Age of Wonders: Planetfall | Political Propaganda?

Politics. Everyone claims to hate it unless it's preaching their side of the debate. I, personally hate politics of any kind being pushed in a one sided manner in my paid for entertainment. I feel that shit should be kept out of entertainment, especially video games and films that can influence youth in such a manipulative manner by not giving the full scope of the argument, or both sides from a neutral standpoint. It is this very thing that brings me to typing up what could be considered by some to be a click bait article. I assure it is not though as Paradox Interactive, and their game "Age of Wonders: Planetfall" exhibits what seems to be a deliberately divisive narrative that is often spun within the realm of politics, and now within various forms of entertainment. That narrative being the demonizing of white men, in this particular case. In the teaser trailer we see an army of space soldiers led by a cliche white male captain. We see the captain and his army land on an uncharted planet, and we see two indigenous tribes come forth to confront the white man, and his army of white clad space soldiers. The fact that the indigenous humans are seemingly African in race further points to an underlying narrative that encompasses the hate of white men, and their past real world conquering of native populations. The aliens of the game seemingly representing the same agenda, but to a different degree. Perhaps inline with the real world illegal immigration situation. Whatever the case may be it is easy to see there is purpose behind the character design in this game.

Mortal Kombat 11 | Flawless Failure! Greedality!

Fighting game developers throughout the years have tried desperately to find a place among the gaming community for their games to thrive. We've seen the genre start off in a humble manner, and with basic functionality evolving into a more complicated spectacle of flash, and deeply involved mechanics. From there we've also seen the push for online competition, and casual play as well. We've seen the domination of Japanese fighters, and the rise of a select few American borne creations as well as the fall of both. What we haven't seen though is anyone in the business perfect the formula, and release a fighter that not only offers a tournament worthy challenge, but also proper value for what the consumer pays. It seems more, and more often that studios take away features that were once commonplace in a fighting game, and freely so, replacing them with blatant monetization schemes that take advantage of the community's goodwill. Fastforward to the here, and now and we find Netherrealm Studios releasing one of the most undeserving fighting games in all of fighting game history. A culmination of grind, and greed made manifest in an experience that does not take itself seriously enough.

Kill la Kill the Game: IF (PS4)

I'm going to do something I usually don't do. I'm going to suggest that if you are on the fence about buying this game to download the demo, and play it first before reading my review. Afterwards return here to find out what I think about the game, and what features the game has to offer ...

Pawarumi (NS)

Rock, paper, scissors, and a shmup. A shmup, and an Aztec theme. These are things we usually wouldn't think of as something that would go together so easily or smoothly. Thankfully the French studio Manufacture 43 put them together quite seamlessly, and in such a way as to create one of the genre's most unique experiences, to date, for the Nintendo Switch.

Utilizing divine creatures, and a future mythos taken lightly from Aztec mythology we find a shmup that foregoes the need for upgrades, power-ups, and the usual shoot 'em up approach. In the place of the usual staple features the developer has applied a system where shields, and supers are gained by pitting certain colored weapons of the animal variety (Red Jaguar Missiles, Blue Condor Lasers & Green Serpent Gatling) against opposing ship colors to build up respective meters, and the use of a crushing mechanic to do bonus damage in a similar fashion. The triple color scheme, and how it works is explained away in a hands-on demo style tutorial that can be intimidating at first, but more understandable as you play. A tutorial that tells you to build up a shield via a boost mechanic you have to shoot colored enemies with the same color weapon. That to build up your super via a drain mechanic you have to play a sort of rock-paper-scissors opposite game putting the weaker weapon color against the stronger enemy ship color. Needless to say earning the crushing blow is done by using a stronger weapon color to destroy ships of a weaker color. To make things easy pressing a button will show you what each shot type does in accordance to colors with a color coded meter, and crush indicator at the bottom of the screen.