Brittany Vincent

From the cotton candy clouds of pink to the rainbow lens flares dotting every scenic vista and cerulean waters in which you cast your fishing line, Far Cry New Dawn is peaceful and beautiful. Disturbingly so. Unsettling minor-key background music underpins the notion that, while everything seems hunky dory in Hope County, there’s something still quite sinister afoot.

After you leave the tunnels and begin careening around Russia in the Aurora, you'll be faced with a wide world to explore. It's a joy, despite the run-down aspects of the once proud country, to finally come out from underground and see what's out there waiting in the world.

Of course, when speaking of Kingdom Hearts, you’ve always got to start with the confusing, terrifyingly convoluted story. The overarching Kingdom Hearts story is a daunting, often intimidating narrative that can be frustrating to parse. Square Enix is aware of this, and thus included a few prologue videos that can be viewed ahead of playing through the game, though to be frank they end up making things a bit more confusing for newcomers.

You’re hurtling through space as rainbow-tinged sparks fly through the air, coupled with twinkling stars and ancient artwork. You’re on the edge of infinity, caught somewhere between exuberance and thoughtful meditation as you immerse yourself in one of the most beautiful games of “Tetris” you’ve ever played.

Virtual reality titles often excel at offering immersive experiences, but too often the isometric, platformer games of the medium lack a crucial element: The feeling that one is truly inside the game. With few exceptions, most of these sorts of VR games that have you controlling a tiny figure inside a game are content with giving players a front row seat as sort of powerful, omniscient spectators, but rarely as a figure in the context of the actual game. That’s why “Astro Bot Rescue Mission” is

Your first brush with frustration in Shinji Mikami’s blood-drenched action horror saga The Evil Within comes only minutes after you’re first given control. Bound and hung from the ceiling via meat hook with only corpses surrounding you, you’re forced to swing from side to side until you can free yourself and run to safety. There's a hulking behemoth of what appears to be a deranged butcher in your way, however. He stands before a table, doing who-knows-what to the poor, unfortunate soul in fron

The Dragon Age series has always been a bit of a polarizing experience for fans. When Dragon Age: Origins hit stores in back in 2009, it received praise from players and critics alike. It was an example of what BioWare does best: Creating an expansive and interesting world filled with lore rivaling established fantasy franchises like George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire

Assassin’s Creed Unity was a game I really wanted to like. I’ve been a fan of the Assassin’s Creed series since its debut, and have always gotten a kick out of the games, despite some flaws. After last year’s Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag really raised the bar for the series in both scope and storytelling, I couldn't help but get excited at the prospect of another grand fight with the Templars. However, Unity has jaded me not only to the Assassin’s Creed brand, but to Ubisoft as a whole. I c

I’ve been in a torrid love affair with zombie games since I first played Resident Evil in 1996. Over the years there’s been a gradual build-up of fatigue as far as the subject matter goes, and I find myself sighing when yet another “innovative” zombie apocalypse-themed survival horror game comes down the pipe.

Have you ever wanted to be a wizard? It's certainly not a profession for the faint of heart. It's not all slingling powerful spells around all day, either. It takes talent and true courage to become a powerful wizard like those who came before you, with dozens of different spells at your disposal and difficult challenges laid out in front of you to test your abilities.

Most city-builders have you setting out to build a sprawling, shiny metropolises. In the leader of the genre, Cities: Skylines, you might have to contend with a natural disaster or two, but the most pressing threats most of the time are too much traffic and poor trash collection. Frostpunk turns the genre on its head to create what might be the first survival/city-builder where each move centers around the survival of your community.

Monster Prom is one of the most frustrating games I've ever reviewed, for several reasons. On one hand, it's a gorgeously illustrated and colorful adventure that's centered around an energetic group of monsters. It's like that part was created specifically to tailor to me. On the other, it's rife with the same awful, cringe-inducing humor present in games like Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator and it feels like a random number generator that takes zero skill to master.

The Alliance Alive appears to have a lot going for it at a glance. It combines tried-and-true JRPG mechanics with chibified characters to call forth the classics of yesteryear. It's got a catchy name. It seems to have all its ducks in a row. Unfortunately, developer Cattle Call simply doesn't seem to have tweaked the formula it tested out with previous release The Legend of Legacy enough just yet. The resulting The Alliance Alive is a serviceable adventure that ends up just a bit lacking, in bot

Read Only Memories is a unique twist on the point-and-click adventure game, taking cues from the cyberpunk aesthetic and style of the classic Hideo Kojima-helmed Snatcher. Since its initial release on PC, it's been ported to most systems, including the PlayStation Vita, but until now it hadn't been given a mobile port. Now, mobile players have a chance to strike out on their own to explore Neo San Francisco while on the go. Read Only Memories: Type-M is an excellent, downsized version of the gam

I've been following the Hakuoki otome visual novel series since it first made its western debut on the PlayStation Portable. It's been six years since Hakuoki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom debuted in English by way of Aksys Games, and since then there have been several iterations of the game available for newly-minted Hakuoki fans. The games are typical, but well-written fare for the genre, but they're still part of a fairly niche series, so it's quite surprising that Hakuoki: Edo Blossoms ende

Every time I pop into The Sims Mobile to see what the Sim I've haphazardly modeled after myself is doing, some new random person is walking into my house and making themselves at home. My Sim is standing idly by with her striking teal hair. Most of the time, I'd want to have her chat with a friend, or go do a quick shift at the coffee shop, but I can't — not without paying some in-game currency to buy more energy, that is. No matter what I wanted to do, if I played the game for a decent period o

Razer has become a name ubiquitous with PC gaming hardware. Some players swear by the name and buy nothing but their products. But not everyone is in love with the snake-inspired product line, offput by Razer's often garish, neon-green designs.

Whenever the Vita's library expands, I always get unreasonably excited. Double excited if there's a new IP to add to the fold, because I'm seeing a lot of sequels these days. That's why I was ecstatic to hear that Toybox Games' Tokyo Twilight Ghost Hunters was making its way to the West via Aksys Games. While Toybox's previous effort Hometown Story failed to engage me, Tokyo Twilight seemed as though it'd be a much more robust offering. As an intriguing amalgam of visual novel pageantry and stra

For every sim, there is a season As a fan of both casual and intermediate simulation and farming games, the Harvest Moon series has always been a mainstay for me. I grew up on several different iterations of the Natsume-published entries beginning with Harvest Moon GB, dabbled with PlayStation 2 releases, and graduated to portable DS titles that found me clearing derelict farms of trees and debris and dating the farmer of my dreams. Story of Seasons, the latest “proper” entry in the Harvest Mo

What they need is a good defense We all know the PlayStation Vita is now the de facto home for all things Japanese. Ports, remakes, re-releases, and original content all trickle down similarly to the little handheld that could, and the Vita port of 2010's PSP adventure Criminal Girls is one of the latest to join the fold. The original release picked up a subtitle on its way westward and found place in retail sales as Criminal Girls: Invite Only. The Vita release is a strange amalgam of role-pl