Author - Branden Johnson

There is a lot to love about the current video game scene. Games that we couldn’t have begun to imagine in the 90s are coming out left and right with crazy premises that would never have gotten the greenlight from major...

If you frequent this space, you know I am pretty obsessed with classic games. To cap off a month spent largely at gaming conventions (the recent Midwest Gaming Classic and this month’s Bloomington-Normal Gaming...

In the early days of gaming, it was all about competition. Pong was a one-on-one deathmatch to determine who was the best… white square reflector. Okay, so maybe that’s a bit too grandiose a description of the classic...

This past weekend marked the 30th anniversary of the O.G. Game Boy. That means high-quality portable gaming has been a thing for almost my entire life, and I don’t think I really appreciated it until recently. Back in...

Gaming can be a lonely hobby. Even players who spend a lot of time in online deathmatches aren’t necessarily forming close bonds with the people they’re fragging, but if you’re primarily a single-player gamer, your...

I love some objectively bad games. But try not to think less of me. It’s not a matter of having bad taste; it’s a nostalgia thing. See, I’ve been playing games since I was really young. By really young, I mean barely...

The Switch is becoming the indie platform. It was an honor originally held by Xbox 360, then PlayStation 4 and Vita. But as Microsoft and Sony aim for the higher-volume pastures of AAA gaming (or focus on game streaming...

There was a time when video games could rely on only two buttons. Heck, there was even a time when video games relied on one, plus a joystick. Consoles like the Atari 2600 and the original Nintendo Entertainment System...

The gaming medium has grown a lot from its roots as a TV ping pong simulator. From 2D platformers to 3D role-playing games, from sports to fighter plane combat simulators, video games have encompassed almost every...

I am not a cell phone gamer. When a new, big game hits iOS, sure, I’ll download it and try it out, but rarely do I invest any significant time into the platform. Growing up with complex console games, I’ve found that...

I was fully ready to embrace the digital future. Despite nagging doubts that said digital purchases aren’t “owned” in the traditional sense, and any digital property can disappear forever at any time, I purchased a...

Nintendo surprised the world by dropping an addictive new game in last week’s Nintendo Direct presentation. And more surprising than its sudden launch was its price tag: free for subscribers to Nintendo’s online service...

Games like Fortnite and the new Apex Legends seem to foretell the direction of the games industry. Seriously, if a game can be free and still manage to make millions and millions of dollars, there must be something...

If you’re new to the Tales series, you might not understand why Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition is such a big deal. A remaster of a ten-year-old game? So what? I mentioned in my Tales of Remasters piece that the...

There have been a handful of handhelds in the past thirty years that have truly risen to prominence. The original Gameboy is perhaps the most famous, with hangers-on like the Sega Game Gear never able to match it. Then...

There’s no question that Kingdom Hearts 3 is a highly anticipated game. Years in the making, it’s been on gamers’ minds since Kingdom Hearts 2 released back in 2005. This isn’t some Duke Nukem Forever situation, either...

It would be easy to dismiss FutureGrind as a budget title without a lot to offer. After all, at first glance it appears to be a sort of rail-based platform racer without a ton of variety backing up the admittedly clean...