Author: Mark B.

  • Diehard GameFAN Presents: Unboxing the Persona Q Premium Edition

    If there’s anything long-time readers know about me, it’s that I love me some Persona in general, and Persona 4 in specific, so it was pretty obvious that I was going to go all-out attack on Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth. I picked up the Collector’s Edition of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, after all,…

  • Review: Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments (Sony Playstation 4)

    Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments Genre: Adventure Developer: Frogwares Publisher: Focus Home Interactive Release Date: 09/30/2014 Frogwares has essentially been keeping the Sherlock Holmes character running on consoles and PC since well before he became cool again, so it was about time for a change. While Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened was a veritable breath of…

  • Review: Persona 4 Arena Ultimax (Sony Playstation 3)

    Persona 4 Arena Ultimax Genre: Fighting Developer: Arc System Works Publisher: Atlus Release Date: 9/30/2014 Arc System Works, as a fighting game developer, has been doing some of their best work with the Persona 4 Arena series at this point. The original was structured in a way that made it significantly more accessible than many…

  • Review: Fairy Fencer F (Sony Playstation 3)

    Fairy Fencer F Genre: RPG Developer: Compile Heart Publisher: NIS America Release Date: 9/16/2014 So, let’s get this one out of the way up front: I’m not the first person who would have been likely to volunteer to review Fairy Fencer F. Compile Heart is hit or miss as a developer, to me, as Cross…

  • Review: Flockers (Microsoft Xbox One)

    Flockers Genre: Puzzle Developer: Team 17 Publisher: Team 17 Release Date: 9/17/2014 No matter how far gaming comes or how advanced technology becomes, Lemmings will never die. Well, the concept, anyway; the characters die constantly, in various purposeful and accidental ways, but that’s not the point. Lemmings as a concept, however, will always be around,…

  • Walkthrough/FAQ: Dangan Ronpa 2: Goodbye Despair

    Hello and welcome to Diehard GameFAN’s Dangan Ronpa 2: Goodbye Despair walkthrough! For those who follow along with us here at Diehard GameFAN, or have perused the the original guide, allow me a bit of expository backstory. When the original game, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, was released, Josh Moore took on the responsibility of…

  • Review: Five Nights at Freddy’s (PC)

    Five Nights at Freddy’s Genre: Adventure/Horror Developer: Scott Cawthon Publisher: Scott Cawthon Release Date: 8/18/2014 The horror genre hadn’t seen a lot of huge strides forward this year; while there are more than a few decent indie releases poking around here and there, nothing transcendent had really risen to the forefront, and honestly, Dark Souls…

  • Review: Dangan Ronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (Sony Playstation Vita)

    Dangan Ronpa 2: Goodbye Despair Genre: Adventure/Visual Novel/Rhythm Developer: Spike Chunsoft Publisher: NIS America Release Date: 09/02/2014 Ever since the release of the first game, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, in the US, fans have been eagerly awaiting another dose of the “Mutual Killing” game that the franchise promises. The game apparently did very well…

  • Review: Akiba’s Trip: Undead and Undressed (Sony Playstation 3)

    Akiba’s Trip: Undead and Undressed Genre: Sandbox Action/Adventure Developer: Acquire Publisher: XSEED Games Release Date: 08/12/2014 God bless Acquire and XSEED. Now, love for XSEED shouldn’t be a surprise, as they go out of their way to bring out all kinds of games to the US most people wouldn’t touch, like Corpse Party, Corpse Party:…

  • P.T.: What it is, what it means and what it could be.

    For those who have been living under a rock for the past couple days, last week, during Gamescom, Sony announced a new game they were simply calling P.T. or, literally, “Public Test” or “Playable Teaser” (depending on who you ask). Several videos were shown off regarding the test demo, and an actual playable demo was…

  • 10 Thoughts on… Dangan Ronpa 2: Goodbye Despair (Sony Playstation Vita)

    This probably won’t come as any sort of a surprise considering I wrote a huge strategy guide for the first game, but I’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of Dangan Ronpa 2 ever since NIS announced it was coming stateside. That NIS announced their intention to release the game in the US almost immediately after…

  • 10 Thoughts on… The Destiny Beta (Sony Playstation 4, Microsoft Xbox One)

    When Bungie decided they were more or less tired of making Halo and opted to hand off the franchise to Microsoft so they could go do something else, it should probably come as no surprise that their next venture would be a futuristic FPS (though I was holding out for a Pathways into Darkness reboot…

  • Preview: Frozen State (PC)

    I’m generally all about horror games; while the majority of games that can be considered as thematically “horror” oriented tend to fall into the survival horror or adventure genre, not all of them occupy these two genres, and those that don’t tend to pique my interest the most. Sure, there will always be some turkeys…

  • Review: Valiant Hearts: The Great War (Sony Playstation 4)

    Valiant Hearts: The Great War Genre: Adventure Developer: Ubisoft Montpellier Publisher: Ubisoft Release Date: 6/24/14 We don’t really see a lot of games that take place during World War I, if you think about it. Not that it’s really a good idea to glorify any war in the strictest sense, but when it comes to…

  • Mark B Presents: On E3 and the state of the 8th console generation.

    For those who don’t follow along with me on social media, thanks in large part to some assistance from staff artist J. Rose, I’ve begun working on a video series, where I will (hopefully) put together small videos to talk about little things that occur to me at the moment, about news pieces, games I’ve…

  • Book Review: Unraveling Resident Evil

    Unraveling Resident Evil: Essays on the Complex Universe of the Games and Films Publisher: Zombie Studios Cost: $38.00 (Paperback)/$13.99 (Kindle/PDF) Page Count: 249 Pages Release Date: 04/15/14 Get it Here: Drive Thru RPG OR Amazon.com It’s always interesting, to me, when people opt to create books about the video game medium that go beyond the…

  • Review: Might and Magic X: Legacy (PC)

    Might and Magic X: Legacy Genre: Turn-based RPG Developer: Limbic Entertainment Publisher: Ubisoft Release Date: 1/23/2014 I’m a really big fan of the turn-based, grid-movement RPG of days gone by; from older titles like Lands of Lore and the older Wizardry titles to modern games like Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey and The Dark Spire,…

  • Review: Demon Gaze (Sony Playstation Vita)

    Demon Gaze Genre: Dungeon Crawling RPG Developer: Experience Inc. Publisher: NIS America Release Date: 04/22/14 When we last looked at Demon Gaze, in the Ten Thoughts piece I wrote up about a week ago, I was around halfway through the game and generally enjoying the experience overall. A big part of that, as we’ve discussed,…

  • Review: HyperX Cloud Headset

    HyperX Cloud Publisher: Kingston Cost: $149.99 (Amazon)/$99.99 (Newegg) Release Date: 04/30/14 Get it Here: Amazon.com or here Newegg.com While I’m certainly a big fan of music, in gaming or otherwise, I’ve never been much of an audiophile; that is, while I love to listen to music, game effects, and so on, I don’t own any…

  • 10 Thoughts on… Demon Gaze (Sony Playstation Vita)

    Long time readers of the site will be well acquainted with this fact, but for those who are just tuning in, I love dungeon crawling RPG’s, and Japan seems to feel much the same way. Between Etrian Odyssey, Class of Heroes, Unchained Blades, Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, The Dark Spire and Wizardry: The Labyrinth…