Reset: Mortal Kombat
When did Mortal Kombat get so tame? J.P. Grant on why the archetypal arcade series is the square peg in the round hole of modern platforms.
Review
Review: Batman: Arkham City
In contrast to the urgency of Arkham Asylum, the latest Batman installment nearly suffocates with its diversions. Filipe Salgado chronicles his turn in Arkham City.
Review: SpellTower
A new iPad word game by independent developer Zach Gage illustrates some fundamental conflicts about operating within game systems, and then writing about them. Jason Johnson tries to untangle the letters.
Review: Kirby’s Return to Dream Land
Jon Irwin meditates on the pink blob, whose latest game on the Nintendo Wii is an easy, frictionless antidote to the zeitgeist’s interactive murder.
Review: iBlast Moki 2
Drew Millard uses some complicated metaphors to describe the also-complicated physics puzzle game iBlast Moki 2.
Review: Dead Island
Is Dead Island lacking the blood of a real horror? Kyle Lemmon examines the territory where the mechanics of gameplay distract from genuine fear.
Review: Dance Central 2
The new dancing game from the Rock Band creators might make you happy, self-conscious, tired, or all of the above. Can you picture yourself in our illustrated take?
Review: Fallout New Vegas Add-Ons
Why the post-apocalypse isn’t all about you.
Review: Aquaria
A game about underwater exploration ironically drowns the player in its own vast world. Jason Johnson wants to chart new territory but finds his mind wandering.
Review: Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception
For Richard Clark, Uncharted 3‘s player-character Drake is so close, yet so far.
Review: Rage
The creators of Doom and Quake make a case for their roots in their modern-day Rage. For Richard Clark, it cleanses the palate and the mind.
Review: Forza Motorsport 4
Drew Millard gets under the hood of Turn 10’s marquee racing title, also the latest in hard-edged, shining robot pornography.
Review: Groove Coaster
Jordan Mammo reviews what may be the most truthful music game to date—it’s on the iPhone.
Review: Battlefield 3
Battlefield 3 doesn’t stay true to actual war, and that’s a blessing. Richard Clark writes on all the good feelings of videogame war.
Review: Encyclopedia Fuckme and the Case of the Vanishing Entree
This ain’t your older brother’s dating sim. By Filipe Salgado
Reset: Urban Champion
A dramatic, first-hand, strangely painful re-encounter with Urban Champion of times long gone.
Review: Kyotokei
If a game was made by the same people who design video surveillance software, does it matter? Jon Irwin investigates.
Review: Wizorb
Filipe Salgado decided the best way to describe this quite familiar, and strangely unfamiliar, relative of Breakout was to tell its origin story.
Review: Loop Raccord
Experimental game Loop Raccord draws inspiration from the process of video editing but finds unlikely communion with the sonic juxtapositions of John Cage.
Review: Hard Reset
We review a new cyberpunk-themed shooter that seems more concerned with being a cyberpunk-themed shooter than with being interesting.
Review: The Binding of Isaac
A twin-stick shooter tackles a biblical story and keeps the gore, Old Testament-style.
Review: Dark Souls
Jason Johnson explores the complexity of a game given to dualities.
Reset: Xevious
With its 3D Classics series, Nintendo is bringing its classics into the third dimension. In our second Reset article, Jon Irwin reexamines vertical shooter Xevious and the importance of clouds.
Review: In the Time Machine Over the Sea
A fan adapts the Neutral Milk Hotel album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea into retro RPG form, and fails horribly. It starts with a misspelling and careens into a deep misunderstanding. Drew Millard laments the game.
Review: Gears of War 3
Jason Johnson turns to Frank Sinatra to find the rhythms hidden in the new Gears.