Reviews
Phantasy Star Review: The Master System’s Star Traveller
Alis Landale’s revenge quest across three planets, with first-person 3D dungeons, a talking cat and the greatest cartridge the Master System ever hosted. Our review.
Author: Sal Benedetto
From the Vault columnist. Grew up feeding quarters to the Ms. Pac-Man machine at his uncle's pizza place; still owns his childhood SNES and every Nintendo Power he ever begged his mother for. Writes the retrospectives and the hidden-gem hunts.
Features
Wii Hidden Gems: 10 Brilliant Games the Motion-Control Crowd Missed
Zack & Wiki, Muramasa, Little King’s Story and seven more: ten brilliant Wii games buried by the waggle era, and your digging guide to all of them.
Reviews
Xenoblade Chronicles Review: The Wii RPG That Outgrew the Wii
Two dead gods, one Monado and a fan campaign that dragged it West. Our review of Xenoblade Chronicles on Wii, the system’s great epic.
Reviews
Mario Kart Wii Review: Chaos, Wheel and All
Twelve racers, bikes, the Wii Wheel and an online mode fans refuse to let die. Our review of Mario Kart Wii, the people’s Mario Kart.
Reviews
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess Review: The Wii’s Dark Launch Epic
Midna, Wolf Link and the series’ best dungeons. Our review of Twilight Princess on Wii — the mirrored launch epic that carried a console.
Reviews
Super Mario Galaxy 2 Review: More Gravity, More Genius
Yoshi, Cloud Mario and the hardest challenge in Mario history. Our review of Super Mario Galaxy 2 on Wii, the sequel that out-invented a masterpiece.
Reviews
Super Mario Galaxy Review: The Wii Game That Defied Gravity
Nintendo’s 2007 masterpiece turned gravity into a toybox. Our review of Super Mario Galaxy on Wii — the planet-hopping platformer that still defines its console.
Features
Atari 2600 Hidden Gems: 10 Games the Crash Buried
Beamrider, Tunnel Runner, Montezuma’s Revenge and seven more superb 2600 games that the crash of 1983 buried before word of mouth could save them.
Features
Grim Fandango at 28: The Masterpiece That Ended an Era
Twenty-eight years ago today, Grim Fandango opened for business in the Land of the Dead. Tim Schafer’s noir adventure won Game of the Year in the greatest release year games ever had — and was still treated as the flop that killed its genre. This is its full story: the GrimE leap, Manny Calavera’s four-year journey, the empty till, and the remaster that brought it back.
Features
E.T., Alamogordo and the Crash: What Really Happened in 1983
Five weeks to make E.T., a real landfill in New Mexico, and a crash with far more causes than one game. We separate the myth from what the 2014 dig actually found.