Joe La Russa

13

Jun

By Joe La Russa

Latest News, Summer Game Fest Coverage

Hands-On Preview : Crimson Moon

I hardly ever play souls-like games, and when I do, the closest to them is something like Stellar Blade. I open this preview up with that disclaimer because I want the reader to know that I do not write from the perspective of one experienced with this genre. With that…

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06

Jun

By Joe La Russa

Summer Game Fest Coverage

Preview : Awaysis : Furry Physics

Awaysis is a physics-based, co-op dungeon crawler developed by 17-BIT studio out of Japan. You play as one of a handful of critter-like characters as they make their way through various levels and environments and battle enemies along the way. The game is designed around co-op, with couch and online…

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27

May

By Joe La Russa

Latest News

Preview : Warhammer 40,000 Dark Heresy

In life, they say nothing is certain but death and taxes. Well, I think we need an addendum to that, it should really be death, taxes, and a new Warhammer video game. Games Workshop loves to license the Warhammer IP out, and Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy is the latest in…

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27

Apr

By Joe La Russa

Latest News, Reviews

Review : GreedFall The Dying World : Smothered In Its Crib

I really, really like GreedFall: The Dying World.  This is an unusual way to open a review, but I felt it necessary to begin by making that statement outright.  The game hits all the notes that I always hoped a sequel to GreedFall would hit in the RPG department: great…

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30

Mar

By Joe La Russa

Latest News, Reviews

Review : Life is Strange Reunion : Reunited and It Feels So Good

“Is the future inevitable? And, if not, just how much can we change without breaking reality itself?” These are two of the many questions at the heart of Life is Strange: Reunion, the next chapter in the Life is Strange series, developed by Deck Nine and published by Square Enix.…

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16

Jan

By Joe La Russa

Latest News

Impressions : Where Winds Meet

Where Winds Meet is a complicated game. It’s a game that tries to do a lot of things; some of them it does very well, while others it puts forth a good effort, and other still, it completely fails. It’s for this reason that this impressions piece comes two months…

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09

Oct

By Joe La Russa

Reviews

Review : Lost Soul Aside : Almost Found

In 2016, Sony Interactive Entertainment launched the first of its PlayStation Hero Projects, the China Hero Project, aimed at uplifting smaller, unknown developers from regions of the world that are underrepresented in the video game space. Amongst the first of these projects was a game from a solo Chinese developer,…

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21

Aug

By Joe La Russa

Latest News, Reviews

Review : Echoes of the End : Echoes of Great Potential

There’s a scene in the 2005 film remake of the classic television series Bewitched where Will Ferrel’s Jack Wyatt’s soon-to-be ex-wife is bewitched by Nicole Kidman’s Isabel Bigelow into signing the divorce papers and says, under a spell, that she’s moving out of the house that afternoon. When inquired as…

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16

Aug

By Joe La Russa

Latest News, Reviews

Review : Mafia The Old Country : An Offer You Shouldn’t Refuse

Picture it: Sicily, 1904. A young man, sold into slavery by his father, slaves away in a sulfur mine, with nothing to his name besides the long-held dream of freedom. After saving and scrounging, this young man and his only friend are mere months away from having enough lire to…

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17

Jun

By Joe La Russa

Latest News, Reviews

Review : MindsEye : MediocreEye

If you asked the average player of video games who Leslie Benzies is, the answer would likely be, “Who is she?” But if you said the same thing to virtually any game developer, now or over the last thirty years, the answer would almost immediately be, “the former Rockstar producer…

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13

Feb

By Joe La Russa

Latest News, Reviews

Review : Avowed : Awowed

In 2012, Obsidian Entertainment announced, launched, and funded what became, at the time, the biggest video game Kickstarter project in history: Project Eternity. Four million dollars and three years later, Project Eternity released to critical acclaim and commercial success as Pillars of Eternity, a traditional computer role-playing game, or cRPG,…

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04

Feb

By Joe La Russa

Articles, Latest News

The Death of Dragon Age Isn’t (Entirely) EA’s Fault

I love Dragon Age. Everyone who reads Seasoned Gaming content or watches the podcast I co-host, The X Button, knows that. So, the announcement of BioWare’s restructuring on January 29, 2025, the decision to lay off the vast majority of the creative minds (i.e., writers) who were not working on…

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20

Nov

By Joe La Russa

Latest News, Reviews

Review : Dragon Age The Veilguard : Less Chatting, More Clashing

Dragon Age: Origins is my favorite game of all time, and the Dragon Age franchise is my favorite franchise of all time. I have spent the last decade cringing, squirming, and, sometimes, screaming at a screen when people online claimed that Dragon Age: Inquisition only won the Game of the…

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04

Nov

By Joe La Russa

Latest News, Reviews

Review : Life is Strange Double Exposure : No Need to Rewind

“What do you do when you have the power to not just impact your own life and the lives of those around you, but the very fabric of reality itself?” The is the question that was posed by the original Life is Strange, developed by Dontnod and published by Square-Enix…

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23

Sep

By Joe La Russa

Articles, Latest News

Yakuza Trophies Suck…But I Love ‘Em Anyway

If you had asked me sixteen years ago, when PlayStation launched its trophies system, did I ever see myself sitting on a couch grinding out a rock, paper, scissors mini-game embodied by scantily clad Japanese women partaking in UFC-style combat to win ten tournaments (three rounds of “combat”) simply for…

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