by | November 11, 2012 · 9:35 am

Why I’m Going Digital With Paper Mario: Sticker Star

I’ve written before about my love affair with physical media. The look, the feel, the smell, the touch. But Paper Mario: Sticker Star comes out today, and instead of driving allllll the way over there to pick up a copy, I’ll be downloading it from the 3DS eShop for $39.99, while I sleep. I will receive no physical manual. I will have no spot for it on my shelf. I won’t even be able to re-sell it if it sucks.

Never fear: I haven’t given up on the good ol’ hard plastic cases. I thought too long and too hard about this, and I made an exciting list of the reasons why – at least in the case of Sticker Star – I’ll be eschewing the tangible for the digital. This is the first full retail game I’ll have ever paid for and not held the physical game in my hand afterwards. Sure, there’ve been lots of full free PS+ games, but this is a big deal for me! Continue reading →

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by | November 7, 2012 · 10:06 am

Curious About Curiosity

“What’s inside the cube?”

Peter Molyneux’s new game (maybe “experience” is a better fit?) is all about  human curiosity. Can the entire world work together, each doing their part of a repetitive, mundane task with the promise of a grand reward for just one player at the end? Curiosity debuted on the App Store just two days ago, and things are already off to a good start. Continue reading →

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by | November 2, 2012 · 7:43 am

What the Crap Is Frog Fractions?

You remember the edutainment games from when you were growing up in the 90s; Number Munchers, Mario Is Missing, and Treasure Mountain were staples of my youth, back when every school computer lab had Apple IIs, or – if you were lucky – iMacs. Frog Fractions starts off like one of those games. You move around the bottom of the screen, protecting your fruits from being eaten by bugs with your long tongue a la Missile Command. For every bug you eat, you are awarded points in fractions instead of full integers. That’s when things get weird.

That’s when Frog Fractions becomes one of the most interesting, self-aware video games I’ve ever played. Continue reading →

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by | November 1, 2012 · 1:26 pm

Review: Halo 4…’s Reviews

Halo 4 – the long-awaited reboot of Bungie’s beloved Xbox-exclusive series by internal Microsoft studio 343 Industries – is coming out on November 6th. The review embargo broke this morning at 12:01 am PT. A lot of people were impressed. Shocking. “Game of the year!” “Thrilling!” “A worthy successor to the Halo legacy!” Back-of-box quotes abound. Did you know that 343 was created just to make Halo games? And that’s it! Hope the series doesn’t flop or everyone will be out of jobs.

But! Which website had the best Halo 4 review? Which online publication is most worthy to get free games weeks before they’re released to the common folk, in order to better serve the public by telling them how much they should buy the latest AAA blockbuster? I read a lot – a LOT – of Halo 4 reviews, and I’ve learned that… first of all, don’t do that. They all kind of say the same thing (“Buy Halo 4“). Second of all, there are lots of different flavors of sites – some are basically tabloid trash, and others are snooty snoot-fests like Edge where everyone discusses games while smoking fine Cuban cigars and sitting around a fireplace in their silk bathrobes, drinking aged brandy out of hollowed-out orphan skulls. You’re sure to find one somewhere that speaks to your level of maturity. And if not, go make your own site. Whiner.

Continue reading →

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by | October 28, 2012 · 10:00 am

The Storyline of Kirby’s Dream Land

It woke up hungry. What shall I do today? it thought, picking at its teeth with a spare bit of bone from the half-devoured meal from the night before. I saw that new castle on the hill. I think I’ll pay the King a visit.

It slipped on its pink shoes and headed out into the woods. Continue reading →

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by | October 25, 2012 · 9:38 am

Game Journalism, Integrity, and Doritos

It’s been a fun few days in the world of game journalism, by which I mean everything went to crap at once, a lot of people got mad, and one guy no longer has a job. And there’s already been lots of words written about this, but these are mine, so they are the best. Full disclosure: they might not actually be the best.

First, the picture above started circling the interwebs (slightly edited to be even more accurate) of a dead-inside Geoff Keighley, surrounded by Mountain Dew Game Fuel and Doritos. He is one of the biggest names in game journalism, and this image is important and iconic not just because it shows how corporate we’ve all become, with our Halos and CoD-pieces filled with Gamer Fuel-soaked jerk socks, but because it shows exactly how the typical internet person views game journalism today. It’s rare to find an image that so completely embodies the glory of what game writing has become in the eyes of the typical 13-year-old Spike Video Game Awards viewer. (Well, maybe this one.) Sure, lots of games writers have fans, followers, readers, watchers… but one negative review of a game that other people loved and they’ll turn on you like *snaps fingers dramatically* that. And don’t forget how a good review means you were paid off by the publisher! Continue reading →

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by | October 23, 2012 · 7:51 am

SEGA Is Devaluing Their Own Retro Catalog

I saw a deal on the internet a few days ago: 40+ SEGA Genesis games on Steam for $10. You’ve probably seen these kinds of deals before, too. Between Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection, the SEGA Genesis Collection, SEGA Genesis Classic Collection: Gold Edition, and The Super-Duper Please Forget That We Haven’t Been Relevant for a Decade Dreamcast 4-Pack, I’m not sure if a current console exists that doesn’t feature some sort of bargain-priced retro SEGA collection – usually focused on the Genesis.

Then on the other side of the spectrum, we have Nintendo. Say what you will about the Wii (it’s been a ghost town for years), but the Virtual Console is a retro game geek’s dream come true. Perfectly emulate hundreds of your favorite and not-so-favorite classic games, on your big TV instead of a tiny computer screen, and for only a few bucks each? What a steal! “Oh man, they put the Game Boy Color Mario Golf on the 3DS eShop? That’s the best version! $4.99? SOLD!” But then we see 45 Genesis games for $10 and we balk. Continue reading →

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by | October 14, 2012 · 3:24 am

Review: Indie Game: The Movie: A Blog Post Title With Too Many Colons

Now that Indie Game: The Movie has made it to Netflix Instant Streaming, I finally had the chance to see it. And the bottom line is that if you are interested in seeing the men behind the curtain of your favorite games, or you have even a passing interest in everything else that goes into bringing a game to market besides just the coding, or – you know what – if you’re reading this, you are the demographic for this movie. But let’s talk about it. Continue reading →

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by | October 11, 2012 · 4:09 am

The Mumbles Problem: ClusterF**K

Most of you know this is on YouTube already, but I like writing little afterthoughts to the video. You know the weird thing about Bioshock? I remember it being a clusterfuck. Most people I talk to say it’s a clusterfuck. That one time I did an LP of it was a complete slogfest clusterfuck. And, yet. When I looked for footage of Bioshock, I couldn’t find the waves of baddies that I remember. I think the game has a way of riding you. Like when you get homework assignment after homework assignment piled on you at school so by the end of the day you just want to fall into a pit and die. It’s like a test in patience, a long, drawn out erosion of the soul.

And, yet. I still like the game. A lot. The aesthetics, the minor characters and the themes really hooked me. Yes, I know the game should have ended when Andrew Ryan took a golf club to the face, but everything leading up to that point was fun and interesting. Like, remember that part where the woman is cooing at a baby carriage and then after you mow her down you realize there was a gun in there? That’s something I’m never going to forget. Even if I don’t really know what it means.

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by | October 10, 2012 · 5:21 pm

Physical Media: A Link to the Past

I have an entire wall in my living room filled with video games from every era of history. All three PlayStations, both Xboxes, most of the Ataris (including the Jaguar CD), nearly every SEGA console, every Nintendo save the Virtual Boy… If you’re in any mood, chances are I have at least one game that you’d like to play, or maybe even something you could discover for the first time. It can be overwhelming, though – sometimes I can’t decide what I feel like doing today and end up aimlessly poring over old instruction manuals for an hour. But have you seen some of these older manuals? They’re like works of art.

Do I want to shoot aliens today? Command a classic civilization? Make music with plastic instruments? It doesn’t matter; I have an abundance of choice, and just looking at this wall of history – this shrine to our digital past and present – I immerse myself in where I was in my life when I first acquired each particular game, what it meant to me, how it felt learning to play it. I think about how pumped I was when I found Shining Force for $2 at a pawn shop in the middle of nowhere, in some 1,000-population town in Northern Minnesota. I remember rediscovering the feeling of being able to reward myself by buying Chrono Trigger off eBay after a particularly low point in my life. These physical things are much more than pieces of plastic filled with thousands upon thousands of lines of code, waiting to be pulled out for a few hours of entertainment once every few years (if that). They are windows to my past, and every single one has a story.

I don’t get this feeling from digital media. Continue reading →

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