Well, it’s that time of year again! It’s officially New Years Eve, with a brand new year approaching on the horizon. 2021 continued to be a…rather wild ride in many ways. But it’s the time to look back on the most important thing of this past year: what happened at Gamer Escape! The biggest change,
A few months ago, we had the opportunity to go hands-on with an early build of Chorus, a space combat game that was promising an engrossing story alongside its intergalactic dogfighting gameplay. This initial demo left a positive impression on me, despite me being…well, quite bad at the game itself. Now, with the full version
A little over four years ago, we took a look at Blue Reflection, a new IP from Gust (of Atelier fame) and Koei Tecmo. A JRPG set in the magical girl genre, it was something that seemed to have a lot of promise when I first booted it up. Unfortunately, I came away from it…less
Ever since finally getting my hands on a PC Engine Duo (or, as it was known in the US, the TurboDuo), I’ve been on a bit of a shmup kick. The system is known for its absolute glut of space shooters, after all, so why not dive in and see what it actually had to
I’ve never really been much into tabletop card games. If you don’t count the couple years in college I lost my life to Magic: The Gathering, that is (and I don’t remember much of that time, considering that was right around when I turned 21…). Setting that specific time aside, tabletop card games just never
It seems I’ve reached that age where my nostalgia is being pandered to. All the TV shows and movies I grew up with as a kid getting sudden reboots. Games I played in my formative years getting remasters dropped out of nowhere. And, what, can I say, I’m reveling in it. Shoot that ActRaiser remaster
The space combat genre: probably one of the most overlooked and forgotten gaming genres in the modern era. It seems most developers have forgotten about the pure fun of zipping around space in a fancy ship, shooting down ships or creatures or what-have-you, and upgrading that ship so you can zip around faster and shoot
2011 was a year of absolutely massive games that have gone on to be considered classics. Portal 2. Skyrim. Dark Souls. The Witcher 2. Hell, one of my favorite games of all time (Deus Ex: Human Revolution) dropped during this absolutely stacked period of gaming. With hit after hit dropping, though, a number of smaller
Good quality sound is very important to me in my media. I can’t enjoy movies or console gaming without my full surround sound speaker setup. I’m more than happy to shell out a couple hundred bucks for quality headphones for my PC. On the other hand, I wouldn’t really consider myself an “audiophile.” Sure, I’m
When it comes to the Fire Emblem franchise, there’s a hard cut-off point between the entries fans consider “classic and hardcore” and “modern and casual:” Fire Emblem Awakening. According to some of the fanbase, after Awakening, the franchise lost some of the elements that drew in its original base in exchange for bringing in a
Wonder Boy – a classic Sega franchise from the Master System/Genesis era that has been going through a sudden renaissance in the past few years. Having originally gone dormant in 1994, the series suddenly saw a return in 2016 with Wonder Boy Returns, a remake of the original game. However, it wasn’t until 2017 when
TimeSplitters has been a long-beloved franchise, with numerous fans clamoring for a new entry. One can’t blame them, considering the most recent entry, Future Perfect, was released in 2005. It seems though that the wait may be finally approaching its end for fans. Publisher Deep Silver has announced that they have formed a new studio
Of the “classics” one is expected to play in order to consider themselves a “real visual novel fan,” one that is often mentioned to this day is Ever17: Out of Infinity. It’s easy to see why; aside from the fact it was one of the first “real” visual novels to be released in English, it’s
Do you like your games with a healthy dose of stress? Want to relax by doing the same thing that you do every day of your life: survive? Well then, may I introduce you to the genre of survival games! I kid, of course. But survival games, or games with survival mechanics, have quickly become
During the great indoors-ening of the past year, my group of friends has had to find ways to hang out and do things together while staying in our own homes. Most of us being into gaming, this usually defaulted to playing some kind of multiplayer game while chatting on Discord. More often than not, that
The sheer amount of text in my favorite games was always the excuse that I gave to my parents that video games were actually good for me. “Look at all the reading I’m doing! It’s educational!” There really is a lot of text in games, when you think about it. Even in games with little-to-no
A horror game that doesn’t wrest control from the player. A title that can instill dread and fear without dictating it to the person in control. That’s the goal We Create Stuff’s CEO Ido Tal had for their upcoming game, In Sound Mind, of which he is also the co-producer. In a presentation for his
Controlling a game through body movements is nothing new. Hell, remember the Kinect? Using a camera to translate motions into gameplay is hardly novel…but what matters more is how these inputs are actually put to use. Enter GoodbyeWorld Games, a Los Angeles-based indie collective preparing to launch a title controlled by blinking your eyes. Before
If someone offered you the chance to change your memories, would you take it? Would you allow another person into your mind to clear up hazy memories, or perhaps bury ones you’d rather forget? What if it came with the risk of changing your personality or your sense of self completely? This seems to be
The idea of visual novels in virtual reality has always intrigued me. Taking a genre mostly made up of 2D sprites and massive amounts of text, and turning it into an immersive experience that actually allows one to interact with the characters and the story around them. I had my first taste of this a
