VIRTUAL BASTION

Octopath Traveler Details New Characters and ‘Path Actions’

Octopath Traveler is a new JRPG from Square-Enix set to release later this year. The game follows eight travelers, each on their own journeys in pursuit of their own goals. Square-Enix has been drip-feeding info to potential fans for a little while now, and today they introduced two new characters and explained how “path actions”…

Fool Me Once, Twice…: Clown from Metal Gear Acid

It’s April Fool’s Month on Virtual Bastion! Join us as we celebrate all the silly and kooky things we love about games and gaming. My second post for the month features a character in a game who truly had me (and everyone else in it) fooled. It’s only fitting, I suppose, that her name would…

‘Radical Heights’ Enters the Battle Royale Fray

From the team that brought you LawBreakers come “Radical Heights,” a very 80’s take on the battle royale shooter-style game that’s been growing ever-more popular as of late. Boss Key’s multiplayer shooter takes place in the not-so-distant future of 2023. In the game’s version of events, America went through some sort of “dissolution” conflict and…

Fools of Gaming: Susano from Okami

What comes to mind when you think of April (besides April showers)? Why, April Fool’s, of course! And what better way to celebrate the month (because not everyone likes pranks) than to discuss the fools of gaming? I’ve already talked about one particularly big fool (both in size and in general foolishness), Captain Qwark from…

Every Day is April Fool’s Day in Fable II

Fable II is, in many ways, a great and satisfying game to play. For those unspoiled by the likes of Zelda or Skyrim, and perhaps even for those who are, Fable II is a perfectly adequate adventure game. It’s not that it does anything particularly well, but neither does it do anything particularly poorly. Its…

YouTube Highlights, Weekly Edition #53

Is it Friday already?! Not that we’re complaining, but where the heck did the week go?? No matter, that, because it’s time for our YouTube Highlights! And what goodies we have to share this week! From more 3D platforming antics involving everyone’s favorite bandicoot, to the semi-return of our fantastically fun fighting game series. As…

Favorite Running Gags in Games

It’s April Fool’s Month on Virtual Bastion! Join us as we celebrate all the silly and kooky things we love about games and gaming. My first theme for the month is running gags. There’s so much ridiculousness here, I can hardly contain myself! When it comes to comedy, sometimes a good running gag really hits…

God of War is Looking Both Good and Different

The newest entry in the God of War franchise is almost here, and I have to say that it’s got me feeling somewhat surprised. This continuation of Kratos’ story has him taking on a different pantheon, sure, but Kratos definitely doesn’t appear to be the same man who once destroyed Greek world in his quest…

Crash’s Ugly Twin: Trash Bandicoot

For the month of April, we thought it would be fitting to cover all the silliness gaming has to offer. For the Duck’s first post of the month, I thought I’d talk a little bit about a rather wacky series I recently had the pleasure of playing, Crash Bandicoot.

YouTube Highlights, Weekly Edition #52

As we head into what we hope is a nice Easter/Passover/etc. weekend, we bid you all happy Friday! Yes, with the rising tides and setting sun, we’ve reach the end of yet another week, and that means it’s time to peek back into our week of gaming videos and share a few of our favorite…

My Take on the New Atari VCS

Last week, Atari announced its latest gaming offering: the all-new Atari VCS. Formerly called the “Ataribox,” (from a defunct Kickstarter campaign from last year), the new VCS is a Linux-based machine with an AMD processor that promises to run games old and new. But even with the reveal, there still remained questions about the Atari…

Hopefully Conquering Final Fantasy 8: Part 2

I’ve been slowly and steadily making progress in Final Fantasy 8, and I must say, I feel like I’m finally starting to get the hang of things. As of writing this, I have just reached disc 2, and I have grown far fonder of the game and its characters than I did on my first…

Virtual Bastion Presents: April Fool’s Month!

Hey all, April is right around the corner! In fact, April Fool’s Day is exactly one week away! Commemorating the arrival of spring has become something of a tradition around here, but we haven’t really done all that much with this trickiest of holidays (if you can call it that). This April happens to mark…

YouTube Highlights, Weekly Edition, #51

THANK GOODNESS IT’S FRIDAY!!! Whew. Sorry for being so loud about it, but sometimes you just have to emphatically sing the praises of Friday! And as it is another glorious Friday, it is time for us to share some of our YouTube Highlights. This is our weekly round-up of what went down (or up?) recently…

On Being a “Good” Player of Video Games

When I sat down to write this post, I initially had in mind to cover some of the recent news concerning Far Cry 5, due out March 27th, concerning it’s length. The crux of the article was going to be something along the lines of “does game’s length matter anymore?” But then, as I was…

Epic Releases $12 Million Worth of Paragon Assets

Earlier today, Epic Games announced that about $12 million worth of assets from it’s defunct MOBA game, Paragon, are now available on the Unreal Marketplace for all Unreal Engine 4 developers to use. This by itself is pretty amazing, but here comes the real kicker: it’s all free! (video from YouTube user: Unreal Engine) That’s…

Virtual Bastion T-Shirts are Here!

We’ve got a very special announcement today, folks! Virtual Bastion has recently opened a t-shirt shop on SpreadShirt! Right now, we’ve got several variations on the classic Virtual Bastion logo, and we’ll be sure to add more snazzy new designs in the future. Show off your love of gaming from retro to modern with some…

One Year Later and the Switch is Still Going Strong…How is this Happening?

Well, here we are. It’s been a full year since the Switch’s initial release, and Nintendo’s mini-tablet-sized hybrid console is doing just as well now as it was then. One could even argue that it’s doing even better. Aside from the Wii, it’s been a very long time since one of Nintendo’s home consoles has…

Fortnite is Going Mobile

If there’s one game that’s blown up massively, it’s Epic Games’ take on the 100-player free-for-all multiplayer game type: Fortnite Battle Royale. The game is everywhere. It’s all over consoles, it’s massive on PC, and it’s recently become the king of Twitch. And soon, it’ll be available on your smart phone too.

Turning Over Mario Party 2’s Bank

No matter how you look at it, Mario Party 2 is an old game. It’s been 18 years since the game saw release on the N64, and it has seen eight direct sequels in that time. By all rights, Mario Party 2 and its N64 brethren should have been left behind by gamers a long…

The First ‘Inside Xbox’ Premiers Saturday

Earlier this week, the Microsoft announced “Inside Xbox,” a first look at all everything that’s going to be happening on Xbox in the coming months. The first of these will drop this coming Saturday at 2PM CST and will focus on Sea of Thieves, PUBG, Far Cry 5, and the return of the original Xbox’s…

Games Aren’t Just Great or Terrible

How gamers perceive games has changed greatly over the years. Right now, games are seen as either altogether great or altogether terrible; the overwhelming number of games getting released on a monthly basis and the growing need to justify the games one selects from the deluge kind of ensures that kind of reception. Back when…

ESRB To Add ‘In-Game’ Purchases Labels to Games with Loot Boxes and Microtransactions

The ESRB announced yesterday that they are going to begin requiring an extra label placed on game boxes that feature any sort of in-game purchase system. Here’s the full statement:

It May Be a Great Game, But That Doesn’t Mean I’m Gonna Play It

Well, Monster Hunter World has been out for a couple of weeks now, and in that span of time I ‘m pretty sure every one of my gaming friends has asked me multiple times why I haven’t jumped on board yet. I get it. Really, I do. Monster Hunter World is an excellent game, and…

Rumor: Gen 8 Starter Pokemon Leaked

It would be an understatement to say that anticipation for Nintendo’s Switch version of Pokemon is running high. Gamers haven’t gotten a home console-based Pokemon game since Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness released on the Gamecube almost 13 years ago! Even then, it wasn’t the mainline series entry fans had been hoping for. Nintendo has…

Day 17: Favorite Antagonist

As you can see, I’m still working my way through the 30 days’ worth of video game topics, and I’ve just managed to get a couple days past the halfway point. Yay for me! Day 17’s topic is my favorite antagonist. For me, talking about my favorite of anything can be difficult because my favorites…

Classic Spyro Is Coming Back!

After the massive success that was last year’s Crash Bandicoot N’ Sane Trilogy, it was likely only a matter of time before the jeans-wearing marsupial’s main rival got the remaster treatment. As reported by Kotaku, Activision has a remake collection in the works for the original trilogy of Spyro games. Developed by Vicarious Visions, the…

Whatever Happened to Doing Things for Ourselves?

It feels as though games are playing themselves more and more these days. It’s not that they’re literally taking control away from the player or anything. No, it’s more that it feels like modern games, at least those in the AAA space, have been trusting players with less and less as the industry has advanced….

Victory Isn’t Guaranteed in Ash of Gods

Many games have come and gone that have made the “your choices matter” promise. Some outright fail to deliver, like Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Some only result in binary endings, like BioShock or DisHonored. Still others deliver differing end states with only 1 or 2 major differences between them, like Mass Effect. A new RPG…

Getting It Right The First Time

How does one improve on a near-perfect game? Is it really possible, or is another game that’s equally as good the best that any developer or fan could hope for? While there is no such thing as the perfect game, there are many games out there that would be quite difficult to meaningfully improve upon….

Four New Characters Announced for Soul Calibur VI

More and more details are trickling out about the newest entry in the Soul Calibur series now that the official announcement has been made. In the most recent announcement for the game, Bandai Namco revealed four more characters on the game’s initial roster and even introduced a series newcomer by the name of Grøh. He appears…

Resonance: Everything Will Be Okay

Prey (2017) is, in my opinion, one of the most underrated games to release last year. There are several factors that likely contributed to that. It didn’t see that much in the way of marketing. Its beta, while quite enticing, may have revealed too much and unintentionally encouraged unreasonable expectations. The fact that this was…

Arriving in Morrowind By Way of Skyrim

While it would be a bit of an overstatement if I said that The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was one of my favorite games, it would be completely fair to say that I caught the Skyrim bug along with everyone else in the months preceding and succeeding 11-11-2011. Like most of those players, Skyrim served…

Overwatch Adding New “Hero 27” Soon

It seems things are progressing quite smoothly in the development of Overwatch’s soon-to-be newest additions: the currently unnamed “Hero 27.” In an interview released last Friday, Jeff Kaplan talked at length about the Overwatch team’s hero development process. He took time to discuss how internal testing worked, how they decide when a hero is ready…

de Blob 2 is Getting Re-released for PS4 and Xbox One!

It was only a matter of time. Once a game gets the remaster treatment and releases for current consoles, the release of the sequel(s) and/or a bundle becomes an inevitability in this era of constant remasters and remakes. Ahem at any rate, like its predecessor, de Blob, de Blob 2 has been remastered and will…

Saturday Video Round Up: April 15 – 21

Another week is in the books (or just beginning for some) and that means it’s time to catch up on all the latest trailers and gameplay you missed from the past week. So let’s get to it, shall we? Here are a few of the videos waiting for you below the jump. Nintendo Labo is the…

Sunday Video Round Up: April 8 – 14

I hope the weekend finds you well. Hopefully, I can provide a bit of enjoyment by offering up the latest incarnation of the Video Round Up. As always, I’m bringing you all the best gameplay and trailers from the previous week. So turn up that volume and press play. Here’s a sneak peak at the…

Sunday Video Round Up: April 1 – 7

Even though I’m in Boston this weekend for PAX East 2018, that doesn’t mean I’m leaving you all hanging for content. The Round Up is back in action, providing a handy location to view all the latest trailers and video content from the past week. So turn up that volume and press play! Though it’s…