So you want to try playing NES games. Maybe you're curious about where your favorite game series got its start, or maybe you're interested in video game history. Maybe you've already tried playing a few games but you got lost or you bounced off of them. Regardless of how you got here, I'm here to … Continue reading A Newcomer’s Guide to the NES
Many historically impactful games have been re-released this year, including Metroid Prime, Resident Evil 4, and several of the classic Final Fantasy games. In a lot of this discourse I've noticed people making claims such as "You can skip Final Fantasy I, II, III, and V, but Final Fantasy IV and VI are must-play games." … Continue reading Should Some Video Games Be “Required Reading?”
In 1986, Nintendo published two games that heavily featured exploration: The Legend of Zelda and Metroid. They weren't the only NES games that featured this new kind of game design, but they were the two that entered the mainstream gaming consciousness and made a widespread influence over game developers. The Legend of Zelda became the … Continue reading Open World Games vs. Metroidvanias
As you've probably guessed by now, most of the the formative video games from my childhood were from Sony and Nintendo. I spent many youthful hours in front of the PlayStation, gliding across canyons as Spyro the Dragon and falling down pits as Crash Bandicoot. On the Game Boy I traveled to magnificent foreign lands … Continue reading A Love Letter to Strategy Games
In 1959, the jazz trumpet player Miles Davis recorded the album Kind of Blue. It was a collaboration between other legendary musicians such as John Coltrane on saxophone and Bill Evans on piano. In the album Miles Davis experimented with Modal Jazz, a free-floating departure from jazz's typical style of improvisation based on tight chord … Continue reading The Debate Over Video Game Remasters and Remakes
Every year I participate in National Novel Writing Month. It's a writing challenge where you try to complete a novel (at least 50,000 words) in the span of just one month. Obviously, there's not enough time to polish the material; all you end up with is a very rough & disorganized first draft of a … Continue reading 2023 Will be a Year of Change For This Blog
Welcome to 2023, everyone! As is tradition, I start every new year by looking back and taking stock of last year's experiences. I played many games in 2022, and they're all very different from each other. Some games were from familiar franchises like Splatoon 3 and Xenoblade Chronicles 3. However, for most of 2022, I … Continue reading My 2022 in Gaming
Holy moly, it's already the end of 2022. I just got in the habit of writing the correct year down whenever I sign something! At the end of every year I write a series of paragraph-long reviews of the rest of the games I played this year. It's not that I think these games aren't … Continue reading Mini Review Marathon 2022
Hades is a Rogue-like Action RPG created and published by Supergiant Games. It was released on PC and Nintendo Switch in September 2020, and on PlayStation and Xbox in August 2021. MSRB is $25. I played the Nintendo Switch version. Happy Halloween, everyone! I didn't play any spooky games this year, but I did play … Continue reading Hades Review: Rogue-Likes Aren’t So Scary Anymore!
Stray is a 3D Platformer game developed by BlueTwelve Studio and published by Annapurna Interactive. It was released in July 2022 for PlayStation and PC. MSRB is $30. I played the PC version. I've long envied my cat's dexterity. She could effortlessly strut on top of a fence. She could make any mistake look intentional. … Continue reading Stray Review: Paw-sitively Adorable
Hookshot, Charge Beam, Revive 