Genres

Five years ago, the virtual basketball landscape was a completely different place. EA and 2K were locked in a heated competition on both the pro and college levels, both studios known to pump out two quality basketball titles a year. Today, the only yearly basketball offering remaining is the NBA 2K series, the Live series failing for a third straight season to finish a retail product. Although this appears to be the trend in sports: exclusive licenses and lack of competition dominate virtual sports these days. However, unlike EA's many landmark sport ...

Despite a generally luke-warm reception from critics, 2010’s Medal of Honor reboot from developer Danger Close was not all bad. The title focused on the elite branch of the military known as Tier 1, of which there are a mere handful of operatives currently deployed. Granted, the missions were a little sloppy and the characters not very interesting, but at its core was a mostly decent modern warfare sim with some interesting ideas that just didn’t quite come to fruition.

Over the years the Playstation Network has given us some amazing and interesting titles. Such games like Flower and Journey have given us different , simpler ways to play games and The Unfinished Swan follows that simplistic formula. Just like thatgamecompany, Giant Sparrow has signed a 3 game deal with Sony and they have kicked that deal off in unbelievable fashion. The first thing that came to mind whilst playing The Unfinished Swan was simplicity. Unlike playing games that play out like a triple A Hollywood blockbuster The Unfinished Swan plays out more ...

Battlefield is a franchise known for its more serious take on war and for its emphasis on teamwork and strategy. It got a following – and rightly so – for its large maps, it’s vehicles and its excellent community. Battlefield 3 is the first main entry in the series since Battlefield 2 was released in 2005 and is the first specifically for HD consoles. With top notch graphics and impressive animation, have DICE squeezed as much as they’re going to get out of the PlayStation 3?

The space shooter genre is relatively uncommon these days. In the 90s and early 2000s, though, they were a dime a dozen. These games were a staple in any PC gamers collection and recently there has been some minor interest in revitalizing the genre. Born Ready Games is composed of developers that obviously have an intrinsic love for arcade-style space shooters, and their Kickstarter-funded game Strike Suit Zero sets out to accomplish this daunting task. Story

Every year there is a deluge of First Person Shooter games, each one with their own level of hype around them and expectations from the developers and publishers as to how they’ll perform. The market has erred on the side of more arcade, fast-paced action of late much in the vein of the uber-popular Call of Duty series. For years now, the yin to the yang of Call of Duty has been the Battlefield games and for good reason -- the Battlefield games show that games within the same genre can be very, very different. Battlefield games tend to emphasize bigger maps, ...

Telltale Games have truly outdone themselves this time, providing such a phenomenal, interactive experience which would make any Walking Dead fan proud. The Walking Dead: The Game features five 2-3 hour long episodes that will keep you intensely hooked from start to finish. All the episodes combined share a common theme of survival, but taken individually, each episode places the player in unusual situations that are hard to come by else wise. Standing out in its genre, the game is incomparable to any other adventure experience, and I can assure players and ...

Capcom has several successful series that it tends to stick to the majority of the time; Resident Evil, Street Fighter, Devil May Cry, just to name a few. So when the publisher/developer released their brand new IP Dragon’s Dogma, they were definitely stepping way outside of the box. Combine that with what they claimed would be a unique and complex combat system, and different way to adventure with friends, and a large open world to explore and Capcom had the makings for quite a gaming experience. Doubts ran rampant about whether Dragon’s Dogma could live up ...

The first Borderlands was one of the breakout successes of 2009. With its incredibly unique blend of first person shooter action with role-playing game character customization, Borderlands was an instant phenomenon. Gamers logged thousands of hours shooting bad guys, picking up loot, and repeating. Three years and lot of DLC later, Gearbox has finally released a proper sequel, complete with new characters, new gameplay features, and of course, about a billion new guns.

It took an awful long time and a lot of legal wrangling with Blizzard for Valve to be able to call their new game DotA 2, but that’s what it is. In terms of spirit and content, this is the follow-up to the top Warcraft 3 mod that started a genre and remains popular to this day. Although the characters and maps aren’t a million miles away from those available in, for instance, League of Legends, it’s the unique polish and the effort placed into graphics and gameplay that really make DotA 2 a game worth checking out.