Alex Langley

After several years, delays, and missteps, the Kickstarter-funded Mighty No. 9 is here, and believe me when I say that the supposed spiritual successor to Mega Man is a Mega Bust.

In a world where media companies are too content to endlessly regurgitate their greatest hits, one company has stepped out from the shadows to bring forth something different, something original, something amazing. Overwatch, Blizzard's first new intellectual property in almost two decades, is here. Hell, it's about time.

Blizzard's name is an aptly-chosen one; this titanic game company is famous for its glacial development pace. New Blizzard projects usually have lengthy gaps between them, with release dates rarely getting mentioned until the product is finished and ready to ship. While it can be frustrating for fans to have to wait interminably long, this relaxed speed brings with it a creative atmosphere and quality games— as Shigeru Miyamoto so famously said, "A delayed game is eventually good. A bad game is bad forever." Overwatch marks the newest entry in the Blizzard library (and their first all-new intellectual property in over a decade), so let's take a moment to go back through the brightest points in the history of these legendary game-makers to better understand why their newest game garners such eager anticipation.

Square Enix fans often complain about seemingly contradictory things when it comes to their favorite RPG company. "Square Enix experiments too much," say some fans, "they redesign each Final Fantasy game so much that each one barely resembles the last." Other fans complain that Square Enix's other big RPG series, Dragon Warrior, doesn't experiment enough, and that its latest entries are still far too similar to the NES games of decades past. When Bravely Default arrived in 2012, it satisfied both camps thanks to its bold, yet familiar, RPG framework. Bravely Second continues in the footsteps of its predecessor, trying again to find that magic oasis of fun which balances out the old and the new.

Game makers have long tried to bridge the gap between Hollywood and gaming, hiring A-list (and sometimes not-so-A-list) talent to bring extra sales and legitimacy via their star power. Quantum Break is the newest title to combine Hollywood and the gaming world, creating an interesting hybrid of gaming and episodic storytelling. Quantum Break brought in strong, memorable actors such as Game of Thrones Aiden Gillen, Lost’s Dominic Managhan, and Lance Reddick, the spookyman from many cult classic shows. Quantum Break’s cast does a great job instilling the sci-fi thriller story with a real sense of legitimacy, but Hollywood actors don’t always do such a good job in video games. In fact, there are plenty of times where otherwise great actors just don’t seem to give a damn, dragging down the entire project with listless, weird performances. Those are the actors we’re here to talk about today— the good actors who step into the world of gaming and, for whatever reason, decide to leave their talent at the door.

The infinite blackness of space wraps around you, apathetic to your suffering. A confetti of space debris threatens to slice what little remains of your space suit as you struggle to bound your way over the shattered hull of the space station. A beeping tone in your ear tries to inform you that you’re running out of air, but your tunnel vision and gasping breaths beat the beeps to it. If you can’t get this space station at least partially up and running, you’ll be dead in hours. The spatial adventure Adr1ft would be a hell of a thrill ride… if it weren’t so boring.

Republique is immediately impressive, with its strong cast of A-list voice actors such as Jennifer Hale and David Hayter and its penchant for cinematic storytelling. The world oozes oppression, with posters reminding guards and passersby not to think too hard or too loudly, and to ignore contraband materials like books and video games. Hope, a "Pre-Cal" imprisoned by this totalitarian regime for experimental reasons, has been labeled "infected" due to coming into contact with such contraband materials. As both Hope and an unseen hacker, you'll slip past guards, collect information, hack everything, and use the regime's surveillance systems against it on Hope's quest to gain freedom for herself and the public.

As the fifth proper entry in one of gaming's biggest franchises, Street Fighter V had a lot to live up to. Street Fighter I & II helped create the genre of fighting games, and Street Fighter III & IV helped to revitalize them. To live up to its predecessors Street Fighter V needed to be electrifying, and since it came from a huge, triple-A video game company, it should offer an experience both massive in content and potential. What we got instead was the digital embodiment of greed.

Video games aren't without their share of awesome villains, but the sad fact about being a villain is that, more often than not, the story requires them to lose.

Diablo III's latest update has arrived, bringing with it new loot to wear and new monsters to slay. This nearly twenty-year-old franchise has a long history of sprawling dungeons and epic battles between sharply-dressed heroes and unfathomably-evil villains, so before you return to Sanctuary to vanquish the darkness once more, come with us on a guided tour of the 10 Best Diablo Bosses.