The convenience of a portable device turns what I meant to be a 15-minute grind session into a two-hour journey through a labyrinthine dungeon. I promise myself that I’ll stop once I see what’s at the end of a moss-lined cave or over a burning horizon, but then I see some new curiosity, and suddenly, I’m pummeling my way through another dungeon. This is the game that has kept me awake past midnight. It’s not perfect - I play on low settings and occasionally experience frame rate dips - but Elden Ring works, and that’s all I need to farm souls (er, “runes”) in FromSoftware’s open-world expansion of its Dark Souls formula. I mean, I could write more reasons you should play this game, but let’s be real - either you have played a version of Final Fantasy 7 already or you’ve been told countless times to bump this one up your queue. One of the best games of all time received one of the best remakes of all time, and now you can play its most complete version whenever and wherever you want. But I can say, with confidence, it’s been a blast on Steam Deck, a delicious digestif after hours in a modern open-world game, and an unusually accommodating entry point for a notoriously impenetrable genre. Is it the best? I said I’m not an expert.
When he proclaimed Drainus is “ the most spectacular side-scrolling shooter since Gradius 5,” I had to give it a try. That honor goes to our pals at Eurogamer, specifically Martin Robinson, who I trust more with this genre than I do any pundit with American politics.
I’ve accepted that we’re not the go-to experts for old-school side-scrolling shooters and shmups. I am proud of the work we do at Polygon, but every publication has its weaknesses. Image: Team Ladybug/WSS playground, PLAYISM via Polygon Is the cat the savior of a dying planet? Or is the cat just a cat who happens to be the incidental shepherd of historic change? Like I said, typical cat stuff. The game’s creators keep your cat’s direct involvement ambiguous. But most engagement happens on your behalf through an adorable, English-speaking, artificially intelligent drone named B-12. Your cat participates in a harrowing adventure set in a dystopian, cyberpunk underworld in which robots echo the lives of their long-dead human counterparts. You stretch, scratch, and occasionally leap between ledges at perilous heights. You don’t talk like Garfield or wink at the camera like Bubsy. (Hey, video games have come a long way since the SNES!) Developer MNKY also created bonus levels inspired by other retro classics, like Space Harrier, emphasizing its knack for refueling once exciting genres that have spent way too long collecting dust in the garage. Ex-Zodiac’s creators have done what Nintendo couldn’t for the past couple of decades: bottle the original magic of the space flight franchise and add just enough tweaks to make the adventure palatable for our collective evolved tastes.
#Gradius 2 online series#
My love for the Star Fox series has evaporated with each new entry, to the point that I began to wonder if I ever really enjoyed those games or if I just liked chunky ’90s 3D graphics. Cult of the Lambĭeep breath: Cult of the Lamb is Animal Crossing meets Hades meets the dark side of Catholic history meets Happy Tree Friends meets American cultism meets European occultism meets Dark Souls meets 1980s Satanic Panic meets Fractured Fairy Tales meets the waking dreams of Peter Molyneux. Hero Kazuma Kiryu wants to make the world a better place, one city block at a time. Don’t be fooled by all of the violent combat and seedy locales this series (and especially this entry) has more heart and joy than 99% of games from big-budget publishers. A sort of prequel to the series, the adventure takes place in 1980s Japan and provides lots of colorful backstories. If you don’t have time for every game, or just need a place to start, we recommend Yakuza 0. Which is to say, the portable Steam Deck provides the best chance at seeing the entirety of this Japanese gangster epic, especially in the form of short missions on lunch breaks. The Yakuza series spans hundreds of hours across seven mainline entries, along with a handful of spinoffs.
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