I don’t like Splatterhouse 2. I was planning to mock its sloppy control and limited moveset. I was planning to attack its stricter-than-Altered Beast linearity. I was even planning to poke fun at the sanitized pastel ichor that bursts from every beast (a far cry from the original’s frightening decor). With the above palette of problems, I was planning to paint the most unflattering picture of Splatterhouse 2 that the internet has ever seen.

Dynamite Deka bears no relation to the classic action film Die Hard aside from basic plot similarities but, in a rare show of marketing genius, Sega noticed these similarities and brokered a fiendishly clever deal with 20th Century Fox. This corporate coupling gave birth to the 32bit polygonal brawler Die Hard Arcade, a refreshing and invigorating action adventure in its own right. After achieving modest success in smelly bowling alleys and grimy gum-floored arcades, Sega ...

Konami, Axelay, Gunstar Heroes, yada yada yada. Now that I’ve exhaustively covered the complete game development history of Treasure, the review can begin.

Love. Betrayal. Vengeance. Richly artistic cinematics explore the depths of the human psyche and emotional repression . . . or something. Capcom gives these stylish but laughably-voiced cinematics the treatment they deserve by making them skippable and shoving them between levels so they don’t interfere with the action.

Ico was born with horns on his head. It may look like he’s wearing a helmet, but those two buggers are rooted to the bone. Although such an unfortunate devil-horned child would today undergo scientific study and vivisection, Ico lived in less tolerant times. Local villagers shunned the young boy, believing him cursed; his kin fervently waited for the day he would die. On his twelfth birthday, Ico was carried off by dark horsemen to an enchanting but ominous castle built atop a wave-washed cl...

In their efforts to show off how much they know, more than a few Capcom enthusiasts are quick to point out that Devil May Cry was originally intended to be the fourth official Resident Evil. Not only is this statement irrelevant (and possibly false) but it’s also misleading: Devil May Cry mirrors the Resident Evil series neither in play nor in pacing.

No other game opens quite like Ys.

No longer content to wear a smiling yellow mask, death incarnate now dons a frightening visage of hollow-eyed contempt and clenched-teeth ferocity. The kindly divinities of biblical lore have fallen before the fourfold might of the Godhand, an unholy gathering of macabre cenobites inspired by Clive Barker’s hellraising quartet. Brought together by the baleful cry of a suicidal man’s selfish prayer, grandmaster Void and his compatriots Slan, Ubik and Conrad have summoned a menagerie of grotesqu...

Welcome to the most boring review ever written.

Gaming vultures (Cathartes bokosuka) love to peck at the defenseless corpses of perished consoles, gouging out the most nauseous remnants of inhumanity. With its library of full-motion video games, some of which lack enough frames of animation to literally qualify as “full-motion”, the Sega CD serves many a dish for these voracious, merciless, insatiable, sadomasochistic scavengers. I’m not like that. I don’t derive sensual pleasure from feeding on decomposition; I look for the strong ...