Playstation 4

Unleashing The Wonderful 101’s Box of Action Figures

Action games are complex ways of playing with action figures, equipping the one connected to your controller with more than just karate-chop action to live out heroic battles against evil. These figures have always been a great way to let a show or comic’s fans act out their favorite character’s stories, but videogames directly provide the means to embark on adventure. Unfortunately, both games and figures have a problem with how many characters a player can hold at once, but Hideki Kamiya’s The Wonderful 101 lets you simultaneously control an army through a season long television show that proves that even the smallest heroes can defeat galactic threats if they unite.

Integrating With Zone of the Enders’ Man-Machine Interface

The five destroyers in BAHRAM’s air armada equipped with particle cannons and support turrets are perfect for wiping out any who oppose the political faction, and only a high-performance super machine that combines an artificial intelligence with human ingenuity can overcome it. In Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner, you systematically breach this fleet by unleashing locked-on lasers and homing missiles, and melt the ships’ cores with point blank fire from your high-output Vulcan Cannon. The battle above Vascillia is an epic mission that requires man and machine to harmonize into one being, and represents the important relationship that has built between the two.

Surviving Deadline: An Exposé on Dead Rising’s Absurd Zombie Apocalypse

Survival depends on your ability to properly manage your supplies in a complex world where dangers lurk around every corner. With Dead Rising, Capcom reworked the survival horror concepts of its more famous zombie-fighting series to challenge players to survive three days against an endless mob of monsters and their own hunger. By fighting his way through the Rogue-like structured brawler, photojournalist Frank West will document an absurd horror-comedy about dying and coming back again.

The Soul in Nier: Automata’s Machine

Human consciousness required tools that let it produce abundant resources so people could transition from simple survival to prosperity, which allowed humanity to further discover the world and find a place in it. Tools advanced into machines given more sophisticated logic, motor, and communication systems through developments in electronics, networking, and artificial intelligence. But a world is like a person- the more it becomes one thing, the less it’s like something else. Nier: Automata examines how machines are becoming the new owners of our world but will continue a tragic human legacy, by using videogames to give us a glimpse at how machine logic is coding its own soul.

Humanity On The Rim: How 13 Sentinels Combined Genres Into A Narrative Juggernaut

Vanillaware’s 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim starts with massive machines destroying Japan while the young Iori Fuyusaka emerges from the fleeing mob and climbs aboard a giant robotic Sentinel to fight back as her classmate Juro Kurabe watches on. It’s a classic scene for the big robot and kaiju genres, until it loads a top down view of the city and gives you control of Iori’s mech until Juro arrives in his own. What follows is a mind-blowing game fusing multiple genres across hundreds of years, starting in the middle of its narrative and telling thirteen different mysteries that reveal how each character was led to this life-defining moment. 13 Sentinels blends two completely unrelated game styles to create an experience impossible for either by itself, ultimately showing how experiences shape myths that prepare people to keep society from repeating mistakes and lead it in new directions.

Scoring Devil May Cry 4’s Smokin’ Sick Style

Devil May Cry may be revered for merging fighting game’s pugilist science with brawler’s crowd management, but it was driven by its arcade-inspired scoring system. Dedicated fans can easily spend dozens of hours honing their skills against the game’s difficult enemies and massive bosses, all to improve their final scores. With DMC3, Hideaki Itsuno expanded the single player fighting game’s combat and worked in replayable missions. When that amazing foundation jumped to the PS3 and Xbox360 for the fourth release, Itsuno could further distill the series down into an arcade experience and offer new characters for those chasing that high score high. Let’s look at how it succeeds.

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Resurrecting A Demon on the Altar of Doom

The first portal back to Mars is guarded by an army of hellspawn trying to rip you limb from limb. Agile fireball throwing imps and dual wielding Mancubus, burly Hell Knights and rocket-launching Revenants all converge on your location, employing a wide assortment of tactics while you unleash the concussive blast of your shotgun and unload mag after mag from the assault rifle and unleash its micro missile alternate fire. You weave between shots and sidestep claws barely missing your face, jump to the stunned body of a Cacodemon and tear out its eye only to be knocked down and witness the centaur-like Baron of Hell’s fatal finishing blow. The fight is an exhilarating and tense struggle for your survival.

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The Disembodied Soul of Ground Zeroes

On my third infiltration into Ground Zeroes’ Camp Omega, I found an electrical panel that allowed me to cut the power to the surrounding facility, disabling all the lights and the several security cameras so I could quietly rescue the prisoner at its belly. It was the latest in dozens of exploitable gameplay options built into Omega that proved it was a dynamic, multi-faceted place that enabled and rewarded a variety of playstyles. The first game powered by the Fox Engine, GZ introduces players to the new levels of agency offered in the second part of the Metal Gear Solid V saga, The Phantom Pain; ideas that evolve the classic Metal Gear design. Continue reading “The Disembodied Soul of Ground Zeroes”