Time spins on, my friends. With each passing Holiday season, I'm reminded that my childhood was a long time ago, and it's only drifting further and further away into the past. My parents gifted my siblings and I a PlayStation 1, our first video game console, in the Christmas of 1998. I remember plugging that … Continue reading My 2021 In Gaming
It’s that time of year again! I really look forward to my Mini Review Marathon. It’s a good writing exercise to try and condense my opinion about a game down to just a paragraph or two. This year I have nine such reviews lined up for all of you! 1. Ultimate NES Remix (Nintendo 3DS) … Continue reading Mini Review Marathon 2021
Minecraft is a creative, open world, survival crafting game originally developed and published by Mojang for the PC. It was released in beta form in May 2009 and was fully released in November 2011. In 2014 Microsoft bought Mojang, who now handles all publishing rights. Minecraft is available for PC, Android, iOS, PS3, PS4, PS … Continue reading Minecraft: 10 Years of Existentialism
Skyrim is an open-world Western Action RPG developed and published by Bethesda. It originally was released for the PC, Xbox 360, and PS3 on November 11, 2011. Later it was remastered for the PC, Xbox One, and PS4 in October 2016, and was ported to the Nintendo Switch in November 2017. VR versions for all … Continue reading Skyrim: 10 Years of Limitless Possibilities
Sable is an Open World Action/Adventure game developed by Shedworks and published by Raw Fury. It was released in September 2021 for PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. MSRB is $25. I played the PC version. Sable first caught my eye way back in June 2018 during the annual PC Gaming Show. I was … Continue reading Sable: A Cozy Open World
Dark Souls is an Action RPG developed by FromSoftware and published by Bandai Namco. It was originally released on the PS3 and Xbox 360 in October 2011, then on PC on August 2012. A remastered version was released for the PS4 and Xbox One in May 2018 and for the Nintendo Switch in October 2018. … Continue reading Dark Souls: 10 Years of Dying Over and Over
As we discussed in a previous post, Hideo Kojima is the first game designer to create a Postmodern video game. Postmodernism is an artistic movement that began in earnest in the late 20th Century, though its roots go all the way back to the 1910s with Dadaism and Surrealism, such as Rene Magritte's The Treachery … Continue reading Hideo Kojima, Part 3: Deconstructing Video Games
In 2012, Kojima said in an interview with The Guardian that he has a highly active imagination, and that even in adulthood he has to keep his mind from wandering off and making its own stories. He even paused during the interview to discreetly share what was going through his head at that very moment … Continue reading Hideo Kojima, Part 2: The Surreal Art of the Visual Metaphor
Press Reset is a nonfiction book documenting the closings of several different video game studios across the United States during the 2010s. It was written by video game journalist Jason Schreier and published by Grand Central Publishing in May 2021. Another book review! If you remember my review of Jason Schreier's Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, … Continue reading Press Reset Book Review: The Creative Business Oxymoron
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
Hookshot, Charge Beam, Revive 