Tag: author_name|Jessica Conditt

Skate Story hands-on: Kick, push, shatter

Push. Push. Push, push, push, jump — All four wheels reconnect with the glowing pavement in a slap of crisp plastic and crunching wood. Push, push, push, push, jump kickflip — Another slam, a quick screech. Push, push, push, ju — A shattering crash. The world flips on its head…

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Astro Bot is a supremely silly and incredibly smooth platformer

Astro Bot is as precise as it is ridiculous, and this is exactly what makes it so damn delightful. During my 30-minute demo at Summer Game Fest, I crashed into spiky obstacles, flew off the side of sky-high platforms, bounced into deadly projectiles and popped my little robot protagonist like…

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Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess feels as luscious as it looks

Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess is lush. Set on the side of a mountain that’s been covered in a terrible black defilement, Kunitsu-Gami’s world is an ancient, psychedelic dreamscape packed with magic and otherworldly horrors. It’s also mechanically dense, with moments of slow strategizing and rapid-fire hack-and-slash combat. After playing…

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INDIKA weaves a mature tale of absurdity, hypocrisy and sexual violence

This story contains discussions of sexual violence. Multiple scenes from INDIKA are seared into my brain. A palm-sized person crawls out of a nun’s mouth and runs down her arm, frenzied, in the middle of a Catholic ritual. A man is suspended in the air, his torso impaled on a…

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Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II review: A series of unfortunate events

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II shoves hopeless brutality in your face and screams at you to recognize its beauty. Its landscapes are littered with disemboweled corpses and shrines of rotting flesh, and its shadows conceal monsters carrying blood-stained blades. Every chapter in Hellblade II is a parade of suffering and pain,…

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What the heck is going on with Helldivers 2?

In the last five days, Helldivers 2 was removed from the PC market in 177 countries and the game’s Steam reviews collapsed under the weight of more than 200,000 negative ratings, dropping from Positive to Mixed. It’s now Tuesday and the Helldivers 2 Steam page is overrun with people ranting…

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