Wrestling and gaming have gone hand in hand together for decades now, but it’s rare that a game about wrestling actually experiments with the formula. Aside from WWF Betrayal, the Game Boy beat ‘em up, and Crush Hour, the Twisted Metal clone, pretty much all wrestling games focus on the wrestling itself, both in and out of the ring, so a game like WrestleQuest is actually quite refreshing in theory. However, while WrestleQuest turns the world of wrestling into a […]

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Did you grow up terrorized by the tales of religion that well-meaning family members told you as a child? If you did, and the subsequent nightmares that you had as a result still linger somewhere in the haunted part of your brain, then Blasphemous 2 is a game that is uniquely designed to make you uncomfortable. An amalgamation of the horrible punishments that have been inflicted on pagans, idolaters, and blasphemers throughout the ages as well as the horrifying tales […]

The post Blasphemous 2 (PS5) REVIEW – Tighter & More Fluid Religious Terror from Mike Worby appeared first on Cultured Vultures, Cultured Vultures - .

While id Software might be more well known for their work on DOOM these days, many still remember the days of playing Quake into the early hours, either taking the fight to the Strogg on their own turf or showing their friends that they rule supreme over LAN matches. Still, id Software haven’t fully forgotten about Quake, as they previously remastered the first game for modern consoles in 2021. Now, they’re back for Quake 2, and if you’ve been loving […]

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There’s a youthful energy imbued in every part of Videoverse. Its most obvious source is the youth of our teen protagonist, Emmett. Youth also emanates from the early internet age faithfully recreated in Kinmoku’s sophomore release. Back in 2003, the internet was in an awkward in-between stage – its own kind of adolescence. It was a wild-west really only properly inhabited by passionate communities of nerds and fanatics. As these spaces matured and corporations became attuned to how they could […]

The post Videoverse (PC) REVIEW – What’s Happening, Forum? from Abigail Shannon appeared first on Cultured Vultures, Cultured Vultures - .

Prior to Pikmin 4, I had never actually played a Pikmin game before. When the original came out on the GameCube, I was a kid who had to pick and choose which games to ask for, and Pikmin’s hectic-looking multitasking and puzzle elements scared me off. My first exposure to Captain Olimar and flower-headed children/soldiers was in Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Nintendo Wii. For Nintendo’s part, they didn’t seem too pressed to move new Pikmin games out the […]

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The adventures of the Lee twins have been sporadic over the years, whether they’ve been referred to as Billy and Jimmy, Bimmy and Jimmy, or “dem dragon dudes”. Fortunately, Arc System Works seems to be doing an excellent job of rehabbing this once great name in the beat ‘em up genre, even if it’s mostly by releasing retro compilations or having the iconic dragons make appearances in games like River City Girls. After a few years of the main spotlight […]

The post Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons (PC) REVIEW – Rising Up from Ash Bates appeared first on Cultured Vultures, Cultured Vultures - .

Capcom might have raised the hopes of many when the initial footage of Exoprimal showcased a main character with red hair and plenty of dinosaurs to shoot, but much to the chagrin of many, this isn’t the Dino Crisis reboot that the streets were hoping for. After that initial disappointment, Exoprimal faces an uphill battle to establish itself within the already crowded multiplayer shooter/live service market, and while Exoprimal is incredibly fun, its long-term shelf life could see it going […]

The post Exoprimal (Xbox Series X) REVIEW – Sub-Primeval from Ash Bates appeared first on Cultured Vultures, Cultured Vultures - .

Oxenfree II: Lost Signals respects your intelligence. The sequel to 2016’s cult hit analog horror gem wastes little time before establishing its connection to the previous title, and from this early foundation, this follow up branches out in all directions, creating a second entry that feels rooted in what came before without feeling entirely beholden to it. Such a balance is no easy feat, yet Lost Signals finds its strongest moments as a narrative, and as a game, when it […]

The post Oxenfree II: Lost Signals (PC) REVIEW – Analog Horror Plays The Hits from Ryan Stevens appeared first on Cultured Vultures, Cultured Vultures - .

AEW fans have been waiting for almost the entirety of the company’s lifespan for their official video game, with AEW: Fight Forever being one of the first non-wrestling related announcements that the promotion made. It was clear from the get-go that Fight Forever was a passion project for AEW EVP Kenny Omega, recruiting former WWE game developers Yuke’s to create a wrestling game that harks back to titles like No Mercy, Shut Your Mouth and WrestleMania XIX. For better or […]

The post AEW: Fight Forever (PS5) REVIEW – Close The Forbidden Door from Ash Bates appeared first on Cultured Vultures, Cultured Vultures - .

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is a puzzle game. It is also a murder mystery, a visual novel, and a Rube Goldberg simulator. More than all of these things, according to my Twitter feed when this port was first announced at least, Ghost Trick is a diamond in the dark, a forgotten titan that should have been lauded nonstop since its initial release on the DS in 2010. For a long time, the only thing I knew about Ghost Trick was […]

The post Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (PC) REVIEW – Resurrecting a Classic from Ryan Stevens appeared first on Cultured Vultures, Cultured Vultures - .

Aliens: Dark Descent is one of those games that’s so inventive and makes so much sense within the Alien IP that you wonder why it’s taken this long to create. An action RTS where you control Colonial Marines stranded on a planet infested by xenomorphs, Dark Descent tasks you with putting together crack squads of your own Hickses, Vasquezes, and Hudsons one terrifyingly tense deployment at a time. Faced against such an inhuman threat, your soldiers will either be forged […]

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2023’s Layers of Fear is one of the most confusingly marketed remakes of all time. From its original name (the fantastically terrible Layers of Fears) to it now sharing a name with the original game, it’s been a bit of an odd sell. In essence, the new Layers of Fear is an Unreal Engine 5 remake of all of the Layers of Fear content released so far, DLC and all, in one package with a new wraparound story that makes […]

The post Layers of Fear (2023) REVIEW – Fears for Fears from Jimmy Donnellan appeared first on Cultured Vultures, Cultured Vultures - .

Before I met my best friend, I thought video games were the slowest, most boring form of storytelling that existed. See, if the protagonist of a movie needed to get to the fifth floor, the film would just jump cut to him entering the fifth floor. In a video game, the protagonist (who is you) would need to climb multiple flights of stairs in order to get to the same destination. Substantial time has passed since then and I now […]

The post Fall of Porcupine (PC) REVIEW – A Slice of Pumpkin Pie from Joey Rambles appeared first on Cultured Vultures, Cultured Vultures - .

Probably the biggest compliment I can give Amnesia: The Bunker is that I absolutely dreaded playing it. Not because it’s a bad game, but because of just how scary it is. Trawling through dimly lit tunnels while a twisted beast scarpered through the walls as I tried desperately to get to safety before the generator’s fuel ran out never stopped being absolutely terrifying across three different playthroughs, but those playthroughs also never stopped being over just a bit too soon. […]

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Street Fighter 6 should be considered the benchmark for all future fighting games to aspire to, offering a total package that will appeal to newcomers, series veterans and everyone in between. It’s a bold claim to make right out of the gate, but Capcom have truly nailed it here, and you better not miss out on what’s going to be the new measuring stick for a whole genre. A far cry from the sorry state of affairs that Street Fighter […]

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