Ever since I began reviewing video games on this blog in 2018, these have been my Game of the Year (GOTY) award winners: 2018 - Celeste2019 - Fire Emblem: Three Houses2020 - Ori and the Will of the Wisps2021 - Metroid Dread You may notice a pattern here -- 2D games take up the majority … Continue reading The Elegance of 2D Games
Last week I talked about the Game Boy Advance, and today it's time to gush about the GameCube. The GameCube launched in November of 2001. Like in my last post, this was a time before I had regular access to the internet and so could only find out about games through TV ads, store demo … Continue reading The GameCube: Finally Appreciated After 20 Years
In the summer of 2001, Nintendo released the 32-bit successor to the Game Boy: The Game Boy Advance (GBA). It lived for only a brief period, a little over 3 years, but they were very successful years, and they defined an important era of my life. Allow me to indulge in my memories of the … Continue reading The Game Boy Advance: A 20th Anniversary Celebration
So you saw the E3 trailer for Metroid Dread and you're interested in trying it out, but you've never played a Metroid game before. Allow me, a long-time Metroid fan, to help! Metroid is one of Nintendo's oldest and most important franchises. Among critics, it stands proudly on Nintendo's podium of their best video game … Continue reading A Newcomer’s Guide to the Metroid Series
Happy 3rd Anniversary to this blog! I can't believe I've been writing for you guys for 3 entire years. I'm baffled that Polygon hasn't sent me an email begging me to write reviews and editorials for them. Tough luck, professional journalists! I write on my own time. My blog, my rules! At first I thought … Continue reading 5 Nintendo Switch Games that Deserve a Second Chance
What makes a game good? No, really, what makes a game worth talking about and remain worth talking about? What makes a game stay around for decades instead of fading away into obscurity after its launch week? Most of the discourse around video games are reviews, Top 10s, and analyses. Those certainly have a place … Continue reading How To Read a Video Game: The Hideo Kojima Preview
I listen to the Triple Click podcast. It's hosted by three game journalists -- Maddy Myers, Jason Schreier, and Kirk Hamilton, who chat about whatever game topic is on their minds at the moment. Recently they talked about their "personal canons" -- in other words, the TV shows, movies, and video games that impacted them … Continue reading What I Look For In A Game
I once wrote a post about games I thought I'd never want to play. In this post, I claimed that I'd never want to play a game so ugly as Skyrim or Dark Souls. I elaborated about the overblown set pieces of cinematic games like Uncharted, sacrificing meaningful gameplay for a B movie plot. I … Continue reading My Gamer Palate
The Nintendo 3DS was born in March of 2011. Its last major game, Persona Q2, was released in June of 2019. That means the system had a good long life of 8 years. I still play my 3DS, so I don't consider it dead yet, but I've realized that I've never made a post solely … Continue reading The Nintendo 3DS, 10 Years Later
In honor of Mar10 day, and to put a final pin in the Super Mario 35th Anniversary, I decided to play all four games in the New Super Mario Bros. series. If you've owned a Nintendo console during the last 15 years, you've likely played at least one of these games. What began as a … Continue reading Making Peace with New Super Mario Bros.
Hookshot, Charge Beam, Revive 