VIRTUAL BASTION

Ori and the Will of the Wisps: A Worthy Sequel

I often approach sequels with a bit of trepidation. A fair number have either been a disappointment in their own right or fell short due to overly high expectations. Fortunately, Ori and the Will of the Wisps is one of those happy cases where the sequel is just as good as, if not better, than…

Spooptober: The Brain Tumbler Experiment

Despite being a generally light-hearted adventure, Psychonauts has some genuinely scary moments. For me some of the most memorable are the Nightmare creatures and the Nightmare Prison in Milla’s mind. From their loud whispers to their revolting appearance, everything to do with these things makes me shiver involuntarily. Other things though, things like The Brain…

YouTube Highlights, Weekly Edition #221

Up this week: Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye – we’ve been waiting for this new expansion to the Outer Wilds, so let’s see what it’s all about! Not Zangief – our occasional series that’s all about having fun with fighting games. Connect: Twitter ~ Facebook ~ wegameunited@gmail.comWatch: YouTube ~ Video BastionShop: Spreadshirt

Spooptober: Gregg the Grim Reaper

Food for thought: if one were the world’s best Conker’s Bad Fur Day player, it is possible that one might never, ever meet Gregg the Grim Reaper in his “home,” as it were. Given that I am not the best, let alone a sufficiently-okay player of Conker’s Bad Fur Day, Gregg’s is a face I…

Retro Games Are Getting More Expensive

It probably goes without saying that gaming is an expensive hobby. You gotta buy the systems, the games, the accessories…it adds up fast. This usually applies more to new games than to older ones, but that might not be completely true for much longer. See, it seems that retro games are getting more and more…

Spooptober: Smoky Progg and Waterwraith

For the Duck’s first foray into spoopiness, I shall be discussing some of the spookier aspects of a series near and dear to my heart, Pikmin. Frankly, Pikmin is a perfect example of spoopiness because it manages to exude a mixture of both cute and horrifying all at once! Sure, the Pikmin themselves are adorable,…

There’s More to Explore in Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye

When I played Outer Wilds earlier this year, it quickly became one of my favorite games of all time, where you must solve the mysteries of your solar system in a 22-minute time limit that always ends in a supernova. Progression was tied solely to knowledge gained throughout your adventure, so if you knew what…

Spooptober: Mad Monster Mansion

When I sat down to think about spoopy stuff in games, Banjo-Kazooie immediately jumped to mind. Rare games all have that curious quality of being 100% percent cartoony but still maintaining the potential for actual scares. Those scares are almost never intentional though; the only one I can think of is the Kong Temple in…

YouTube Highlights, Weekly Edition #220

Up this week: Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye – we’ve been waiting for this new expansion to the Outer Wilds, so let’s see what it’s all about! Eventide: Slavic Fable (demo) – we delve a little into Slavic mythology in this point-and-click adventure. When the Past was Around (demo) – things are silently emotional…

This October is #Spooptober!

If you’ve followed our site for a while, you’ve probably seen that we always enjoy celebrating October with a month of spooky posts that highlight creepy, eerie, and odd things in video games, including the games themselves. We’ve covered everything from classic horror games to weird moments in otherwise normal games. We’ve been poets and…

There’s a Big Sale Happening on the Switch Right Now!

If there’s anything to be learned with all the shenanigans surrounds new releases over the past few years, it’s that you’re almost always better-off waiting for the sale. Because, unless it’s a first-party Nintendo game, all games go on sale sooner or later, and they’ll almost certainly be in a much more playable state. One…

Nintendo 64 Games Are Coming to the Switch…At a Cost

By now, Nintendo Switch Online sports a hefty collection of old-school titles from the NES and SNES, leaving us to ask, “So where are our 3D titles, Nintendo?” Well, we have finally received the long-awaited announcement that Nintendo 64 games will be made available on the Nintendo Switch. At an additional cost. Okay, awesome…wait, what…?

Grim Legends 2: Demo Review

When perusing the demos available on the PS4, I came across a plethora of games by the developer Artifex Mundi, which all seemed to be point-and-click puzzle games with fantasy themes and colorful graphics. Intrigued to try something a bit different, but overwhelmed by my choices, I started with Grim Legends 2: Song of the…

Fixing Donkey Kong 64

Of all the games Rareware put out in the mid- to late 90’s, DK64 might just be the most polarizing. The Donkey Kong collect-a-thon has both staunch defenders and zealous detractors, with both refusing to acknowledge certain aspects of the game. As for me, my perspective on the game has shifted over the years. I…

YouTube Highlights, Weekly Edition #219

Up this week: Grim Legends 2: Song of the Dark Swan (demo) – in trying out this game, we find out just how good we are at finding hidden objects and solving puzzles. Embers of Mirrim (demo) – our platforming skills are put to the test in this very unique and wild game! Tearaway Unfolded…

Monsters and Mayhem in Dragon’s Dogma

As I suspect my time with Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen will slow down over the coming months, I spent a good chunk of the last month chipping away at my ranger Corinne’s adventures in the game. Upon reading a bit more about the game and learning that its “new game plus” feature is where this…

Dying Light Reanimates Once More for Nintendo Switch

Much like the shambling corpses it’s named for, the zombie survival genre is still shuffling around despite being considered “dead” since at least 2011. New games still get made, and older “classics” keep getting resurrected in the hopes of squeezing just a little bit more juice out of one of gaming’s oldest (and most overused)…

About that Knights of the Old Republic Remake…

While I do think that game makers have been overdrawing from the remake/remaster well over the last few years, I like to think that they’re mostly harmless. When done right, remasters and remakes provide new opportunities for both old and new fans to enjoy older games again. However, not every remake/remaster is done well, and…

YouTube Highlights, Weekly Edition #218

Up this week: Tearaway Unfolded (demo) – in this delightful demo of the remake of 2013’s Tearaway, we run and jump our way through a creative, paper-y world. Xeodrifter (demo) – here we give a go with a game that looks and feels like Metroid but is totally not Metroid. It’s Xeodrifter! Oninaki (demo) –…

God of War Ragnarok is Looking Good so Far

Last week, Sony put out this year’s PlayStation Showcase, giving fans a taste of what’s to come between now and the end of 2022. There were things for just about everyone to get psyched for, but the one and only thing that held any interest for me was the new teaser trailer for God of…

Metamorphosis: Demo Review

I remember taking a world literature class in high school many years ago, and one of the most intriguing stories was Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, where a young man named Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to find he has changed into a bug. There is no explanation for why this has happened, and the…

Indie Games are Still Very Underrated

Indie games have been a major part of the gaming industry for a very long time now, perhaps for more than 15 years. Yet, it’s still so easy to forget this part of the market thanks to the constant stream of AAA games and the endless trailers and ads that come with them. It’s really…

Shin Megami Tensei Re-Introduces Seth

Atlus has been pumping-out trailers at a furious rate for the upcoming Shin Megami Tensei V. The most recent one features a monster (persona?) that many Persona 5 fans will likely enjoy: the dark dragon Seth. See it for yourself in the trailer below!

Shady Part of Me: A Girl and Her Shadow Unite

Shady Part of Me is a unique puzzle-platformer where a girl and her shadow work together to solve puzzles and progress through a watercolor landscape. The two main characters are opposites. The girl is afraid of light and must hide in the shadows, while her shadow must remain in the light and uses shadows as…

Psychonauts 2 Was Worth the Wait!

There was a time when I was content with Psychonauts as a standalone game. I’d been a fan of it since it first released for PlayStation 2 in 2005 and had spent a few years hoping for some sort of follow-up, but nothing materialized for almost 10 years. By that point, I figured Psychonauts was…

The Latest Metroid Dread Teaser is…Wow!

Okay, so I don’t usually do this, but spoiler warning for those wanting to go into Metroid Dread completely blind. I, of course, don’t know anything more than what’s already been shown by Nintendo, but Nintendo just revealed a lot in the last trailer, so turn back now if you want the full impact of…

Subnautica: A “Broken” Masterpiece

Always on the lookout for good sales on digital games, easily the best deal I ever got was when I downloaded Subnautica for free, thanks to PlayStation’s whole “Play at Home” program. Having already seen Youtuber 8-BitRyan play the game online, I never really intended on playing Subnautica for myself, as awesome as it looked. …

There Should Be a Legal Path to ROMs

Nintendo been in the news again lately, this time for getting another ROM site to take down all their ROMs under threat of legal penalties. I’ve been kind of split on this issue for a long time. One one hand, all game companies are well within their rights to defend their IP, but I’m not…

Nintendo World is Incredible!

When I first heard the rumors about a brand new, Nintendo-themed area getting built in Universal Studios Japan, I took the news with a mix of excitement and pessimism. On the one hand, it was just plain cool that Nintendo was now mainstream enough to be featured in the most major theme park aside from…

Castlevania is Back…on Smartphones

Konami has decided to take a break from making pachinko and slot machines to bring Castlevania fans a new entry in the series: Castlevania -Grimoire of Souls-. It’ll only be available on iOS devices via Apple Arcade at first, though hopefully Android-based fans will have a chance to try it out eventually too. As for…