By Heidi Kemps

I'll confess right now: I never played the original version of Pokémon Gold and Silver , and my reasons for not doing so are phenomenally dumb. I was super pumped for Red and Blue when they came out back in the day, but got hung up on playing them because I am an obessive dork who wants to keep all her RPG party members evenly leveled. Multiply this tendency  by 151 potential party member...

By David Riley

If there's ever been a game with more half-baked ideas than Last Rebellion , I don't want to know. It sounds cute on the surface. A single character RPG, persistent buffs that raise your stats to absurd levels, a combo system where every part of the monster must be targeted and systematically destroyed? Sure, why not? At least it's not another game where you're holding X through the random bat...

By Joseph Luster

If you've never heard of Cave Story , don't feel too bad. While the 2004 game may be one of the least obscure titles as far as PC-developed indie games go, it still remains under the radar of most. Let that no longer be the case. Now that Cave Story has emerged from its freeware shackles, anyone and everyone is urged to download the game via Nintendo's WiiWare service. Really, it's the perfect...

By Mike Dent

It's one in the morning on Sunday when the last match of the first major tournament for Super Street Fighter IV goes down. Only a small anxious portion of the knocked-out players remain, staving off sleep long enough to witness this last stand between West Coast stalwart Alex "calipower" Valle and the Midwest's own Ari "fLoE" Weintraub. The exhausted air in the ballroom from a day filled with ...

By Joseph Luster

Should anyone out there still find Capcom's Final Fight (1989) an unfamiliar flurry of fists from a bygone arcade era, they just might not be that into beat 'em ups. As much as I tend to prefer other entries in the genre—mostly, I realize now, from a time when arcade games based on licensed properties tended to be pretty killer—every time I revisit Final Fight I remember just why it's such a s...

By Joseph Luster

The name Nintendo has been associated with the lighter side of gaming for as long as most people can remember, and that's not gonna change any time soon. Many will recall the disappointment of owning a "superior" version of Mortal Kombat on Super Nintendo, only to find arena walls just aren't as menacing when slathered in... spit. Or sweat. Or whatever the hell that was they used to replace th...