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 Lately, I have just been on an action game kick. And so I decided to jump back into my Hard Mode playthrough of Killer Is Dead. A gem that came out in 2013 from Grasshopper Manufacture. The studio that is best known for No More Heroes, killer7, and Lollipop Chainsaw. But this was my first experience with the GhM style, and I was completely enamored.  According to some very handy Achievement tracking, I started playing in 2014. That sounds about right because I remember playing KID in High School. It was one of those games where I just wanted to keep going. And it stuck with me throughout all these years. I can even remember seeing the cover at my local GameStop, and being draw toward it. A title that oozes so much style that it doesn't even try to contain.  Not to mention, the game's unabashed horniness. It's both comedic and sexy. A combination that works within reason. And I think that KID nails that approach. Our main character, Mondo Zappa, is so cool that women can...

 With the release of modern Action games like The First Berserker: Khazan and Lies of P, it is becoming clearer to me that the direction of the genre is skewing hard. Only a handful of titles like Soulstice or Valkyrie Elysium seem to be leaning toward that Devil May Cry, or Ninja Gaiden-esque style anymore. And why would you? The FromSoftware formula has been working like a charm. Elden Ring is one of the most popular games, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is being used as the blueprint despite the foundations being laid down by Team Ninja with Nioh and Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge. Obviously, this should also include PlatinumGames's Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance as well.  But I think at the end of the day, the big culprit is Dark Souls itself. This is funny to think about because Demon's Souls was just two years prior, yet it wasn't the buzzword game that its successor would be lionized as. So fourteen years later, the modern Action game has almost homogenized into the...