QCF: Marvel's Spider-Man

ne of the most challenging aspects of a Superhero-driven Video Game is to emulate what it would be like for players to assume the role of said Superhero authentically. The wall-crawling teenager of comic book fame, Spider-Man, has had a storied, and admittedly mixed history of accomplishments in the gaming space, and it many of the Web-Head’s more recent titles had left the impression that he had finally peaked in terms of gaming.

But then Insomniac came along with an open-world approach that borrowed heavily from RockSteady’s Batman Arkham series—one that emphasizes frenetic movement that relies on all of the character flourishes that Spider-Man offered them, packed into a story-driven narrative that would push the character-action genre to the next level.

Marvel’s Spider-Man isn’t just a must-play for PlayStation 4 owners—it’s one of the most important games of this generation.

Click to read more ...

QCF: Song of the Deep

s vast as the ocean is, nothing compares to the depth that it hides below; there’s this whole other world that exists under the fathoms, upon fathoms of the sea’s underbelly. So one would imagine just how well the explorative dynamics of a Metroidvania-direction would complement that sort of setting, especially with the caliber of a developer like Insomniac Games at the helm—and Gamestop publishing it themselves to boot.

In spite of this surefire recipe for success however, Song of the Deep only manages to live up to be somewhat endearing at best, and hopelessly mediocre at worst.

 Yeah, I know; the review is already going downhill from the start but my impression just simply couldn’t help from being deflated by the fact that the game’s biggest flaw happens to be one of the most important elements to a successful Metroidvania title.

Click to read more ...

PPR Presents Play Play: Sunset Overdrive

hat do you get when you smash a trigger-happy trampoline town up with a shit load of pop-rocks and Tang? An awful mess; that’s what you’ll get, an awful, mess…

Or maybe you’ll get Insomniac’s Sunset Overdrive! Yeah, that’s it!

Join Andrew and George as they discuss the merits and fallings of the Xbox One Exclusive at a glance, and dive deep into the cooperative multiplayer, singularly-driven open-world action games, and George’s creepy love affair with Jorts.

Mail us at our new email Mailbag@presspauseradio.com, leave a voicemail at 469-PPR-TALK, and be sure to stop by at our Forums if you haven’t already registered and post your thoughts about the show. Finally, make sure to rate and subscribe to us on iTunes and YouTube, follow us on Twitch page and Twitter, and finally take part in our Facebook and Steam group!

QCF: Sunset Overdrive

t’s no secret that I take a particularly guilty joy out of the dichotomy that defines the éclat of video games—it’s a pretty silly identity crisis that I can’t but find amusing. On one hand, I want to the art and impact that video games create to continually expand into legitimate expression of art that can stand on par with some of the greatest literature and film ever produced by mankind, and yet on the other, I still want games to indulge into some of the stupidest shit imaginable.

Sure, that sounds unreasonably flippant, since making headway in one of directions would congruently set back the other, but I’d like to think that we can live in a world where gaming can cater to both of these worlds respectively—Insomniac’s Xbox One exclusive, Sunset Overdrive, is living proof of that.

Yeah, we live in a world where things like Deadpool and Tumblr have saturated our culture with facetious satire and fourth-wall humor to an obnoxiously pandering degree, but the latest effort from the same people behind Ratchet & Clank and Resistance, is one of the most refreshing games to have released in 2014. A world and action woven by the over-the-top chaos and fiction of this modern open-world odyssey of caffeine and attention-deficit youth has all the makings that truly define the special kind of enchantment that only a video game could offer.

Click to read more ...