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Forza Motorsport 3

I started Forza Motorsport 3, the sequel to one of my favorite racers of all time (only behind the original Gran Turismo), with one of my favorite cars in existence: the Audi R8 v10. It was a gorgeous car and I got to drive it on a gorgeous track. Forza 3 won me over at [...]

Half-Minute Hero

It’s a strange game that relies heavily on feelings of nostalgia while providing gameplay that is as far removed from the source of that nostalgia as possible. Half-Minute Hero, developed by Marvelous Entertainment and published by Atlus’ long-lost publisher twin XSEED, is that strange game. It is very blatantly riffing on the era of 8-bit [...]

Sometimes I Play Video Games

I’ve been playing so many games over the course of the last few weeks that I really haven’t felt like (nor had any particularly strong inspirations for) writing. This makes me feel like a bad person. So, instead of some targeted design or critical piece, I’m just going to write about some of my favorite [...]

Bad Screen Shots of Good Games

I usually relish taking screen shots of games as I play them, but since most of my gaming has been on consoles for the last couple of years, my screen shot taking has died down a lot compared to my primarily PC gaming days during college. When I got my beloved iPhone over the summer, [...]

Soul Diary, Souls 4-20

[This post, the last of my Soul Diary, contains spoilers for the first two sections of the first world of Demon's Souls] Life Two, Soul Four After my triumph against the Phalanx, I had some dough (souls) to spend. The one thing that sounded particularly appealing to me is upgrading my luck to increase the frequency and [...]

Soul Diary, Soul 4

[This post contains spoilers for the first two sections of the first world of Demon's Souls] Life One, Soul Four After failing to properly heed the advice of the dead guy I watched fall off a narrow path and falling to the same fate mere moments later, my fourth soul respawned at the beginning of the world. [...]

Soul Diary, Souls 1-3

[This post contains spoilers for the tutorial and first section of the first world of Demon's Souls] This face was the face of my introduction to Demon’s Souls. Then I made him normal again and we got on well. Life One, Soul One I took my more normal character and walked through the tutorial, adhering to the various [...]

The Loneliest Space Marine

Halo 3: ODST is about a group of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers that drop into allied territory to fend off aggressive, hostile forces and complete some secret mission under the veil of a general liberation of the city of New Mombasa. Due to a series of unfortunate circumstances, all of the soldiers get off course [...]

Gaming Generation Y

We’re a generation that can sit in someone’s living room and play plastic instruments and sing into microphones with all of our friends. We devote hundreds of hours of time into building our characters and forging relationships with people in online fantasy games. We play games on our phones, in our web browsers, on table-tops, [...]

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is one of those games that does pretty much everything right. It doesn’t take a lot of chances as far as its subject matter or game design go, but developer Naughty Dog nailed all of its elements so well that it’s nigh-impossible not to enjoy it as a whole. It’s one of [...]