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The 6 Best Poker Video Games to Go All-In With
This week is the start of the 50h annual World Series of Poker, where players of all kinds will descend upon the mecca of the poker world, the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas. As a poker player myself, I can’t help but be swept up in the fervor of the season either. With the WSOP officially underway in Nevada, professionals and amateurs will begin rubbing elbows to cash in on six figure scores and a prestigious golden bracelet.
A World Of Demons
It’s been ten years since the release of Demon’s Souls, the underrated first installment in the long-running Souls series by FromSoftware. Hidetaka Miyazaki’s unsung masterpiece contains many fascinating design decisions, including its emphasis on environmental storytelling, its deliberately slow and methodical combat, and its shortcut-laden level design. Perhaps one of its most influential aspects, though, is its approach to online multiplayer.
Ten Years Of Souls
For many gamers, the Souls series needs no introduction. Since the release of Dark Souls for Xbox 360 and PS3 in 2011 (a PC release would follow in 2012), the series has garnered an intense cult following largely centered around its punishing difficulty and careful, deliberate design. Communities exist which diligently mine the games for scraps of their obtusely communicated lore.
The 3rd Annual Bit Awards Recap - Indies & Industry Legends
Once again, I had the pleasure and good fortune to attend The 3rd Annual Bit Awards. While the first year and second year shows were a solo act on my part, I was joined this year by my colleagues Robert Grosso and Courtney Ehrenhofler. The Bit Awards makes for a generally much more relaxing event and it was nice to be able to spend time just talking to developers instead of furiously running around and taking notes.
How Chucklefish Designed Wargroove's Factions
In Wargroove, four different factions become embroiled in a conflict that could threaten their world as they know it. These factions are at the heart of Wargroove. While most of their differences are purely cosmetic, what sets them apart are their unique Commanders and their “Groove” abilities. We interviewed Finn “Tiy” Brice, founder of Chucklefish and Game Designer for Wargroove, and discussed the factions of Wargroove.
How Chucklefish Designed Wargroove
It’s been over a decade since the release of the last Advance Wars. With developer Intelligent Systems focusing more on its fantasy turn-based tactics series Fire Emblem, many fans had given up on seeing a Wars game any time soon. But some semblance of hope returned in 2017 when Chucklefish unveiled its latest title: Wargroove. Wargroove takes inspiration from the gameplay and aesthetic of legendary strategy games like Advance Wars.
Forza Horizon 4's Seasons
There’s a lot of things that make Playground Games’ most recent entry into the Forza Horizon series stand out as the strongest. The beautiful and huge rendition of the UK countryside is one of the most well-executed locations we’ve seen in a driving game. It’s endlessly fun to plow through the picturesque hills of England and Scotland, it looks incredible, and there’s a staggering amount of content. Simply put: Forza Horizon 4 is one of the finest open world racing games ever made.
The Most Read TechRaptor Articles of 2018
TechRaptor had a fantastic year of writing, with a number of great original content pieces, investigative journalism articles, and a consistent stream of news. With an average of 12+ articles a day, before the holiday season, our readers are able to look forward to a number of articles to find on the site each day! We figured it would be neat to look back at our most-read articles of 2018, excluding reviews and (most) guides, to see what our readers consumed the most on TechRaptor.
Soulmates - How The Souls-Like Genre Has Changed Combat In Gaming
When a game becomes successful, pretenders inevitably follow. Such was the case for 2011’s Dark Souls, which was received rapturously by critics and audiences alike and instantly became a celebrated cult classic. The difficulty peaks and troughs of Dark Souls are simultaneously loved and loathed by gamers everywhere. Although there are many that love Dark Souls enough to write entire think pieces about its bosses, there are still some that aren’t too keen.
Artifact Monetization Report
Artifact is the collectible-card game (CCG) from Richard Garfield and Valve, bringing the world and characters of Dota 2 to life in a complex and challenging card game. It’s a quality CCG with a neat layer of Dota 2 art and concepts. Stay tuned for our review. We had the opportunity to speak with Richard Garfield about Artifact at PAX West this year. Check it out here. This is Monetization Report, where we look at the microtransactions, purchase options, and additional paid content for a game.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Monetization Report
Call of Duty changes things up more than any game in the series has for a while. Black Ops 4 will be the first game in the popular shooter series to not include a traditional single-player campaign. It features a battle royale mode, Blackout, instead. We’re not here to look at the quality of this new mode, however. We aren’t here to look at the quality of the game at all, in fact. That’s what our review is for.
10 Years of Left 4 Dead: Hunters and Boomers and Smokers, Oh My!
The mid 2000s had a lot of great zombie games, but none pushed the envelope like Left 4 Dead. Not only did it influence the future of asymmetrical multiplayer, but it simultaneously innovated in the realms of AI and cooperative game design. It’s hard to believe 10 years have passed since our first encounter with the Green Flu. Left 4 Dead tells the story of the four unluckiest people in the world: a Vietnam veteran, an office drone, a college student, and a biker who hates everything.
World of Warcraft Classic Is A Slow, Leisurely Reminder Of What Came Before
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know that Blizzard is finally releasing official servers for World of Warcraft classic. People have been running not-so-legal private servers for years, allowing them to play vanilla WoW, The Burning Crusade, or Wrath of the Lich King, and Blizzard has been hunting down such servers for just as long.
Interview with Developers of Kartridge, A New Indie Distribution Platform Launching Today
As reported in September, the webgaming portal Kongregate announced their own digital distribution platform called Kartridge. It enters a highly competitive market, towered by the colossal, ever-growing Steam.
Coverage Club: World Traveler
Coverage Club is our weekly series of smaller impressions in the style of full reviews. Games can range from brand new titles hitting Early Access to older hidden gems that never got their due. No matter your preference, you’re sure to find something off the beaten path here. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know much about the indigenous people of the north. Tribes like the Inuit, Yupik, and Algonquin only seem to rarely show up in video games, and I haven’t been seeking out material on them.
Gaming Obscura: Goosebumps: Escape from Horrorland
Goosebumps was an incredible thing for ‘90s kids. Now, 25 years later, the children’s horror anthology is still growing. While the original series ended in 1997, the Goosebumps franchise has expanded into a hammy TV show, merchandise, more books, and two theatrical films. While there have been a handful of Goosebumps games, none of them approach the delightfully obscure 1996 Goosebumps: Escape from Horrorland.
10 Years of Saints Row 2 - Anti-Charles Bronson
Saints Row 2 represents a different time, not just for Volition, but for games as a whole. Just as other open-world crime games were turning gritty and realistic, Saints Row 2 had the gall to tell a B action story set in a unique city full of color and life. Just as cheat codes and secrets were on their way out, Saints Row 2 gave us a last hurrah of esoteric treasure hunts and obtuse unlockables. The characters are fun, but not overblown. The story is hammy, but never falls into self-parody.
Coverage Club: Kicking and Screaming
Coverage Club is our weekly series of smaller impressions in the style of full reviews. Games can range from brand new titles hitting Early Access to older hidden gems that never got their due. No matter your preference, you’re sure to find something off the beaten path here. As mentioned in a recent episode of the Bombcast by one Jeff Gerstmann, no one should remember Dark Messiah of Might & Magic. It’s a middling effort from a studio that would go on to do much greater things.
Assassin's Creed's Modern Story Has Outstayed Its Welcome
The Assassin’s Creed series has gradually moved away from historical accuracy and toward fantasy and mythology. The historical period pieces are still there, of course, but they’re becoming more of a cosmetic setting than anything else. With Origins featuring boss fights with giant Egyptian gods and Odyssey set to include characters of legend such as Medusa, Assassin’s Creed is clearly not the series it was when it first landed in 2007.
Coverage Club: Commanding the Skies
Coverage Club is our weekly series of smaller impressions in the style of full reviews. Games can range from brand new titles hitting Early Access to older hidden gems that never got their due. No matter your preference, you’re sure to find something off the beaten path here. Some games are at their best as self-contained, handcrafted experiences. You beat them and move on to other games, though you might replay them at some point.
Crowdfunding Spotlight - Aquamarine
I first saw Aquamarine at Play NYC 2018. It was there that I met Patric Fallon of Moebial Studios and got hands-on with the game. It’s an interesting little turn-based strategy game where you crash-land on an aquatic planet and have to make it back to your wrecked ship in a dinky little escape pod. Aquamarine primarily focuses on the player’s careful management of resources.
Mega Cowboy's Odyssey Ops IIII
The big holiday season is almost upon us and publishers are bringing out the big guns. Not only do we have a whole host of ports and remasters on offer this month but a couple of very long awaited sequels have been thrown into the mix for good measure. Take a look and see if there’s anything you have to pick up. The latest DLC pack for The Surge titled The Good, The Bad and The Augmented releases on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on October 2nd.
Coverage Club: Day and Night
Coverage Club is our weekly series of smaller impressions in the style of full reviews. Games can range from brand new titles hitting Early Access to older hidden gems that never got their due. No matter your preference, you’re sure to find something off the beaten path here. I’m a bit fan of farming RPGs. The boom of new titles coming out since the success of Stardew Valley is something I’ve rather been enjoying.
Bullet Points: The Cinematic Storytelling of Call of Duty
It’s hard to imagine a world without Call of Duty. The massively popular multiplayer, the iconic zombies, the blockbuster campaigns—they’ve all become integral parts of gaming’s annual release schedule. 2018 marks the end of an era, however, with this year’s game Black Ops 4 being the first in the series to not include a single-player campaign, opting instead for a Battle Royale mode.
15 Games That Should Appear On The PlayStation Classic
Sony revealed the PlayStation Classic earlier this week. It launches December 3rd and will retail for $99.99. They have announced five of the 20 games that will be preloaded on the mini-console, which is set to be 45% smaller than the original. Those games are Final Fantasy VII, Jumping Flash, Ridge Racer Type 4, Tekken 3, and Wild Arms. The remaining 15 have yet to be announced. Here’s what we think they should be.
Coverage Club: Quarter Muncher
Coverage Club is our weekly series of smaller impressions in the style of full reviews. Games can range from brand new titles hitting Early Access to older hidden gems that never got their due. No matter your preference, you’re sure to find something off the beaten path here. One of the first PlayStation games I dug into in my childhood was the first volume of the Namco Museum. I learned that Pac-Man wasn’t for me.
6 Games Saved By Updates, Relaunches, Or Just A Great Big Patch
Plenty of games launch a little rough-around-the-edges. We could probably all list dozens upon dozens of games that launch riddled with bugs, graphical glitches, scripting issues, or horrifying demon faces from hell, but complete overhauls are a very different thing. In the age of online gaming, “living games” that evolve and grow over time are becoming the norm. Many games launch as one thing and, two years down the line, are almost unrecognizable as the same game.
10 Years of Spore - A Reputation Well-Deserved?
It is better to innovate and fall short than to stagnate and succeed. Every misstep is a small success, a burst of inspiration telling us what can be improved. That’s why it’s so peculiar to see something flop without other innovators coming to pick up the pieces. One such case is Spore, which by most accounts is a mediocre game, but a great tool. Is that a fair assessment though? After all, hindsight is 20/20. Let’s dive into the primordial ooze to see if Spore deserved its ho-hum reception.
Metal Gear Solid's Codec
Metal Gear Solid. Those three words alone are enough to trigger huge waves of nostalgia and fuzzy feelings for gamers all over the world. It’s one of the most influential and important games in gaming history.
Crowdfunding Spotlight - Hamsterdam
In the town of Hamsterdam, the evil chinchilla Marlo has kidnapped people, doped everyone up on booze, and opened casinos & a red-light district. This savagery is bad enough, but the bad guy makes the mistake of kidnapping our hero Pimm’s grandpa. Pimm decides to head into town and kick butts left and right in Muse Games’ newest title on Kickstarter: Hamsterdam. This cutesy little title was one of many games available to play at Play NYC.
The 6 Best Spider-Man Games Of All Time
Insomniac’s highly-anticipated Spider-Man for PS4 is right around the corner (it’s almost with us!) so we thought it’d be fun to look back at the web-slinger’s greatest video game outings. Spider-Man is a media property that’s been around for more than 50 years. It’s a staple of superhero pop culture and the friendly-neighborhood-hero was already well-established by the time the earliest video games were being made.
Coverage Club: Dine and Dash
Coverage Club is our weekly series of smaller impressions in the style of full reviews. Games can range from brand new titles hitting Early Access to older hidden gems that never got their due. No matter your preference, you’re sure to find something off the beaten path here. I can’t cook for the life of me, but I sure do enjoy cooking in games. Whether it’s a mini-game or a fully-fledged title like Cook, Serve, Delicious!, I just have a boatload of fun putting together delicious food.
Video Game Releases for September 2018: Lara Croft and Spider-Man Sitting in a Tree
As the gaming industry leaves the summer drought and enters into the lucrative pre-Christmas boom, there is a whole slew of new games available for fans of all platforms. With so many big releases available, how can you choose? A complete edition on the NISA RPG God Wars: The Complete Legend comes to Nintendo Switch on September 4th. Originally out on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita as God Wars: Future Past, God Wars: The Complete Legend is an extended version of the game.
Bullet Points - Bloodborne's Insight
Alexander Pope once said that “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” Nowhere is this truer than the world of From Software’s 2015 masterpiece Bloodborne. In the city of Yharnam, knowledge is at once an extremely valuable resource, a source of immeasurable power, and the cause of the city’s downfall.
The 6 Worst Spider-Man Games Of All Time
Insomniac Games’ highly-anticipated Spider-Man is almost upon us, and it’s set to (probably) be pretty awesome. Spider-Man looks to be the Spidey game that fans of the friendly-neighborhood-hero have been looking for: tight open-world web swinging, smooth and agile combat, and a cavalcade of fan favourite villains. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for some of the games on this list, and the legendary web-slinger’s outings in the video game world haven’t always been so positive.
Coverage Club : Hyperactive Offense
Coverage Club is our weekly series of smaller impressions in the style of full reviews. Games can range from brand new titles hitting Early Access to older hidden gems that never got their due. No matter your preference, you’re sure to find something off the beaten path here. War! What is it good for? To give a spoiler, absolutely nothing.
Saints Row IV Five Years Later - Hail to the Chief
Every Saints Row game, I think, represents the commercialization of both the 3rd Street Saints and the franchise itself. Saints Row 2Â hit the sweet spot, balancing wacky diversions with a hardcore b-action story. Saints Row: The Third took the insanity of the previous game and ran a marathon with it. Suddenly, a grounded gangster series featured KGB clones and flying aircraft carriers. Then there’s Saints Row IV, kicking its feet up on the desk of the Oval Office.
Shadow Warrior's Swordplay
The 2013 reboot of Shadow Warrior is a weird and fun game for many reasons. The focus on silly humor, the referential easter eggs scattered throughout the game, the obscene levels of gore. They all come together to make a uniquely ridiculous experience. On paper, the reboot of the 1997 DOOM-era shooter of the same name shouldn’t have worked, and yet it did. And still does. Bullet Points is a regular series that looks at a unique aspect to one game. You can find more of them here.
Play NYC 2018 Recap - NYC Busts Out Its Best Games
Play NYCÂ has come and gone yet again. The second year of this Manhattan-based gaming convention created by Playcrafting’s Dan Butchko had a lot of changes including a new venue (the Hammerstein Ballroom in the Manhattan Center), more developers, and a whole sea of people from TechRaptor going to cover all of the wonderful things to play.
Hands On With The Ethereal Beauty of Nomada Studio's Gris
Devolver Digital is known for getting their hands on interesting games. Sometimes the games are super fun, really strange, or both. Gris is a game that I had the privilege to see in person at the Foley Gallery in NYC in early August. It was fun, definitely strange, and undeniably beautiful. The facade of the gallery was adorned in art for the game and the interior was covered with dozens of beautiful canvas paintings.
Play NYC 2018 Coverage Hub
Play NYC is a gaming-focused convention based in the Manhattan Borough of New York City, NY. A production of Playcrafting, the 2018 show will feature over a hundred different exhibitors showing more than 160 games—all of them playable. TechRaptor is going to cover quite a few things coming out of this two-day convention! This page will serve as a hub to collect all of the articles that result from the show.
Five Years of Papers, Please - Glory to Arstotzka
Mass Effect. Call of Juarez: Gunslinger. Saints Row. When a game’s title music puts you in just the right mood, you know you’re in for a good time. Then there’s Papers, Please with its iconic, pounding rhythm. You can almost feel an enormous hammer hitting your head in time with the beat. There couldn’t be a more fitting theme song for a bureaucracy simulator. It’s hard to believe five years have passed since Papers, Please hit Steam.
Video Game Releases August 2018: We Happy Doggos
The summer drought is here, but luckily there are still enough big hitters on display this August to satisfy your gaming appetite. It’s a big month for ports as usual but there are also a few long-awaited releases out for pretty much every platform. For the first time outside of PlayStation consoles, Yakuza 0 will release for Microsoft Windows on August 1st. The sixth game and prequel in the Yakuza series, Yakuza 0 uses 2 main protagonists, Kiryu and Maijima and takes places in Tokyo and Osaka.
Gaming Obscura: Trespasser
The Jurassic Park franchise has a love/hate relationship with its video game tie-ins. From fantastic park builders and arcade shooters to the lesser known barcode collector and DVD board game, Jurassic Park games have been pretty hit or miss. Among the lesser known titles, one very special game stands out above all the others. The game was Trespasser, an overly innovative and ambitious title that aimed for the moon and crashed somewhere near Costa Rica.
Jazzpunk's Comedy
Comedy is hard. Making a good comedy game is almost impossible. Writers, artists, level designers, and game designers must work in perfect harmony to create a cohesive, engaging experience. It’s not enough to be funny; comedy games need to have the variety, freshness, and interactivity to make players want to finish the story. Enter Jazzpunk, a spiritual successor to spoof comedies like Airplane! and The Naked Gun (minus Leslie Nielson).
Gotta Snap 'Em All
I frequently find myself in the middle of debates about the direction the Pokemon franchise is taking. On one side, the franchise’s ardent defenders, staunchly adopting the “if it ain’t broke” stance and loving every minute of each Pokemon game they play. On the other side, the relentless progressives, who want to throw everything Pokemon stands for away and completely reinvent the wheel.
July 2018 Video Game Releases: At Least We Survived E3
As the summer starts to roll around there is the usual dearth of video game releases for July. However, there is still quite a few remasters that people will be looking forward to as well as some more niche or indie games. Set 50 years after the original Red Faction, Red Faction: Guerrilla Re-Mars-tered is set to be released on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows on July 3rd. This is a remaster with updated graphics and 4k support.
Crowdfunding Spotlight – Queen’s Wish: The Conqueror
The indie scene is generally pretty young, with the modern form of it largely beginning to take shape around 2008-2009 and evolving over the past decade. While in the 80s there was a vibrant small dev scene as well, in the later 90s, and the 2000s, most of the smaller developers were no longer able to keep going at it professionally. Very few companies can speak of being the same small business today that they were in 1998.
From Shadow to Fire – 15 Years of Obsidian Entertainment
Black Isle Studios floundered and submerged as great game development studios often do, in quiet helplessness as painstakingly crafted projects were consigned to oblivion—Fallout 3, codename Van Buren; Fallout Online, codename Project V13; Baldur’s Gate III: The Black Hound, codenames FR6 or Jefferson.
Demystifying Exclusive Games - A Glossary Of Terms
It’s that time of year again, folks: E3 is looming large. Some of the year’s most significant gaming announcements are coming, courtesy of the biggest and most recognizable names in the industry. Sony. Microsoft. Nintendo. All of the big console manufacturers are gonna want to come out of the gate swinging this year, so as to impress industry people and fans alike. One of the ways in which those companies do this is with exclusive titles.
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