Gaming trials, tribulations, observations, and revelations

02Sep Voting with your Wallet

This is a story that begins with a bit of disappointment, and ends with hope, mostly. After somewhat of a drought in 2009, the anticipation was that 2010 would be a banner year for games, with many first-party, big-name titles being released.  As a result, I decided to make sure I had enough room in […]

15Aug The Cost of Consoles, Part 1: Checkpoints

As you may know, I am primarily a PC gamer, largely by choice – the only console I own is the Nintendo DS handheld, and that’s primarily because a full-fledged computer won’t fit in my pocket. Generally speaking, I don’t talk about consoles, primarily to avoid the heated debates on the virtues of specific console […]

02Jun The Travesty of Retailer Exclusives

In the past, I’ve talked about one of the difficulty problems that can result in certain types of games: that of restricting access to game content for players who are unable to play the game at the necessary proficiency.  However, a more recent trend is even more insidious, and affects game consumers regardless of their […]

30Jan Mass Effect 2: First Look

(Alternate Title: EA is Incompetent, which, unsurprisingly, is already registered as as a username for the Cerberus Network) After enjoying Mass Effect 1 immensely, I went out and purchased Mass Effect 2.  One initial play session later, here are some of my first thoughts on the game, and how it is to play. -Not wanting […]

01Dec Guns, Guns, and more Guns: Borderlands Review

Now that I’ve completed one entire playthrough of the game, here are some additional thoughts on Borderlands. While Borderlands is, to a certain extent, an open-world game, it is much less so than more traditional “streaming” open-world games, for example Fallout 3 or Oblivion.  The game is broken up into various zones, with various tasks […]

12Nov Borderlands: Initial Impressions, Difficulty, and Playability

I’m at a bit of a loss trying to figure out how best to describe Borderlands.  There’s a certain part of me that wants to say that the game is as addictive as some street drugs and leave it at that.  However, being that I try to write about difficulty and accessibility in games, I […]

10Sep From RPS: “Why Can’t I Skip Ahead in Games?”

There’s an excellent article on Rock, Paper, Shotgun today that makes the argument I’ve been stating for quite some time – namely, that once you purchase a game, you should be able to play all of it, and that all games should have some mechanism to do so: Why can’t I… skip ahead in games?

16Aug Street Fighter IV: A game that’s about as enjoyable as getting kicked repeatedly in the face (which, unsurprisingly, seems to be the game’s main tactical option)

I apologize for the additional rancour and vitriol in this piece, but even after giving it time, this game is still bugging me. — While I play a fairly decent variety of video games, from casual games to shooters, RTS to racing, I will admit that there are a number of genres that I have […]

29May The Unlockables: Burnout Paradise and Issues Regarding Unlockable Games

Ah, the racing game: one of those gaming genres where my enthusiasm for the sport is often inversely proportional to my actual skill level.  While, admittedly, my skill in most racing games is at least somewhat more proficient than my usually abysmal technique in RTS games, this slight advantage is usually undone by the fact […]

21May Fallout 3: Broken Steel, does it fix it?

For those who have yet to complete Fallout 3’s main campaign, there are spoilers below. Yes, I know, another Fallout 3 update, but a fairly pertinent one.  I’ll keep it brief – while Broken Steel manages to break quite a number of things (including a CTD on saving your game if you have any location-modifying […]