Author: Westen
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My 15 Biggest Winners from Summer Game Fest Week
In a lot of the reaction pieces that I see from things like Summer Game Fest, the winners are usually the surprises and big showings. And those are awesome and all, but these often miss the mark, in my opinion. Summer Game Fest, Xbox Showcases, State of Plays, etc, are built for the purpose of…
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Unicorn Overlord Review: The King of Modern SRPGs
One of the hardest parts about playing Unicorn Overlord is its name. Whenever I’m playing it on the go with my Switch, I inevitably will get asked by someone “Hey, what game is that?” And early on, I felt uncomfortable with that question and found ways to duck it or be vague. I’m a pretty…
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Video Games Couldn’t Save Me From Depression, But a Dog Did
When I was 20 years old, I was not doing well. Seemingly nothing in my life was going my way. I had dreamed of being a journalist my whole life, and I had come to the sudden realization that the plans I had made since I was 6 years old were not going to work.…
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My Top 10 “Video Games as Art”
Editor’s Note: This post was updated on May 16th, 2025, with some new games. Harold Halibut and Valiant Hearts: The Great War were taken off the list, but they are still tremendous games that you should check out! Also, I unfortunately still haven’t played Shadow of the Colossus. Maybe next year. It wasn’t that long…
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Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II Review: We’re Going To The Movies
One of the most amazing things about being in my mid-30s is that I have been able to watch almost every step in how video games have evolved over the years. There was a time when I’d watch cutscenes from a game in the PS/N64 era and wonder what it might be like when actual…
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Gaming Round up: Stellar Blade, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and Unicorn Overlord
It has been about a month since my last gaming round up. I continue to game hop maybe a bit too much, but there are just so many cool games to enjoy right now that it’s hard not to. Outside of shorter indie games and the upcoming Hellblade 2, there aren’t many big releases that…
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Animal Well Review: A Hipster Metroidvania Paradise
Hipsters get a lot of flak. They want to be different, cool, and edgy. Sometimes, they want to be different so badly that they come across as desperate and, even worse, cringe. But sometimes, hipsters have a point. Sometimes, the uniformity in popular media can get a bit annoying. Sometimes it’s nice to consume media…
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Death Stranding Review: The Art of Subtlety
If you watch some footage of Death Stranding’s core gameplay, it can be easy to assume that it is not a particularly engaging video game. You are essentially a delivery man in a post-apocalyptic world. Your mission is to deliver packages from one location to another. The main thing you will be doing in the…
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Microsoft Didn’t Just Shut Down Tango Gameworks. It May Have Ended AAA Risk Taking.
I wrote last week about how shocked I am that Death Stranding was ever made. In an era where development times and costs have ballooned, publishers seem more risk averse than ever when it comes to their biggest budget titles. While we have been lucky to have a lot of fantastic games in the last…
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Tales of Kenzera Review: Heart is Not Enough
One of my favorite parts of last year’s Game Awards was the speech that Abubaker Salim gave to introduce Tales of Kenzera: Zau. In a ceremony filled with random celebrities and dumb bits, this was a moment where a game developer poured his heart out and made me care about his game purely through his…
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