It’s tempting to describe Absolver with an endless stream of references to other games—big ones, the type for which you see cardboard cutouts at GameStop. It’s an online multiplayer game riffing on the model of Destiny (2014) or Dark Souls (2011)—not, they clarify, an MMO—with players both friendly
We still live in a glorious time for mediocre fashion. Russell Westbrook notwithstanding, all it takes for a man to be deemed a good dresser is baseline competence: if your clothes vaguely fit, you’re stylish. This, incidentally, is the bigotry of low expectations or, to use a trendier term: male pr
The “dream” of scuba diving is separated by the actual, body-in-water act by one significant detail: there is no equipment. To scuba dive, you must submerge with a wetsuit, mask, flippers, then there’s the air cylinder, compass, line cutter, and dive light. There’s more too and it all bears down upo
The Drakengard action-RPG spin-off Nier (2010) wasn’t a critical or commercial smash when it was released six years ago. It was just kind of… there. Neither terrible, nor great, its wieldy story was praised, while its lackluster visuals and janky combat left a lot to be desired. Nonetheless, Nier be
It’d be foolhardy to make any big claims about The Last Guardian, Fumito Ueda’s massively long-in-development third game, after 45 minutes of playing it at E3. So I will start with what I know, which is that the big feathery chicken-cat, who is the ostensible star and raison d’etre of the videogame,
Aside from a fairly prominent pinball machine, a more or less unknown Amiga game, and some homages from 2010’s Alan Wake (which, to be fair, homaged everything), the sudden crash course between The Twilight Zone and videogames sure has been a curveball. First this year was Oxenfree’s haunted-prop ov
It was a welcome relief amid all the Just Dance-ing and Watch_Dog-ing at Ubisoft’s E3 2016 press conference to see the reveal trailer for Grow Up—a sequel to last year’s charming plant growing/climbing game, Grow Home. BUD, the red, stumbling robot from the first game reprises his starring role, and
While Polish studio Bloober Team doesn’t have the most intimidating name in the world, their horror game released earlier this year, Layers of Fear, showed that they had a particular appetite for dread. Loaded as it was with Edgar Allan Poe clichés, Layers of Fear still hinted a certain mastery of p
Other Ocean Interactive revealed their upcoming game, Giant Cop: Justice Above All, at the PC Gaming Press Conference at E3. It’s a virtual reality game about policing the town of Micro City as a Godzilla-sized officer of the law, and it looks just as silly as it sounds. All the characters (includin
E3 is always full of surprises. Sometimes they come in the form of a C-section-scarred Norman Reedus. Sometimes they appear as P.T.-esque, immediately downloadable demos. For Nintendo, surprises are ushered in a very different way: by straight up releasing a game, Beyoncé style. At the tail end of N
The fine folks behind Cuphead have their own E3 announcement and it’s a doozy—their 1930s-animation-inspired game will have platforming elements. That may not seem like a lot, but before now, Cuphead had been touted exclusively as a boss-rush game. One-on-one battles against large enemies that didn’
Every group has a clown. Here, at Kill Screen, we have two. Coincidentally, they are called Zach (Budgor) and Zack (Kotzer). We love them very much. Which is why we sit them down in front of a screen and force them to watch everything that happens at E3, trailer after trailer revealed before their t
Among the many titles shown off as part of Microsoft’s press conference on Monday was We Happy Few by Compulsion Games. The demo opens with the player character looking up from a candy apple red microfiche reader and straight into a giant clock that reads FRI 9 OCT 64. Meanwhile, he is muttering in
What happens to the world after war? Obsidian Entertainment’s upcoming role-playing game Tyranny is interested in exploring that dilemma. Taking place in a fantasy realm sat right in the middle of the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, the game begins after the evil dictator Kyros the Overlord has united
ABZÛ has pinks, it has blues, it has greens, it has oranges. It has whales, jellyfish, angler fish, and dolphins. And all of it is going to flourish on your PlayStation 4 or PC on August 2nd. I can’t frickin’ wait. This is a game especially for those who, like me, have a penchant for underwater lev
Alongside the newest edition of God of War and a horror VR title, Sony Santa Monica talked about a smaller, quieter game at their E3 Conference. Bound is a 3D narrative platformer set to release August 16th. Bound doesn’t look like any other game currently out, both in terms of its unique take on lo
Monday night’s PlayStation press conference at E3 brought a dizzying number of reveals, many of them catching people completely by surprise: Days Gone, Death Stranding, God of War, and… Spider-Man? Definitely didn’t see that one coming! Do I dare confess my excitement about yet another Spidey game a
Listen. Me and heights? We don’t have what I’d describe as an amiable relationship. If you try to shuffle your house party on to the roof, I’m going to be the square making a case for couches and kitchen access. And the surge of GoPro stunt videos? I think the only reason I can white knuckle through
Acclaimed animator Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) is a story of learning to live in harmony with nature—without destroying it. It’s whimsical and heartfelt, an unmatched adventure fantasy unlike any other animated film of its time. Nausicaä predated the continued magic th
It was there, in the very first shot of Dishonored 2’s gameplay debut. Shown off by director Harvey Smith at publisher Bethesda’s E3 press conference earlier this week, the game’s first true appearance opened with slatted light falling across an unfinished sculpture, the chisel marks visible in the
At the Sony E3 press conference last night, Kojima Productions unveiled its first game since breaking up with Konami—it’s a surreal action-adventure entitled (get this) Death Stranding. Death Stranding features Hideo Kojima and Norman Reedus working together again, as the two had previously partnere
Every group has a clown. Here, at Kill Screen, we have two. Coincidentally, they are called Zach (Budgor) and Zack (Kotzer). We love them very much. Which is why we sit them down in front of a screen and force them to watch everything that happens at E3, trailer after trailer revealed before their t
Horizon: Zero Dawn, which is probably better remembered as “that dino mech archer game,” was among the games displayed at yesterday’s Sony E3 2016 conference. It premiered a whole eight minutes of in-game footage, in fact—I know, very fancy. It follows the story of a hunter named Aloy as she seeks t
The vast majority of videogames harbor a raging, barely concealable boner for violence. But it takes a special kind of violent videogame to step over that fine line into the realm of fetish porn: where violence is used for neither shock nor gore nor anything remotely resembling reality. Rather, the
Upon seeing the new Norse mythology reboot of God of War at Sony’s E3 2016 press conference last night, I was ready to declare Kratos the new God of Phwoarr. I changed my mind pretty quick. Just because Kratos has a beard now doesn’t automatically put him up there with the lumbersexual appeal of Hot
