All Thumbsticks Game Review: Downwell
Fall deep into a well while blasting bullets at enemies from your boots.
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Johan C. Wyckoff
- May 22, 2020
- 3 min
Game Review: Kingdom Series
Build up your kingdom better than Lord Farquaad.
Johan C. Wyckoff
- Mar 30, 2020
- 3 min
All Thumbsticks Game Review: That Dragon, Cancer
Stories that create catharsis for players are hard to create. That Dragon, Cancer is one of those games.
Johan C. Wyckoff
- Jan 4, 2020
- 3 min
All Thumbsticks Game Review: Borderlands 3
Well. Here we are. This is it; Borderlands 3. Fans have waited for too long and now, it’s finally here. After ten years of waiting, slightly broken by a less than perfect “Pre-Sequel” and the pitch perfect “Tales from the Borderlands,” the game fans have waited for so long. Borderlands 3, developed by Gearbox Studios and published by 2K Games, is a first-person action shooter with role playing game mechanics. As the final game in BL series, it has been called the best and the
Johan C. Wyckoff
- Oct 29, 2019
- 3 min
All Thumbsticks Game Review: Blasphemous
Who knew that a small Spanish video game studio could make a true magnum opus? Blasphemous, developed by Game Kitchen, published by Team17 Digital, and funded on Kickstarter, is a pixelated Action Platformer with heavy influence from the Dark Souls, “Metroidvania”, and Spanish Catholic imagery. Its narrative core of penance and suffering combined with interconnected locales and stylized gameplay makes for a delightfully dark game with clunky controls. The story of Blasphemous
Johan C. Wyckoff
- Oct 2, 2019
- 3 min
All Thumbsticks Game Review: River City Girls
Beat ‘em up games have spanned for as long as video games have existed: Streets of Rage, Battletoads, and Double Dragon cabinets have sprinkled their way through arcades and onto home consoles like the NES. While they flooded the market, some companies tried to look at this genre differently, like Technos Japan- now run by Arc System Works. Their Kunio-kun series had the elements of a standard RPG in a Beat ‘em up shell. By buying food or relaxing in a sauna, your individual
Johan C. Wyckoff
- Sep 24, 2019
- 3 min
All Thumbsticks Game Review: Super Mario Odyssey
Mario, Mario, Mario. What are we going to do with you? You’ve jumped, rolled, karted, and spun your way into our hearts through the many worlds and galaxies that Nintendo has thrown at us from the NES to the Nintendo Switch. And through it all, we’ve been through journeys and experiences, learning about the nation’s capitals to blasting knock-off versions of Mario characters with energy blasters- that’s Mario’s Missing and Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle for you- what better w
Johan C. Wyckoff
- Aug 26, 2019
- 3 min
All Thumbsticks Review: Contradiction: Spot the Liar!
People like to play detective in some small way; it adds to the thrill of mundane life. From watching Masterpiece Mystery on Sunday nights, binging the hour-long reboot of Sherlock Holmes with cheek bone man Benedict Cumberbatch, to reading a mystery novel. Mysteries provide intrigue and narrative, which video games have achieved through careful writing and plot building, but the characters themselves appeared to be computerized images, not real characters and the actors that
Johan C. Wyckoff
- Jul 9, 2019
- 3 min
All Thumbsticks Presents: Drawn: The Dark Trilogy
It’s easy to say that hidden objects games are easy to make. They are typically simple and may have a puzzle or two to break up the game play. It can’t get any more casual than that. There is no need for an imaginative story if your goal for an hour or two is to kill time. Well, in the instance of this collection of games, imagination and creativity is a tool and a conduit to save an entire world from darkness. The Drawn Trilogy is a hidden object point and click game develop
Johan C. Wyckoff
- Jun 15, 2019
- 3 min
All Thumbsticks Game Review: Enter The Gungeon
I’ve never really liked Rogue-like games, because you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. Every time you boot up a game like The Binding of Issac or Don’t Starve, you are thrusted into a completely random world with limited resources or random loot. When your game is over, it’s not guaranteed that you will get that same chance of a rare weapon or item until your 15th or 110th play-through. But, one game made me give the genre another chance in the form of a sci-fi f
Johan C. Wyckoff
- Apr 25, 2019
- 3 min
Rock, Blood and Jack Black: Brutal Legend Game Review
Picture this. The camera opens on Los Angeles, outside of a store called Record Surplus. National Treasure and Metal Dad Jack Black comes into focus. “Okay… Don’t say a word, just keep walking, we’re going in casual, okay? I’ll show it to you, but this is between us.” He tells you as you both walk into the store, adding, “They keep it way in the back, with the other rare stuff.” Now, we’re in the store. Black looks at the camera, mysteriously, “The kids that work here don’t k
Johan C. Wyckoff
- Apr 17, 2019
- 3 min
All Thumbsticks with Johan: Machinarium Review
Even though I tell my friends that my first experience playing video games was the Apple version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by Electronic Arts, I feel as if that is a disservice. Not that it isn’t; I’ve played that game many times, but it felt lacking. Scrolling through my middle school years, I remember falling in love with a little browser game known as Samorost, made by a little Czech game studio known as Amanita Design. It had a little fella who travelled an
Johan C. Wyckoff
- Apr 12, 2019
- 3 min
All Thumbsticks with Johan: De Blob 1 Review
3D platformers are the rage for the gaming market- and why wouldn't they be? They're accessible for all gamers; from gaming veterans to kids getting their first console. It's not like Call of Duty with its confusing first-person perspective, nor it is Fortnite with its online. It's Mario, it's Sonic during his Genesis golden years. It's a timeless genre that will never grow old. So, what does this game have to bring to the table as a linear semi-open world game? De Blob, deve
Johan C. Wyckoff
- Apr 4, 2019
- 3 min
Game Review: Sunset Overdrive
When the Xbox One came out in 2013, I was blown away with the clear and higher definition graphics that Microsoft had showcased. Apart from their launch title, headed by Double Helix Studios, the revamped Killer Instinct (2013), another game made me want to rip my wallet and throw it at the screen. It was punk, it was loud, it was crazy with its visuals, and it had a title that burned into my mind like guitar solo from Jimmy Page or Eddie Van Halen; Sunset Overdrive. Then, I
Jarrett Dement
- Aug 21, 2018
- 4 min
Dead Cells Review
Publisher: Motion Twin Developer: Motion Twin Genre: Action Platformer (Roguelike) Reviewed On: Xbox One Available On: Xbox One, Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows Dead Cells is difficult. The new title from French developer and (self-described anarcho-syndicalists) Motion Twin, is much more difficult than any game I’ve ever played. I originally missed the boat for the ‘Soulsbourne’ games (those games in the Souls series, and those that sought to mimic their su
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