Gaming Reviews

I have to admit, I have a strange history with the Mario Party series. I’ve been playing since the very first game launched on the N64 back in 1998, and while I’ve always been entertained by them, there’s always been this voice at the back of my head saying “you know this probably isn’t very good, right?” Still, I would play them, and I never really listened to that voice until Mario Party 9 rolled around. In that game, Nintendo decided that having everyone move around the game board individually wasn’t a good idea and plopped them all in a car that meant they’d be stuck side-by-side for the entire match. Why? I don’t know. Reasons, I guess.

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After more than a year of waiting, Octopath Traveler has finally arrived on the Nintendo Switch, and boy are JRPG fans excited. One look at its aesthetic is all you need to begin drawing comparisons to the many excellent JRPGs from the 1990s, like Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy VI, and Chrono Trigger. It’s safe to say that hype among the folks who love this genre was incredibly high in the lead up to release, but now that it’s here, does Octopath Traveler live up to the hype? Is it the 16-bit throwback we’ve all been waiting for?

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It isn’t very often we see a game come around and define a new genre, but after building Battle Royale mods for a handful of other games, Brendan “PlayerUnknown” Greene is doing just that with PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. The game has taken the world by storm this year, which is saying a lot because PUBG had to share the limelight with huge titles like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey, and Horizon: Zero Dawn. Despite that, it’s managed to become a sensation and win over millions of players while still in beta. Now, 9 months after it first arrived, it has left early access and launched into version 1.0, a milestone that some early access games infamously never arrive at.

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The first Razer Phone clearly wasn't designed to take on the competition with bright, flashy colors. Razer didn't make their first phone with curved edges, and it didn't include a front-facing 3D face-sensor setup for animated emoji messages. Instead, Razer took the top-notch knowhow of the team at formerly-NextBit and combined it with their own understanding of their massive cult of modern gamers. With some top-level branding and a genuinely nice box to package it all up, the Razer Phone is like no other company's "first try" I've ever experienced.

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The HTC VIVE Tracker is a new tool for the VR universe - an extra bit of zazz that opens up new doors and dimensions. Over the past few days I've had the opportunity to test out the HTC VIVE Tracker with the relatively limited set of games it already works within. Included with this review package was a set of accessories with which the tracker works. The best of these is the Hyperkin Hyper Blaster - a VR-ready version of a pistol, extremely similar to that of the original NES Zapper from Nintendo.

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It's sort of hard to believe, but it's been a whole nine months since the Nintendo Switch launched. Part of what makes that feel unbelievable is just how big of a year the Switch has had. 2017 was indeed packed for the Switch, and as we close in on the end of the Switch's first full year of retail availability, it's clear that Nintendo is onto something special.

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A year ago, I reviewed Pokemon Sun and Moon and found that the changes they brought to the long-running (and in many ways stale) Pokemon series were great. After all, Pokemon is not usually a series that makes drastic changes from game to game. Though Pokemon Sun and Moon are completely different than Pokemon Red and Blue, that isn’t the result of some sweeping reinvention, but rather incremental changes that have been implemented over the course of the series. With Pokemon Sun and Moon, Game Freak rethought its approach and took more risks, and the results were very successful.

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Over the past few weeks we've been testing the Gigabyte Aero 15X gaming notebook. This is one of the newest in new gaming notebooks - as such, it is not part of the "massive performance means massive hardware" families of the past. This machine also boasts a few other features that make it unique - like long battery life, a highly decent display (with TINY bezels) and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Max-Q graphics inside.

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It isn’t often that a game like Super Mario Odyssey comes along. I mean this both literally and figuratively. Even since Nintendo started the 3D Mario series with 1996’s Super Mario 64, we’ve received precisely three other entries: Super Mario Sunshine and both Super Mario Galaxies. Beyond that, though, to see a game as expertly crafted as Super Mario Odyssey is a rare sight.

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Is there a science-fiction franchise more ripe for an augmented reality game than Star Wars? Disney and Lenovo don't think so, hence Star Wars: Jedi Challenges, a new gaming system that promises lightsaber battles, Holochess, and more in your own home, powered by your smartphone. Affordable VR has had its tipping point; now, it's time for AR to do the same.

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Microsoft is winning the media war with Sony here in late 2017. Just as the holiday season rolls up here in 2017, it almost feels as though Microsoft's Xbox is the only competitor in their class. The PlayStation 4 Pro is already on the market, but it's already old hat, having been released all the way back in November of 2016. As should be apparent, we're no longer dealing with the gaming market as it existed in 2001.

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Forza Motorsport has managed to captivate me for twelve years now. Starting with 233 cars and 31 tracks back in 2005, the game has evolved at a rapid pace year after year. Now, with over 700 cars and 32 race environments, Forza 7 is the biggest version ever.

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