Derek Johnson

2 days ago | jumpdashroll.com | Derek Johnson

Is it just me, or are there fewer survival games on the market than there used to be? Maybe I’m out of touch, but it doesn’t seem like it was that long ago when Steam was filled with post-apocalyptic craft-em-ups. Rust, DayZ, Seven Days to Die, Ark: Survival Evolved and Project Zomboid were all staples of the industry when I was in high school. The only memorable two that have released in recent memory are Palworldand Valheim, however.

2 weeks ago | jumpdashroll.com | Derek Johnson

Video game developers seem to have a weird obsession with haunted islands. There are dozens of them spread across every genre, and a surprising amount of them that are only available through DLCs. Oblivion: The Shivering Isles and Fallout 4: Far Harbor are probably the two most well-known, but there’s also Ghost of Tsushima: Iki Island, Crysis 3: The Lost Island, technically Dead Island 2: Haus, and likely a few others that don’t pop up on the first few pages of Google.

1 month ago | jumpdashroll.com | Derek Johnson

Sometimes, all you want to do in a video game is rip and tear. For as enjoyable as narrative-driven RPGs, mystery-filled puzzlers and adaptations of beloved movie franchises are, there’s a certain something about titles where the extent of your interactions with its worlds involve a shotgun. That’s what made the original DOOM  great, and what has kept the series relevant for over 30 years.

1 month ago | jumpdashroll.com | Derek Johnson

It seems like it’s been ages since an actually unique video game was released. Maybe I’m just jaded, but it seems like literally every video game I play these days is clearly inspired by something that came out at least a decade ago. Not for Broadcast, for example, is one of my favourite titles of all time, but it’s just Papers, Please mixed with V for Vendetta. Atomfallis Doctor Who combined with Sniper Elite. Highwatertakes XCOM’s gameplay and sets it in the world of Waterworld.

2 months ago | jumpdashroll.com | Derek Johnson

It seems wrong to call any game a “masterpiece” these days. When video game technology was constantly changing, it was possible for games to be objectively better than others. Battlefield 3, for example, looked and played and sounded better than Call of Duty 3, so it made sense for the former to be reviewed better than the latter.