Charles Battersby
Charles is a proud contributor to Explosion, as well as the Xbox/ PC Department Lead at Player Affinity, a weekly columnist for Default Prime, a reviewer at The Indie Game Magazine, and a Special Agent at the U.S. Department of Electronic Entertainment.
  • Defiance: Hands-On Preview

    The marketing term is “Trans media franchise”.  It means a project that appeals to consumers over a variety of mediums like movies, toys, video games...

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    The marketing term is “Trans media franchise”.  It means a project that appeals to consumers over a variety of mediums like movies, toys, video games and books.  Star Wars is the granddaddy of them all, quickly turning from an underdog film into a runaway toy line with novels, comic books, made for TV specials and...
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  • Indiecade East – Wrap Up

    Indiecade is the annual expo devoted to independent video game designers, a low-key assemblage of up and comers who offer alternatives to the blockbuster titles...

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    Indiecade is the annual expo devoted to independent video game designers, a low-key assemblage of up and comers who offer alternatives to the blockbuster titles of the current console generation.  Indiecade was previously confined to California but this year marked the first time that it came to the East Cost, specifically to New York City’s...
    817
  • Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance

    The Metal Gear franchise has earned its hardcore following.  Solid Snake and his exploits created the stealth genre, brought cinematic story-telling to the Playstation generation,...

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    The Metal Gear franchise has earned its hardcore following.  Solid Snake and his exploits created the stealth genre, brought cinematic story-telling to the Playstation generation, confused the hell out of early PS2 adopters and are responsible for selling plenty of PlayStation 3 consoles in the current generation.  Fans are right that the latest entry in...
    821
  • Hands-on With Neverwinter

    Dungeons & Dragons fans have an intense love for Neverwinter Nights, an amazing RPG series that dates back to the early 90’s, but was popularized...

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    Dungeons & Dragons fans have an intense love for Neverwinter Nights, an amazing RPG series that dates back to the early 90’s, but was popularized by Bioware in 2002.  It captured the vast amount of choice that D&D offered to players when creating their characters, and let virtual dungeon masters make their own adventures and...
    816
  • Craft The Perfect Killing Machine In Dead Space 3

    Isaac Clark is the unluckiest bastard in the whole damned universe.  He’s the poor sap who stars in the Dead Space games and, over the...

    Isaac Clark is the unluckiest bastard in the whole damned universe.  He’s the poor sap who stars in the Dead Space games and, over the course of the first two games, he lost his wife, went crazy, got attacked by monsters, and aroused the ire of a cult of Scientologists from space.  The third game...
    840
  • Bientôt l’été

    Bientôt l’été is not the sort of game that you beat, win, or complete.  It’s a quiet, thoughtful project that gives players a small location...

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    Bientôt l’été is not the sort of game that you beat, win, or complete.  It’s a quiet, thoughtful project that gives players a small location to wander, and a chance to interact with strangers in a deliberately limited manner.  The developer Tale of Tales has created some unconventional games over their career, including The Path,...
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  • Cognition Episode 1: The Hangman

    Cognition Episode 1: The Hangman arrived at the tail end of 2012, and it embodies everything about the past year in gaming.  2012 was the...

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    Cognition Episode 1: The Hangman arrived at the tail end of 2012, and it embodies everything about the past year in gaming.  2012 was the year that Kickstarter became a renowned funding source for indie games, and Cognition was one of those success stories.  2012 also saw the adventure game genre explode back into the...
    823
  • Black Knight Sword

    “It’s the new game by Goichi Suda”.  That’s all that many consumers need to hear.  Suda 51, the man behind No More Heroes, Lollipop Chainsaw...

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    “It’s the new game by Goichi Suda”.  That’s all that many consumers need to hear.  Suda 51, the man behind No More Heroes, Lollipop Chainsaw and Killer 7 has a new thing, and he will now accept your money for it.  Meanwhile, other game buyers will want to know crazy things like “Is it good”,...
    809
  • Night Whisper Lane

    Night Whisper Lane is an indie game in every sense of the word.  It is short, simplistic and the work of a small-yet-ambitious development team...

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    Night Whisper Lane is an indie game in every sense of the word.  It is short, simplistic and the work of a small-yet-ambitious development team that’s clearly running on limited funding.  It’s a point ‘n’ click survival horror game for iOS that uses turn-based combat and cruelly sends players up against deadly traps that threaten...
    809
  • Bladeslinger Episode 1

    All of the major gaming franchises get an iPhone adaptation and Devil May Cry 4 was no exception.  While it got good reviews, it was...

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    All of the major gaming franchises get an iPhone adaptation and Devil May Cry 4 was no exception.  While it got good reviews, it was still plagued by the same issue that face many games for iOS.  Namely that it’s hard to make an action game for a platform that has no buttons!  A new...
    813
  • A Paragon No More: The Final Hours of City of Heroes

    When Cryptic Studios launched their superhero MMO City of Heroes, it marked the beginning of a never-ending battle for freedom, liberty and justice.  Eight years...

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    When Cryptic Studios launched their superhero MMO City of Heroes, it marked the beginning of a never-ending battle for freedom, liberty and justice.  Eight years later that “never-ending” battle has come to a close.  The brave heroes of Paragon City have survived alien invasions, assaults from a mirror dimension, and the fiendish schemes of the...
    843
  • Can’t Wait For Bioshock Infinite? Try Minerva’s Den

    The first Bioshock was an amazing game with a clever method of telling its story.  The Player arrives in a fascinating place shortly after an...

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    The first Bioshock was an amazing game with a clever method of telling its story.  The Player arrives in a fascinating place shortly after an interesting event has happened.  It isn’t about experiencing the fall of Rapture, it’s about unearthing the tale of how and why it happened. It was a completely self-contained story with...
    842
  • Primal Carnage

    Game developers have been trying to do something with the Jurassic Park license for decades, and no one has gotten it right. It seems pretty...

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    Game developers have been trying to do something with the Jurassic Park license for decades, and no one has gotten it right. It seems pretty simple what gamers want from this franchise.  They want to hunt dinosaurs.  And they want to control a dinosaur that eats people.  Primal Carnage isn’t officially a Jurassic Park game,...
    805
  • Chivalry Medieval Warfare

    Who needs Modern warfare?  Back in the old days, soldiers didn’t need robot drones and night-vision sniper rifles to kill each other.  A good broadsword...

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    Who needs Modern warfare?  Back in the old days, soldiers didn’t need robot drones and night-vision sniper rifles to kill each other.  A good broadsword and a throwin’ ax was all it took to gib some noobs.  Online shooters are all well ‘n’ good, but nothing satisfies the bloodlust like lopping off a foe’s head...
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  • The Walking Dead Episode 5: No Time Left

    Someone needs to inform the folks at Telltale Games how zombies games are supposed to work.  They’re supposed to be about blasting zombie dogs with...

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    Someone needs to inform the folks at Telltale Games how zombies games are supposed to work.  They’re supposed to be about blasting zombie dogs with shotguns and blowing up boss monsters with grenade launchers.  Zombie games aren’t supposed to make you think, or re-evaluate your moral views.  And they damned well aren’t supposed to make...
    831
  • Magical Drop V

    The Magical Drop series has been around for nearly twenty years.  They are puzzle games in the classic “Gem Matching” genre, and it’s been a...

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    The Magical Drop series has been around for nearly twenty years.  They are puzzle games in the classic “Gem Matching” genre, and it’s been a few years since a new installment arrived in the franchise.  Magical Drop V hit Steam this week with the classic gameplay, but flashy new graphics. Along the lines of Bubble...
    805

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