The question falls apart once Kengo is mentioned. Depending on you ask, Kengo is either truly amazing in how realistic it is or really boring in how overly realistic it is. I’m in the first camp but we’re talking about the most samurai game that would be fun to roughly anyone. Not the most Dark Souls of samurai games.

A Tale of Two Clans

That’s where we get to Way of the Samurai on the Playstation 2. It came out in 2003 and had you take the role of a ronin who arrives in a small town facing change as the new, foreign-influenced government rolls in. Yes, we’re out of the Tokugawa Era and now we’re in the Meiji Era. It’s 1878 and Japan has been opened.

There are two main factions fighting for power in the area, the Kurou Clan, lead by Tesshin Kurou, has had power for years and wants to hold on against the new government. The problem is that the new government, heavily influenced by western innovation and culture, have the advantage in weaponry.

To prevent loses, the Kurou opt to sell the iron foundry in the area but have to deal with the villagers who won’t leave. Mind you, it looks like everyone already bounced outside a few villagers and the rival clans. The village is bare, just about devoid of life and its just weird how the Kurou assaults the few folks still left.

The other clan is the Akadama Clan was formed by the illegitimate son of Kurou’s leader. Young and hotted, Kitcho wants to defeat the Kurou whom he can feels are traitors and smash the Meiji government. Tall orders right? Especially when your base of operations is a near ghost town where the population is mainly split between your two clans!

Where It Shines

There are two areas where Way of the Samurai shines. The first is the gameplay, it’s a straight up slash ‘em up action game. In some ways its similar to Samurai Warriors or Dynasty Warriors only you’re not mashing square over and over until its time to pop a Musou attack and clear the room. Instead, it’s a not-as-flashy version of the Warriors approach and it works since you’re not fighting on wide battlefields.

It’s also cool that you collect swords from fallen foes and can have them improved. Of course, since you only have a handful time to make money to do this. Also, you can only have two or three swords at a time. Swords gained can dull and break, losing their effectiveness.

The other area where Way of the Samurai shines is the story. Depending on your actions the game can take several different paths for six endings. You can avoid conflict and just leave Rokkotsu Pass without becoming involved or removing your sword. You’re also able to pick one of the clans or side with the villagers–all four of them.

From there, depending on how you carry out certain missions for the faction or what time of day that you run into main characters, the story can branch off. Character deaths also play a role in how the story unfolds. Way of the Samurai was pretty much ahead of other games in this respect.

Verdict

The glaring flaw with Way of the Samurai is that you only have two days of story. This changes with the sequels but this game gives you a little time to do quite a bit of story. On one hand, there’s not really much going on in Rokkotsu Pass because there’s no villagers. On the other, there’s a lot going on, you just showed up at the tail end of everything.

The bright side to this limitation is that it cuts down on the whole “I’m just gonna run around aimlessly!” style of plan. Some love that, I’m not a fan of it and it’s boring to watch and do. Doing that in Samurai and the game is over before you know it.

That aside, the actual combat is very solid, allowing for heated duels and intense melees. It’s a combat mechanic that totally works. Definitely pick up Way of the Samurai if you can. It’s available on PSP and you’ll have to hunt for it Amazon or eBay–where it’s most likely worth more than it was at launch.

Rating: 7 out 10 (Recommended)

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

Like Destiny 2, WF is very much a live service game meaning it’s meant to stay active via constant seasonal content and updates as well as regular expansions. These games make their bread either by selling the expansion while the game itself is free, having stuff that can be purchased in the premium shop, seasonal passes—or all three. Oftentimes, all three are utilized since the seasonal pass and seasonal content keeps things alive.

Live Service is a Hard Road to Travel

Most of the time when a game is developed it’s either meant as a one-off story, a potential series-starter, or a sequel but it’s often a contained story that might get DLC before the studio moves on. They’re rarely meant to be live like the multiplayer modes of Call of Duty. Live service is more the realm of MOBAs and MMORPGs which come in as massively online experiences as soon as they’re installed.

As it would go, live services exist within MMO’s metropolitan area without having a residence in the city proper. But the studio has to be able to support it consistently. That means regular seasons every two to six months that have a theme and keep players involved and engage in the game world followed by an expansion.

The expansion serves as a mini-sequel or soft sequel without being a full-on sequel with a number and subtitle. Mind you, Bungie sells expansions for the price of a full game but those come around every year or two but they have the fanbase and the players tend to be enthusiastic even if there are elements they don’t care for much.

That’s ultimately what a developer takes this road wants: a dedicated fanbase for the title. You only get that with rewarding missions and gameplay and an engaging, constantly evolving story. The mix of this concoction varies from game to game and developer to developer but those who apparently hit that perfect mix for them tend to stick around for a long time. Sprinkle in free-to-play and boom!

Much like Warframe.

Warframe is Hanging in There

Again, released in 2013, WF is a sci-fi third-person shooter where you as a recently unfrozen Tenno—humanoid warriors who are one with their bio battle suits—to combat a variety of alien lifeforms. Tennos utilize different kinds of weaponry as they take on galaxy-spanning missions to deal damage and defeat these hostile lifeforms.

Typical sci-fi stuff, really. Like other live service games, a premium store where things and currency can purchased that can be used with any particular in-game mechanic. There’s always a special currency with these types of games—such as platinum in Diablo IV.

The story is just enough that a developer can keep going with the game while throwing in storyline stuff and pushing the main story along every few years. What keeps players engaging with WF is some fun gameplay, decent gameplay, cosmetics and better gear to snag, and a leveling system players can work on.

The goal is to make it challenging and rewarding for the dedicated players and accessible enough for new and returning players. It’s a real tightrope act because if you make things too easy, your diehards are going to be annoyed since their effort for years prior might come off as pointless. However, if things are too difficult or convoluted, that’s a good way to not see return players or retain them.

You simply end up with your diehards who—while loyal—you can never truly satisfy. There will be something they didn’t enjoy and those players are regulars and might be familiar to the team. The loudest and rowdiest tend to have a voice in the core community.

Of course, that all only matters if you’re really involved with the community. If you’re not in the official Discord or on their forums, it doesn’t matter. You’re here to play the game. With that said, Warframe has a dedicated community that keeps the game alive and keeps the devs busy.

There are a few games that should be watched to see how this is done. While WF doesn’t have the live population of Diablo IV or Destiny 2, it has stayed alive for over a decade with a population often in the lower five figures.

Do you play Warframe, Diablo IV, or Destiny 2? What keeps you playing and what would make you take a break from the grind and the loop? As always let us know!

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

For those who never experienced it or played the game when it ended on storefronts, Kingdoms of Amalur was an open-world action RPG taking place in fantasy world brimming with magical and ancient dangers, well-crafted lore, and a good amount of quests and side quests to keep you busy.

Following a decent character creation process, the main character’s story begins after challenging Fate and reviving after certain death. There is a brutal conflict going on but the Gnomes are busy conducting research into resurrection and getting their Well of Souls working.

The MC proves to be a success and of great interest to one researcher who accompanies the MC in escaping hostile forces and puts them on the path to finding out more about their new existence. Along the way, the main character experiences many adventures while also lending their power to the difficult forces combating the Tuatha and more regional dangers and threats.

Kingdoms of Amalur Had a Lot Going for It

Honestly, that’s as brief an explanation of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning (or Re-Reckoning, the remaster). There’s a lot of stuff going on here. It featured everything that would’ve been standard for an open-world game at this time.

You have your farming of materials, crafting, a decent-sized skill tree with flexibility for some flexible build crafting, rewarding side quests and encounters that allow you to test and stress your progress and build.

The developer, Big Huge Games had a boatload of ideas and managed to put the majority together and craft their mechanics around them. And it works! Whenever I installed this game, I ended up sinking hours into the quests, building up my Fateless One (the main character who exists beyond Fate which governs the world), and crafting gear and weapons to better utilize those skills.

It’s all stock open-world RPG fare but it’s all put together in a way that works and is actually fun. In addition, you had two creative powerhouses in fantasy and comics with novelist R.A Salvatore and writer/artist Todd McFarlane fleshing out the setting of the Faelands, its lore and inhabitants.

What I found interesting about all of this is that at the time of its release, visually Kingdoms of Amalur looked like nothing too special. There were definitely that looked better crafted graphically but Amalur was far from a horrible-looking game. In some ways it existed between slightly dated and of its time but didn’t come off as a game that would push the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, or gaming PCs of the early 2010s.

The World and Scale

Instead you had regions that were colorful, bold, and at times dark and gloomy. You actually felt that your Fateless One was engaged in this large, lengthy quest where you decided how it progressed. Adding to this was the scale of the world. You could look at the map and see what region your were in and which ones were close but traveling through these areas wasn’t exactly a quick jaunt.

You were going to clash with enemies and beasts, you would be distracted by loot and stories, and enticed by exploration. The size of different areas within a region encouraged exploration and after a few encounters, that curiosity in what else could be gained as far as gear and weapons.

I would say this is what really kept me in Amalur: the scale and crafting. Sure, the combat was fine but the possibilities and tiers of crafting material and what could be made had me trying to create the best possible gear for my adventures. The game encouraged that heavily but made it so that if you were into combat, there was plenty of that but you had to explore to be more effective.

Fate of the Kingdom

Ultimately, Kingdoms of Amalur managed to move a million copies but the developer closed due to financial factors as EA had to be repaid for investing a significant amount into the project. Also, the development itself had some issues that seemed to be am indication of how things would shake out for the end product.

Despite the cash sunk into Amalur, there were unfavorable takes into different elements of the game. It was viewed favorably enough to warrant a remaster by Kaiko roughly eight years later. While there is a potential series or even a franchise there, Amalur hasn’t seen much interest or movement in future entries.

Share your thoughts on Kingdoms of Amalur. With the other RPGs of a similar vein out and thriving at that time, did you have expectations of a sequel? Or did you gather that “Too much was out into this game, it was going to get the axe and thrown in the vault”?

Let us know!

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

There are many directions some games could’ve taken, even the blockbusters and Greatest Hits. We’re going to look at five odd adventures (good and bad) from the Sega Genesis era. I’ve mainly lived in a PlayStation, Nintendo, and PC household but in the 1990s there were some memorable journeys on the Genesis.

Let’s dive in!

Sonic Spinball (Sega, 1993)

Pinball games on a console used to seem a little lazy to me and that’s mainly as a result of having played Sonic Spinball. It’s not that the game was bad, it was actually a lot of fun. It’s just pinball with a Sonic the Hedgehog theme that worked. I remember thinking that Sega should’ve dropped another Sonic game for the Genesis…only for them to drop them awesome Sonic 3 the following year.

This was the age of quick turnaround for non-sports games. What made this game more odd is that there was no sequel. Just “Here’s some Sonic in the meanwhile.” Alex Kidd Pinball would’ve probably bothered me less because Alex Kidd had long since been shafted and thrown in the vault. If there was no sequel, it would be expected. It’s Alex Kidd.

Unfortunately, Alex Kidd was all stiff (as were many video game characters from the Master System and NES period) and couldn’t ball up and spin like Sonic and Tails could. On that note, Sonic Spinball has mobile gaming potential.

Chuck Rock II: Son of Chuck (Core Design, 1993)

The character Chuck Rock had one game on multiple consoles including the Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Game Boy, and Game Gear. It was also on some Atari consoles (not too unusual) but it was just that 1991 game. There wasn’t a ton of Chuck Rock games, he wasn’t a character who became a promoted star from a long-running franchise. He was just there, saving his girl in a Flintstones-meet-Super Mario sense.

Two years later, Chuck Rock Jr is off to save his father in a Flintstones-meets-Donkey Kong Jr sense. The game was fine as a platformer and had fun enemies and boss battles, it’s just an odd adventure when you hadn’t played the first Chuck Rock. Of course, after playing Chuck Rock II, you’ll find that it makes sense why there was no Chuck Rock III. Besides the studio closing down years later, there was nowhere else to go with the series.

Krusty’s Fun House (Acclaim, 1992)

It’s the 1990s, The Simpsons run the world and it makes sense that there would be games based on The Simpsons on multiple consoles. It’s just odd that we have a game based on Krusty the Clown who is built like Homer Simpson but doesn’t get into the overly involved situations that Homer gets into.

Sure, Homer has a gut and is at home on the couch any day of the week but he’s out and about doing something. Krusty? Not so much. This isn’t to say it was a bad title or that all Simpsons games should feature Bart. This game was fun and there was an Itchy & Scratchy platformer.

To a degree, it’s the idea of a Simpsons puzzle game. This could’ve been any game. It was actually another game that was given the Simpsons coat of paint because why develop something from scratch when you could just re-design the setting and main characters like Super Mario Bros. 2?

Revolution X (Midway, 1994)

Revolution X was an arcade shooter that was ported to the Sega Genesis. It is best known for being the game that features Aerosmith. They’re not playable characters but they are collectible. This is the only outright bad game on the list because it was often dicey when an arcade shooter or even a PC shooter was ported to the Genesis or Super NES.

But that’s to be expected. No, the odd thing here is we’ve got a band shooter. This isn’t a run-n-gun affair. It’s not a DOOM situation either. This is more like Area 51 or House of the Dead. The game is filled with odd design choices. You’ve got women in bikinis but few on the beach, you’re fighting with a hostile group, and Aerosmith has been kidnapped.

I mean at this time, Aerosmith was delivering the goods but I just don’t know about putting the band and a shooter (or any genre together). Then again, it could’ve been an early 1990s Kiss shooting game.

Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool (System Vision, 1992)

Hmm. Both the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo were no stranger to bad mascot games. Every mascot game can’t be Cool Spot but they can aspire to be Global Gladiators. Chester Cheetah: Too Cool to Fool meets the standard set by Global Gladiators. That is to say it’s mediocre at best but no one would say it was a good or great game.

Mechanically, it worked like most mascot or cartoon platformers from this period with the stiff jumping and movement. I remember my dad bringing this game, Krusty’s Fun House, Tecmo Super Bowl, and Klax from a Friday jaunt to the video store.

It was a dreadful haul but this was the one I played the most since the Cheetos Paws was my favorite snack at the time. You don’t have to reserve judgement and no grace is warranted, I also bought the Combo Man comics because I liked the Combo pretzel snacks.

The odd nature of this game comes from the game obviously not being good but Frito-Lay being invested in it because it was part of an advertising run that was supposed to include a Chester Cheetah cartoon. The toon was canceled but we got two Chester Cheetah games.

Again, this one wasn’t good at all. It was a little under mid, didn’t feature anything new or unique, looked like an early Genesis title (which it was) but someone said “Make another. The streets want another.”

I mean, I wanted another Cool Spot and more Taz-Mania games but never mind that. Much like the Geico cavemen only working for commercials and not warranting a whole television show, Chester Cheetah didn’t need ongoing adventures in video game form.

What are some odd games you’ve played that you feel probably shouldn’t exist. Let us know in the comments!

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

It’s a slower burn but Little King’s Story even eased that to where it was manageable for players not familiar with RTS. The Wii was meant to reel in all kinds of gamers despite experience, genre preference, or free time. Little King’s Story was somewhat different in that RTS aren’t exactly “I’ll play a bit and come back to it later.”

No, like RPGs, simulation games, and strategy games; once you start it up, you’ve pretty much accepted that you’re going lose time in that day. Again, this game dropped in 2009 and was well-received, so where are the sequels?

Where’s Little King’s Story?

LKS was developed by Cing, a defunct indie developer that went under in 2010, just under a year after releasing this title. Most their titles were on the Nintendo DS with a run of roughly seven years. You could say they got a lot done before shuttering.

Their work included games in the Another Code and Hotel Dusk series as well as the DS debut of Monster Rancher. Of their games Little King’s Story and Monster Rancher DS were the two I played the most.

It was an interesting time in gaming with the Nintendo printing money despite having a home console that was underpowered and lacked the expected features of that period, an approach that has continued into the Switch 2. If anything, Cing should’ve made money as well due to its close working relationship with Nintendo starting in 2005.

An issue could’ve been the pace at which Nintendo released games (which is still on the sluggish side) but that’s mainly with its first party games. The company takes its time for Mario and Zelda for quality reasons. Think how long it was between Metroid Prime 3 and the fourth entry release in 2025. In that 19-year period, we saw a number of remasters, spinoffs. Mind you, Prime 4 came out roughly four years after the previous main installment Metroid Dread, which is a solid amount of time between main games in a franchise if there are no other major titles being developed.

Again, all of that is for a first-party game being developed by Nintendo’s own development teams. Cing was an indie developer who happened to have a regular working relationship with Ninty. The fate of Little King’s Story was up in the air.

The Game Ended on a Cliffhanger

With Cing shut down, the rights to LKS fell to Marvelous, which published the game in Japan on the Wii. On paper, that looks fine since Marvelous is still putting out games regularly and working on titles in known properties. They’re active but they have a lot on their plate with their own titles and others.

While LKS is one of their titles and proved to be a popular title, that was in 2009-2010. Gaming has changed a lot since then and a title like Little King’s Story might appear dated or unpredictable in performance compared to its tried and true titles Rune Factory, Story of Seasons, and Senran Kagura as well as handling Monster Hunter Stories, No More Heroes, and Valhalla Knights.

Now, I regularly bring up titles that I’d like to see revived and believe that developers technically have a new franchise in an older one if we haven’t seen anything from that franchise in decades. I’m still waiting on Capcom to drop another Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance. However, LKS like Beat Down has gone too long without anything new or fresh to get a franchise going.

It’s unlikely that a Little King’s Story 2 that continues from the game’s ending is developed and we likely won’t see a reboot. It would take Marvelous having a “what’s old is new again” approach similar to TV and film studios with these sitcom revivals and continuations.

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

I still have the physical copy and enjoyed it when I played it. Mind you, it was the kind of enjoyment you got from having only a few games and that game being one of the better ones of the bunch. When I played it over ten years later, I had experienced better beat ‘em ups since then and revisited better ones that came out before and during 2002. Beat Down: Fists of Vengeance being a good example.

E.O.E and Its Flaws

One of the issues E.O.E had was the camera which I’d say contributed to the difficulty. Mind you, the game had a manageable difficulty that wouldn’t have you putting the game down and revisiting hours later. You could chunk through this game in a week at the longest and only get mildly frustrated. The cause of that frustration: the camera which had you taking hits that should’ve easily been dodged or blocked.

I say “easily” because the foes in this game weren’t exactly programmed to be proto-Dead Souls or anything. Of course, slash ‘em ups tend to require more patience and timed evasion and blocking. Beat ‘em ups have developed to require that level know-how while playing.

However, in the early 2000s they were still pretty straightforward with the main change being the setting of a 3D arena. If early the PSX  and Nintendo 64 showed us anything: 3D needs a camera that isn’t cheeks. It really helps to be able to see around your character fluidly. This was an issue with Eve of Extinction.

Another issue that was more tolerable was a basic, mostly uninteresting storyline. The main character Josh has a weapon containing his girlfriend Eliel that can change during gameplay. Basically, it can be whatever you might need for the combat situation you’re in. That would be great if E.O.E wasn’t in that weird space of fun combat but having bricks for enemies.

Again, it was 2002, so no one was really expecting Ghosts of Tsushima or Metal Gear enemies. Instead, it was more like Spider-Man: Maximum Carnage or early Dynasty Warriors scrub soldiers just marching in to get spanked. The enemies were so uninteresting, that it’d be hard to go into the bosses in the game outside of their AI being better than the rank and file scrubs.

That’s expected but nowadays you have situations where field bosses, sub bosses, and even a few scrubs that prove to be more of a problem than the bosses. The Borderlands series tend to have a number of them across multiple games.

Was There Any Hope for a Sequel?

With any older game or series, I like to dive into sequel or reboot potential. Often you hear from gamers that there are few original concepts or games being put out by the larger studios or that franchises are getting run into the ground. The magic solution to fixing that is to come up with something new that isn’t a sequel to something we’ve played for the past decade.

I’ve always felt that an easier solution would be to revive or reboot a title that is collecting dust in a developer’s vault. If we haven’t seen the game in a long while, see what can be changed or built upon. There are more mechanics and storytelling is better now than 20 years ago in games.

E.O.E: Eve of Extinction is one of those games that would need to be rebooted before moving it into a sequel. The original wasn’t that good or memorable from start to finish. I remember more about R.A.D: Robot Alchemic Drive than E.O.E and that was another mid-at-best title from the PS2 era.

At the time, there was no hope for a sequel in part because the solo game ended in a way that one game was enough. It was a standalone story and as it was, no one was really clamoring for another trip into Josh’s world to deal with a revived Wisdom Company.

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

Two strengths for Saints Row included always having fun locations and its turf war approach. We’re going to look at both.

Location, Location, Location

Open-world crime games typically run with a fictional location inspired by a real world city. GTA has Vice City (Miami), Liberty City (New York), and San Andreas (Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas) while Mafia has Lost Haven (Chicago), Empire Bay (mostly New York), and New Bordeaux (New Orleans).

Saints Row has its own fictional areas with Steelport and Stillwater being the two main focuses. The 2022 reboot introduced Santo Ileso which is based on Las Vegas. It’s another strong location but there were a few things that didn’t make this a contender for replayability for me. It wasn’t a dismal game but it wasn’t as fun of an adventure as the previous four were.

That’s for another time.

Stilwater in Saints Row 2 and Steelport in SR: The Third were my favorite locations in the franchise. The player spent the first SR game assisting in taking a small gang to the top of the city only to wake up from a coma and find the gang in shambles. Not only that but they’ve lost a lot of turf and parts of the city are changing.

Mind you, between the first and second game—canonically five years apart—the city grew in size. That just meant more room to groove, more space for chaos, and more activities! You could even go on the stroll in SR2. That was very new when you’re used to just picking up sex workers in GTA games and having them drain your money while the car rocks.

In SR: The Third, the gang has gone from a recovered street gang to gangsta celebrities. They’re in a different city away from their power base of Stilwater and the Ultor Corporation isn’t the threat here. Steelport is run by The Syndicate which is made up of three gangs. There’s also the threat of the government’s anti-aging task force which has shown up to drop the hammer.

At the time, there were grumblings about the new location but there will be grumblings about any particular feature or element of a game. I did find the city to be not as active as Stilwater while appearing to be larger—which is always a problem.

That aside, what you were able to do in the city and missions that had you out and about in Steelport were very fun. It also helps that the team you put together in SR2 are better rounded out which is something that would continue in SR4 with the characters having matured while remaining immature and bringing in some new faces.

Turf Wars in Saints Row

Turf wars or gang wars made their debut in open-world crime gangs with GTA: San Andreas. Saints Row, The Godfather, and to a degree Mafia improved on that mechanic. Of the three, Saints Row did the most with it because it was tied closely to the gameplay and story.

Volition got away from that element somewhat in SR4. Sure, there’s still turf to fight for but your main character The Boss is trapped in a simulation and the main opposition comes from an alien controlling things.

No, the first three Saints Row games and to a lesser degree the reboot got turf wars right. Rival gangs were introduced, they were prominent in areas they controlled, and the main missions focused on taking them down and taking over their spots. Success resulted in some perks for the gang, being able to go through a piece of turf without enemies lighting you up, and seeing Saints purple on the map indicating your territory.

Sometimes the battles were pretty spicy, especially if the law showed up or were just passing by. Most of the times, it was your usual slam all the enemies in this mission until you wipe the waves or achieved some objective. In some ways, it was very straight forward but it wasn’t purely “clap the ops to sleep.”

That was the San Andreas approach and sometimes it didn’t work when a stray Balla gang member was stuck somewhere or at the border of the block or turf you were fighting over and you couldn’t find them. It was always that one guy.

If you’ve played the Saints Row franchise, what was your favorite and least favorite title? Also, it was mentioned in passing but have you played The Godfather?

As always, let us know down below!

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

Now, I’m not as hardcore a Destiny 2 player as my younger brother. As a matter of fact, while I did catch the most recent “World’s First” raid, I wasn’t heavily active during the expansion launch. A large part of that had to do with crashes on PlayStation 4.

However, as far as Destiny 2 creators and keeping up with news, I follow to a degree. Even while playing, unless I’m playing with my brother, I tend to get in and find activities where I can just get in and slam such as Iron Banner, strikes that are on the shorter side, or just public events. I’m not particularly interested in jumping puzzles or figuring out mechanics, two important ingredients in the franchise’s gameplay.

Destiny: Rising Launches

I had come across Destiny: Rising on the Google Play Store when it was still in the pre-register phase. Mind you, I didn’t pre-register as I was looking for another game to play. Since it was a bigger mobile game—I don’t reckon Sony or Bungie would get on board with a trash mobile title—it would remain in the “For You” section until launch.

After my brother reminded me that it had launched, I logged on the day after launch and dove into the issues of Haven, the hub city of Destiny: Rising. As mentioned above, this is a sequel to the main Destiny games and I’d say that so far, it’s a good entry.

I’m still going through the story—in true Destiny fashion, character really chat. Everyone’s a yapper in the game and the urge to hit “Skip” was ever present. Fortunately, some cutscenes allow the player to double the speed as a soft skip. I feel this should be for all cutscenes and cinematics.

Move it along, already.

It should be noted that as a NetEase title, there’s the expected gacha element here. It’s actually an important element of the gameplay since the characters are all built to substitute for the more focused build and gear crafting of the main titles.

Characters and Build Crafting

That isn’t to say this game is pick-and-play. The Guardians (characters) all have a light element: solar (fire), void (gravity/space), and arc (lightning). Stasis (ice), strand (kind of like void and stasis) and prismatic (all abilities) aren’t featured yet. However, in true gacha fashion, expect more characters to drop and some to be loaded up with the best skills of those elements.

In Destiny 2, players are free to jump among elemental subclasses as desired and craft builds around certain abilities and aspects. Over on Destiny: Rising, the characters have pretty much settled into their most proficient subclass. The player just has to select the best Guardian for the activity.

Players will get to do some build crafting here but it’s streamlined for both mobile gameplay and how players tend to play mobile. For those who have explored Destiny 2, you will know it’s a bit of a time investment regardless of your skill level. Whether you’re mainly a PvP (player vs. player) or PvE (player vs. environment) gamer, you’re sinking time into the game because there’s so much to manage, improve, craft, and hunt for—never mind actually getting into the adventuring, raiding, and dungeon delving. It’s not necessarily a game where you can jump in for 10 minutes here and there for bite-sized, quick sessions.

In Rising, the approach is geared mainly towards shorter sessions or if you really want to just drain your battery. On the road to team level 61 at the time of writing this, I’ve hovered between both.

Back to the characters! They’re pretty much different subclasses with baked in builds—or abilities geared towards their intended combat and utility style. From there, you’re able to level up their relic abilities—the elemental powers Guardians can use in combat and improve your weapons.

If you haven’t gotten into Destiny: Rising, you might be wondering about armor sets and the like. Don’t worry about that, the focus is on weapons in DR—meaning the Guardians are just rocking with their established armor sets. No one’s running around with mismatched gear or anything.

All of that has been streamlined to cut down the micromanagement aspect of Destiny for mobile. There’s still micromanagement but the amount of stuff to manage is reduced.

Gameplay and Adventuring

I’m certain the build crafting and micromanagement are big draws of the franchise for some players but this game shines with the actual adventuring and in-the-field stuff. The activity and menu UI sets up everything in mainly one location while checking your ghost (your Light imbued companion who guides and revived you).

From the main story mission to PvE, PvP, PvPvE activities, players can find it here along with stuff like rankings, the map, season level, characters, and items. Just like the main games, selecting any kind of adventure or activity will get it started for matchmaking.

There are some adventures that require the player to travel to certain areas. The game will drop you in the region at the closest fast travel spot but there might be some hiking required to the objective. It occurs for some main story missions but for specific characters that aren’t Wolf, the game just drops you in the location their story takes place.

The gunplay in Destiny: Rising is really good. It’s not to the level of Destiny 2 but for a mobile adaptation, it’s really fun and easy to learn. The game allows the player to experience the game in third-person or first-person and I strongly remember going with first. When using super abilities, the perspective is snapped to third-person for the duration as it does in the main games.

I found it odd that third-person was even an option but NetEase Games tend to offer both.

Loot and Odds N’ Ends

Any combat activity or adventure rewards loot in the form of leveled engrams (which can have weapons, weapon mods, etc), one of the game’s various currencies, fragments that can make full engrams), weapon enhancement material, and miscellaneous loot that can be used for other activities.

For instance, you could get bait for fishing from doing strikes or whatever activity. Fishing itself rewards nothing but the fish and occasionally guns, but fish can be sold for fishing shop currency—which can then be used to purchase a variety of fishing and non-fishing goods.

Matchmaking for fire teams tends to be very quick. Very rarely have I left the matchmaking or mission screen because the matching was taking a while. Players are even warned that matchmaking could take a while because of a low participation pool (which I got twice).

Speaking of warnings, in a nice bit of a quality of life feature, Destiny: Rising warned me that a character mission would take at least 15 minutes. I greatly appreciated that.

Another warning: this is a gacha game as far as the meat and potatoes of its business. That means some characters can be purchased and getting the battle pass is recommended but not necessary. The extra bonuses are nice but the grind isn’t too bad in this game. Hell, I primarily grind strikes and other PvE activities…and fishing.

The first wave of characters can be gained via pulls using the associated currencies. Those can be purchased as well or gained as a potential reward. Expect Rising to push players more towards purchasing content when even better or more interesting characters are released.

As a matter of fact, two new characters have been announced as coming soon. All of that said, I say that Rising is a game worth playing.

Will you be play or pass on Destiny: Rising? If you’re already in, what are some of activities and characters you enjoy? Let’s us know in the comments and if you playing, feel free to add me: MetalSwift.

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

Gaming gives us that and simulation games apply that to occupation and business simulators to great effect. It’s essential to gameplay and keeping players hooked. But this isn’t about status screen UIs or human improvement, we’re looking at three simulators worth diving into right now.

All games but the second are available on PC and console.

Drug Dealer Simulator (Byterunners)

Currently, this has been my primary jam. It’s also my weekend stream starter before getting into some Cyberpunk 2077 shenanigans. Drug Dealer Simulator puts you in the role of a dealer, smuggler, street pharmacist, trafficker, and businessman all in one.

The player is dropped into a city under heavy lockdown with a hard stance against drugs. Eddie, the player’s mentor and plug trains the young trapper on how to do business, get drugs, launder money, and keeps him abreast of story-advancing developments. The narrator fills the player in on more granular aspects while giving an abrasive and humorous take of the trapper’s rise.

While a major aspect is giving out samples and making enough for sales and to hand off to your dealers, I find that the most enjoyable part is actually growing and cooking. Then again, I love crafting in games.

Byterunners have released Drug Dealer Simulator 2 and it looks great but for those who can’t play the sequel, the OG DDS is still a time-eating blast to dive into.

American Truck Simulator (SCS Software)

Honestly, either American Truck Simulator or European Truck Simulator 2 are a great pick for your simulation game session. It exists in this realm of having time limits on deliveries, fines for traffic infractions, and needing to gas up but also being extremely chill.

The most stressful parts tend to come from falling a bit behind on a delivery. Even worse when is cutting it close, being at the destination but being unable to get the truck and trailer in the loading area exactly.

Beyond that, the player mainly  manages their trucking career, handles their skill points, purchase trucks and upgrades. As the game advances and the player makes more cash from deliveries, they can invest in their own trucking company and hire drivers NPC to do deliveries.

There’s also an online mode where players join other truckers for convoys. It’s not a mode I’ve explored heavily but it was fun doing deliveries through Nevada and hearing my fellow trucker lamenting about traffic up ahead.

Of the games in this list, I’d say American/Euro Truck Simulator has the best music. It uses streaming radio in-game and it works perfectly as traveling music with a lot of variety. This is also the game with the most longevity. The games are all addictive and the player might have fun in restarting or advancing their businesses further but the Truck Simulator titles are different in that it’s as close to a perfect balance of chill and challenge.

That goes a long way for simulation games and replay value.

Gas Station Simulator (DRAGO Entertainment)

Now this is a game that increases the stress of cops chasing the player in DDS while also having a chill approach like the Truck Simulator games. Sure, placing and stocking shelves is easy (as someone who has done it, it depends) but keeping the store clean and seeing that tour bus pull up to the gas station is another story.

Most of the week, it’s basic dead end gas station in the desert business. Yeah, there’s an element of shadiness going on as far as cash flow but business is steady and manageable. However, the weirdest things go down in the gas station once the bus rolls in but the player is going to make a wad or two with the bump in business.

Managing inventory, store cleanliness and tending to the service at the pump are the player’s initial duties but eventually workers can be hired to manage that. There is stronger storyline here than in the other two entries and exploration plays a part in that. There are also a few other activities to get into outside of pure business.

What are some of your favorite simulation games and are there any you’re currently playing? Share in the comments!

Staff Writer; James “Metal” Swift Jr.

Gaming since 1989 and headbanging since 1999, James is a talented writer, podcast host, and lifelong comic book fan who loves all things old-school and retro. His passions include RPGs, wrestling, and classic gaming culture. You can also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.

Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’s Hyrule Was Pretty Bare

I first played Ocarina of Time in 1998, it was my Christmas game that year. The hype around in GamePro, Game Informer, and Nintendo Power was immense. Most of the gaming magazines at the time were into this game. The commercial for OoT sold me since I was heavily into fantasy stuff like Xena and Hercules at the time.

Now, for the power limitations at the time and this being Nintendo’s first attempt at something more involved—Link had an inventory and an armory all on his person—Hyrule Field was bare. Honestly, it should’ve been very safe to travel Hyrule Field.

Then again, when you see how spaced the major towns are, how they’re all set up on the border of the overworld map, and how dangerous it is just to get to Zora’s Domain, Goron City, and Kakariko Village…

Well, Kakariko Village isn’t a particularly dangerous trek but Goron City is within proximity of Death Mountain. Enough said. Considering that: who would bother leaving their towns? It’s just a trek from anywhere you’re coming from in Hyrule. There should be no issues traveling during the day. Decades later and I’m thinking “It would’ve been nice to have some bandits or orcs during the daytime.”

Link had a sword, Link had a shield: let Link slam! You could definitely slam if you headed into the different area maps en route to another town—day or night. Hyrule’s different chiefs/leaders didn’t have the best security in mind for their domains. I mean, I guess knights patrolled Hyrule Field but you never saw them.

Nintendo Has Done an Amazing Job with Hyrule Now

Nintendo would work on this over the decades to make Hyrule a world worth venturing through. In each Zelda title, you could see there was a goal to make the land of Hyrule more alive. Link should’ve had memorable interactions with the locals given he’s working to save the world.

The first step was in Ocarina of Time just by having a day-night cycle. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, you’d see more game exploring this mechanic. When paired with Zelda or Pokémon, it adds a sense of a passage of time for your adventure. This isn’t the longest day as it was in Pokémon Red or Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

The Wind Waker and The Skyward Sword opened the world up some more, there were more inhabitants of the world. Then we get to the Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom—the closest to the realization of a living Hyrule. I say “closest” because developers can always push an element of gameplay.

Just look at the open world in Fallout 3 compared to Fallout 4 where there are fewer settlements or towns that need a transition screen. There are more places that you merely walk into or open a door. Something as simple as that is big for a complete or perfect open world setting.

While it wasn’t a perfect open world and a lot of things that were promised just didn’t get done, Fable is a game where the open world managed to do some simplistic elements you’d expect. Such as: walking right into someone’s home without a brief loading or transition—a 2004 accomplishment.

On the note of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom: the addition of the player using any weapon they can get and those weapons having durability? Amazing combat mechanic, compliments to the chef.

This Is the Way

It’s not unusual for developers to “Bring the game back to its roots” but I say keep going forward with The Legend of Zelda. Go back to the roots for an action-puzzle project but for these titles with cinematic cutscenes, improved mechanics, dialogue, and lore pushing stories—make the quest an adventure. Keep it open world and let Link and the player to explore the world.

Why not? Link either constantly misses whole swathes of time because they’re in mystical eternal rest or has been reincarnated and lives in the boonies. Let Link experience the world. Don’t just shotgun one of Nintendo and gaming’s greatest heroes through towns they’re never revisiting and puzzle-riddled dungeon after puzzle-riddled dungeon.

Staff Writer; M. Swift

This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.