Dishonored came out last October and didn’t quite upturn the gaming universe despite getting good reviews and hitting several best-of-2012 lists. Sales have been okay, and publisher Bethesda has stated that it considers Dishonored to be a new franchise. Yet ...

It’s difficult to deny that the business of casual games with App Store distribution has a lot more momentum going for it than the old business model of selling consoles at a loss and then eventually recouping the investment with ...

Rather than transcending the original Borderlands with a new story, new challenges, and new gameplay—or at least some variations, which is pretty much the baseline requirement for sequel success—Borderlands 2 serves up nearly the exact same story, same challenges, and ...

This is going to be one of those first-person parental columns about children and video games. Only it’s not going to include the usual self-reassuring conclusion about my parenting skills—I have no idea if I’ve made the right choices, or ...

Think of Darksiders II as the Danzig to Darksiders’ Henry Rollins. Both can be very brooding, very angry experiences, but where Darksiders’ War seethed with rage to the point where his heart pumped equal parts lava and testosterone, Darksiders II’s ...

This isn’t one of those games where dragons are just another link in the fantasy food chain. Here, the dragon is the food chain, the ur-monster from which all corruption spreads. This is Saint George and the dragon, the hero ...

In an industry in which various forms of villainy are the norm, Valve is an anomaly: well-liked by consumers, developers, and publishers smart enough to avail themselves of Valve’s services instead of letting their jealousy drive them to compete (never ...

Indie darling Spelunky finally got its long-awaited HD makeover, and it’s the best thing in a long time that I completely forgot about.

Max Payne 3 feels pretty much the same way to me, and not just because it’s about a gritty, boozy lawman who’s over the hill and in over his head. Max Payne 3 is a game that shouldn’t have been, ...

We’re coming into an age of “finallys.” Finally, a decent Deus Ex sequel. Finally, Duke Nukem Forever. And finally, the king of loot-hoarding hack-and-slashers has awoken to take another shot at the crown it never lost. Twelve years after its ...

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings manages to clean up the few blemishes that The Witcher had, leading to an even better game.

I’ve played Xenoblade: Chronicles now, and let me tell you, as far as I’m concerned, Nintendo’s Japanese market can have it back.

I’m stuck in this weird conundrum. I can’t put Kid Icarus: Uprising down long enough to write something about it.

Syndicate is a game dreamed up by corporate edict, built under factory conditions, refined by focus groups, and ingested by a public too accustomed to soylent green to know cannibalism when it tastes it. It’s a single-player shooter in the ...

I just beat Mass Effect 3, and I’m a little pissed.