Carolyn Petit

UFO 50 is an incredible ode to one of the most exciting eras in gaming history

The doomed friendship between Optimus Prime and Megatron is the best thing about this animated prequel

The Crimson Diamond brings back a staple of early adventure games, to terrific effect

With both Abathor and Volgarr the Viking II out now, fans of barbarian sidescrollers are eating well

God, Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is so frustrating. I’m this close to absolutely adoring this assortment of timed challenges from NES games. In many ways, it feels like it’s designed precisely for NES sickos like me, folks who have an enduring fondness not just for well-regarded classics like The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros. but also for the rougher, more frustrating first-party games on Nintendo’s first console, like Ice Climber. But one huge, glaring flaw holds it back,…

Today, as part of Geoff Keighley’s big Summer Game Fest kickoff festivities, we got our first glimpse of Alan Wake 2’s first DLC expansion, Night Springs. Part of what made Alan Wake 2 itself such an intriguing experience was the way in which it often seemed to be operating on multiple levels of reality and meaning all at once, and, if anything, Night Springs seems poised to take this playful metatextual approach even further. I recently got a hands-off glimpse of some of what we can expect in N…

You wouldn’t know it looking at Marvel’s video game output over the past decade or so, but the X-Men have a long and storied history in the medium. There are certainly some duds like The Uncanny X-Men on the NES from 1989, but by and large, the mutant team has been the star of some pretty important moments in Marvel’s interactive offerings. A Wolverine game is on the way from Spider-Man developer Insomniac Games, and the studio has exclusive rights to the heroes for the next decade.The future…

YouTuber and video game documentarian Summoning Salt has made a career out of chronicling remarkable tales of competition and achievement in speedrunning. He’s so good at capturing the inherent drama in these struggles that his videos routinely rack up millions of views, whether he’s recounting the history of Super Mario Bros. 3 world records or world records in Wii Sports Resort golf. His latest video, however, may be his most jaw-dropping. It’s all about the history of world records (and other…

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth has a lot of mini-games. Some might argue it has too many, some also might argue that there are more than we put on this list. The truth is, Rebirth is full of so many diversions from the strategic, action-based combat that you could argue anything that doesn’t have protagonist Cloud Strife swinging his giant sword around is a mini-game. We are trying to not get too in the weeds about what is and isn’t a mini-game, and go with what is most obviously outside of the game’…

If you asked me what I think the best game of the ’80s is, I’d have a hard time answering. There are just so many hugely important and amazing games of that era, from Ultima IV to Out Run to Super Mario Bros. 3. If, however, you asked me what the most ’80s game is, I’d answer you right away: Contra. Even before 1987’s Predator hit theaters, Contra hit arcades with its iconic commandos-in-the-jungle action. And though it soon became a cliche for a game’s “ordinary” world to give way to H.R. Giger…