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.
Happy New Year, everyone! Welcome to my 2020 in review! Despite the pandemic and the political turmoil, I spent 2020 in good company, both in person (just my wife and I) and virtually (with family and friends). We still managed to make happy memories this year. My paying job was actually going smoothly when 2020 … Continue reading My 2020 in Gaming
It's that time again. Just as our forebears gathered sheaths of grain into their storehouses to prepare for winter and the new year, so do we gamers gather the games we played during the year and recount which ones stood out the most. It's almost as if this kind of behavior is ingrained into us! … Continue reading Reviewing The Game Awards
As the flagship franchise and the face of the company, Nintendo is familiar with doing compilations and homages to our plumber friend's history -- we received a Wii port of the SNES Super Mario All-Stars for the 25th anniversary and Super Mario Maker for the 30th anniversary. It's a fairly-well documented series. There are dozens … Continue reading Super Mario’s 35th Anniversary, Part 3: Keeping the History
Hookshot, Charge Beam, Revive 