more often than not, meant little more than having to shake the controller in order…

What I Want To See at E3 2019

E3 2019 is finally upon us! The announcements will have already started rolling in once this post goes up, but I still wanted the chance to talk about the things I hope to see at the show this year. I’m not everything on the list will get attention, but you never know. E3 may be…

YouTube Highlights, Weekly Edition #109

Finally Finished: Fallout 4

Last Listmas, I made a few gaming promises to myself, one of which I actually just made happen. I finally finished Fallout 4! And it only took four years! In thinking about how to sum up my Fallout 4 experience, fragmented as it was over many months, I can’t help but briefly compare it to…

YouTube Highlights, Weekly Edition #108

Day 21: Game with the Best Story

Once again, I am slowly working my way through 30 days’ worth of video game topics. And once again, I am taking the task far too seriously. The next topic on the list is the game with the best story, which is an exceedingly difficult question, if you ask me. I mean, there are so…

For Some Reason, Super Mario Maker 2 is Really Exciting

Despite having been a gamer for about 24 years now (holy cow!), I still can’t say for certain which games will pique my interest and which won’t. I know what genres gravitate towards, features I tend to value, roles I like to play and content I like to avoid. That should be enough to know…

Outer Wilds is Coming May 30, Looks Awesome!

Anna Purna Interactive and Mobuis have finally announced a release date for their space exploration game titled Outer Wilds. I haven’t been following it all that closely, but it looks quite impressive based on what I’ve seen so far. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say it looks fantastic. Just take a…

Playing Animal Crossing: New Leaf with Mother Duck

Ever since its origin on the GameCube, Animal Crossing has always been one of those few games that both Mother Duck and I enjoy playing. While she prefers more peaceful games like Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon, it is rare for me to play a game that doesn’t involve some grand adventure, platforming, RPG, or…

Rage 2 Isn’t Everything I Hoped It Would Be, And That’s Okay

Earlier this week, I wasted no time in picking up a game I’d been waiting for since I heard about it during E3 last year. All the pre-release media looked good and all the preview coverage I’d read sounded very promising. I was certain that Rage 2 was going to be an excellent game, and…

OddWorld: Soulstorm is Still on the Horizon

There was a time when it looked like the Oddworld series was going to be left behind by gaming. It was never a blockbuster series, and its last entry was an original Xbox exclusive. Series that are dormant for an entire console generation rarely make a comeback, yet this one did. A remake of Abe’s…

Mysterious Squirrels in Sly Cooper 4

Yesterday, I was working on my second playthrough of Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time when something bizarre happened. I was in the third location, the Ice Age, just running around, looking for the final clue bottle. And then it happened…

The Liar Princess and the Blind Prince is a Pleasant Surprise

With all the noise, fanfare and controversy surrounding triple-A games these days, it’s very easy to forget that there’s a whole world of independent games out there just waiting to be discovered and enjoyed. I’ve been diving into this world more and more over the past year or so, and the amount of quality titles…

BloodStained: Ritual of the Night Gets a Release Date!

It’s been four years now since Koji Igarashi and his team introduced the world to their vision for a proper spiritual successor to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. That’s four long years of work for the developers and of patience for eager fans. The team never went radio silent, and they were extraordinarily willing to…

Live Action Sonic is Scary, But That Could Be Fixed

Well, everyone, if you’ve been following news on the live action Sonic the Hedgehog movie, then you’ll know that the trailer has been released on Youtube, and it’s…um… It’s…interesting?…

Jurassic Park: Warpath – A Fighting Game That Actually Exists!

The older I get, the more convinced I become that the 90’s really were a special time in gaming. Games were simpler, they had all the draw that modern games do, and (perhaps most importantly) they were just different. We got games in the 90’s that would never get made today, and that’s a fact….

Borderlands 3 Gets Cool ‘ECHOcast’ Twitch Extension

Not content to just release a new Borderlands game later this year and let the money roll in, Gearbox has announced a brand-new feature that’s certain to get streaming fans pumped for the chance to watch it on Twitch as well as play it.

A Ni no Kuni Movie?

It seems like a lot of video games have been adapted into movies lately, and fortunately, this one is not live action. That’s right, folks, they’re apparently making a Ni no Kuni movie, which is, thankfully, keeping the animated look of the games. The only unfortunate thing…right now, there’s no word of it being released…

There’s Something About Star Fox 64

The Nintendo 64 is a system of classics, there’s no really no debating that. It had fewer games than it’s biggest competitor, was less technically sophisticated and had a controller most gamers seem to hate (for some reason beyond my understanding), yet even some of its most minor games are celebrated as classics even today….

Just Cause 4 Leans into it’s Inherent Silliness With Destruction DLC

Ever since Just Cause 2, the series has been more about seeing how many ridiculous things one can pull off with Rico Rodriguez’s insane arsenal than anything else. There’s always a story involving liberating this state or that country from a cartoonish dicator, but they always take a backseat to goofy grapple tricks and chain…

Unforgettable: 8-Bit Grannies World Tour

In the not too distant past, I decided to replay Rayman Legends. Like its predecessor, Rayman Origins, this game is the perfect combination of beautiful, challenging, and sometimes, downright weird. Out of a plethora of strange moments, none are so memorable for me as the music levels, even more so when you consider their 8-bit…