I have enjoyed the Suikoden franchise for a good chunk of my life now, and have come to appreciate the series standards: 108 varied and colorful (if often throwaway) characters, no small amount of intrigue and diplomacy, a focus on large-scale battles and political or ideological change, and so on. Although the series has …
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Review – Suikoden Tierkreis
Thursday, April 16th, 2009 by chrisReview – Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria
Monday, April 6th, 2009 by chrisThe original Valkyrie Profile was, for a time, the poster child for good, rare, and probably overpriced PSX RPGs. In a surprising move a few years ago, Square Enix announced (to the joy of JRPG fans) not only a sequel, but a remake of the original. At the time I was interested, but …
Playing catch up – Phantasy Star IV
Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 by chrisI was a Nintendo kid growing up (until that stopped being cool, when I defected to Sony). I got a Genesis very late in the game, so I’m still playing catch-up on the Phantasy Star games. A couple months ago, the final game worth mentioning in the series was released on Virtual Console. …
Review – Persona 4
Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 by chrisAfter blue comes yellow. So it would seem with the release of Persona 4, which has the same engine and battle system as its predecessor. Despite all this, it comes off as a much better game – Atlus clearly took the time to figure out what went wrong in Persona 3 and fix …
2008 in Review Part 1
Thursday, January 15th, 2009 by chrisI like to pretend that my favorite games will always be the classics, but this year has been quite a trial for that facade. Every year more and more games come out, and I have no chance to play just the ones that people recommend to me, much less all of them. The …
Review – Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
Monday, December 22nd, 2008 by chrisTales of Symphonia is one of the Gamecube’s greatest RPGs. I only got around to finishing it a couple of months ago at the urging of several friends. I was further encouraged to play through it by the impending release of its sequel, Dawn of the New World. Unfortunately, DotNW does not …
Review – Left 4 Dead
Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 by chrisIn an industry where cooperative gameplay is tacked onto nearly every game just for the hell of it, it’s refreshing to see a game where it is the primary focus. All too often, coop is given the short end of the stick – added merely to grab a few more sales from suckers like …
Final Review – Mount&Blade
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008 by chrisIt’s been a long time since I first looked at Mount&Blade. This game was my first review subject here at videolamer over two years ago, and it has held my attention for hundreds of hours. It’s progressed a great deal since its original release and my “review update” for .903, and …
Review – World of Goo
Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 by chrisDo you like puzzle games? Do you enjoy gooey things? If so, you should try World of Goo. This blob-based puzzler is one of the latest indie games to be released via Steam (or Wiiware, for the console-inclined). It’s filled with brain-twisting, goo-placing goodness.
Puzzles in World …
Review – The Spirit Engine 2
Thursday, October 9th, 2008 by chrisFive years ago, as a younger lad with a small budget and an unending hankering for good games, I would scour the internet searching for quality freeware. Generally my searches ended in failure; though such games existed, they often had no story and little depth. One of the few games that caught my …
