Bastion is an action RPG that was originally released in 2011 and, despite its age, still looks stunningly beautiful to this day due to its vibrant hand-painted art style. Players take on the role of "the Kid" as they travel through various fantastical environments and battle weird and wonderful creatu

The action from the first episode hasn't left at all and if anything, managed to speed itself enough where you practically have to do a second playthrough just to catch it again. There are plenty of moments that could have been explained more and it's upsetting that they weren't in the short time it took to finish the episode. Things like Olivia's disappointment in finally meeting her hero and Lukas' role in Jessie's group of friends could have been touched upon a little bit more but the fact that they weren't makes me fear for future episodes. It leaves you with a, "oh, that was it?" feeling that should never be felt while playing any game, especially right when you begin getting into the action and quickness of it all. Hopefully, the third episode will capitalize on a few more important moments within the main character’s development and slow down a little in order to give everyone the attention that they deserve.

There's a certain joy in the shared experience of gaming frustration. While there are specific parts or levels in our favorite games that make us want to tear our hair out in anger, we usually advert a meltdown when we discover that there are many, many others who are having the same difficulty. In these shared experiences, we feel a bond.

What? A game from the music genre is number one? Didn't everybody stop caring about those years ago and only think of them when they stumble upon a plastic instrument somewhere in the back of their closet? Yes, that's very true, but I find that as the years go on, I look at the music genre more and more fondly, and miss it's contributions and capabilities.

Now, Palworld is not especially similar to Minecraft . Pocket Pair's early access project takes inspiration from quite a few sources, and Mojang's masterpiece is not specifically among them; however, fans of the latter are likely to have a blast with the former as they are capable of scratching very similar itches. Both are sandbox survival games that grant players quite a bit of freedom, including the ability to craft buildings. While not quite as unrestricted as Minecraft beginner Guide , Palworld still provides an enjoyable base-building system that is elevated by the inclusion of Pals, monsters that players can catch and assign roles within their homest

Even people who passed on gaming in their youth are able to experience that same magic in their adulthood with more mainstream successes like Wii Sports . In fact, this demographic, a group who likely passed on the gaming world as kids, are now realizing a fresh new perspective. They get to see different elements of game design that they might have ignored back then, making the evolution of the medium and the broadening of the market a much more appealing prospect. Specifically, that big moment where a "virgin" gamer (regardless of age) is finally able to have fun when playing a game is a sense of purity and epiphany. It’s all about having fun. As we get more involved in the medium, we begin to take sides. We begin to favor consoles or developers. We begin to look at games with the minds of cynical and judgmental critics. Even as kids, we’d argue at the lunch table as to whether Sega or Nintendo is better, but if you rewind just a few years before that, you didn’t even care who made the console. Perhaps it was the catchy level themes that you remember the most or maybe it’s some iconic environmental hazard that sticks in your mind. Maybe it was similar to my case where it was just the character’s expressive personality that encouraged me to pick up a controller and actually control the character. The moments of realization and involvement vary for everyone, but as fresh faces in the gaming community, we’re never forced to pick a side. We are clean slates for series to enthrall and characters to enlist, and our focus was precisely on the game itself and those subtle moments of appeal.

It's easy sometimes to get caught up in popular opinion, even if it isn't necessarily true. For instance, there is the growing belief that the only multiplayer games anyone is interested in making anymore are shooters. While it's true that many of the most readily available and popular multiplayer games are shooters, developers of this generation, perhaps more than any other, have really gone out of its way to create multiplayer games that don't rely on shooting your friends in the face just to be entertaining. It's time that those games got their well deserved attention.

So what convinces us to play games in the first place? To answer that, you’d need to look at every game ever made, because that’s the solution. Because of everything games can, have, and will ever do.