Jeannine Pontiff
Articles de blog de Jeannine Pontiff
The Yakuza series launched in 2005 to great success in Japan and developed a cult following in the West. Yakuza 0 introduced the series to a more mainstream audience. The games feature semi-open and faithfully recreated Japanese settings in famous Tokyo cities and their seedy underbelly. The first seven games in the series center around Kiryu and are self-contained stories in their own right. The eighth title, Yakuza: Like a Dragon , introduces a new protagonist, Ichiban, with unique motivations and a turn-based combat sys
On Sony's original PlayStation, there were no better platformers than the Crash Bandicoot trilogy. All three games gave everything one desires from the genre: challenge, beautiful art, and rewarding secrets. The next generation wasn't as kind to the mascot, and he was nearly silent on the PS3 and Xbox
However, despite its clunky mechanics, Mafia 2 features a compelling and mature story of Vito Scaletta's rise to power in the ranks of the Falcone crime family. Fans of Yakuza's more dramatic and political mob stories will love the struggles of Vito and his relationships with friends and fam
This unforgiving turn-based strategy series was adored by its niche audience back in the '90s. After 2001, the franchise dropped off the map for more than ten years until 2012's X-COM: Enemy Unknown . The title received more attention than usual for the genre and managed to break into the mainstream audience. A sequel came out in 2016, ratcheting up the difficulty and arsenal of weaponry. Rarely do such difficult games garner such a player base, but this decade has seen intense challenges gain a new appreciation with this series and games like Dark Sou
One of the joys of playing Breath of the Wild is its sense of freedom. Like any open-world game, there are always limitations, but the magic comes when a developer can give a sense of freedom while successfully hiding the limits of its virtual world. Breath of the Wild excels at this. Fable should not copy Breath of the Wild's open world as Fable has its own beloved gameplay and style, but a next-gen Fable would do well to make the revolutionary step forward that made Breath of the Wild so endearing and engaging for the Legend of Zelda franch
Xbox has shown that a freedom-driven, open-world experience can be accomplished with its first-party game Sea of Thieves from developer Rare (another UK-based studio like Playground Games, by the way). While Sea of Thieves had its own ups and downs, Rare successfully reinvented the game. Again, not that a next-gen Fable should copy Sea of Thieves , but hopefully learnings (and maybe even technology) from that game could be shared between Xbox's studios to influence Fable in a way that gives players that sense of freedom and helps the game achieve the grand RPG path that was originally envisioned with Project
Due to the highly-publicized fallout between Hideo Kojima and Konami, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain came out in a brutally unfinished state. One can see where work stopped on the title's story and it was rushed out to mar
Not only did this trailer event give fans a first look at gameplay, but Naughty Dog and PlayStation finally showed off Joel in the game. The beloved character has aged to look a fair bit more like a grandfather than he did in the last entry. However, it is a bit strange that Ellie simply happens across him in the wasteland, and many fans are still speculating that he is just a figment of her imagination. The Last of Us Part 2 is supposed to be larger than many thought possible, which is an exciting possibility and the trailer definitely teases that massive world that players are going to expl
Blizzard revealed Diablo 4 with a very lengthy cinematic that puts the spotlight on the game's main villains and the return to a dark, gothic-inspired tone. In the cinematic trailer, fans witness the villain Lilith summoned, complete with Satantic horns and what appears to be a huge (and disgusting) cape made out of human s
Video games go through the same processes as their popularity grows and wanes. Unlike people, however, they also have a chance for revival. As an acknowledgment of all the franchises that either came or went this decade, the following list will detail five franchises that left the industry and five that came back in full force. The latter entries' revivals give hope to the former series that they too can one day come back from the d
The Rabbids kind of kicked Rayman out of his own franchise for a while, and the last true Rayman game before the Wii party game, Rayman 3 , didn't live up to its predecessors. 2011 saw a return to form, however, with Rayman: Origins . The 2D side-scrolling platformer brought back all the charm, difficulty, and engaging gameplay from the character's debut. Origins and its sequel are often seen as two of the best in the genre from the past ten ye