Recently a demo for the upcoming Square Enix game, Outriders, was released to the public in what I can only assume was to get people like myself to finally stop asking, “what the hell is Outriders?” Seriously, I had no idea what this game was or when it was announced or who was making it, but ads for started cropping up everywhere so I figured I’d just try the demo and seek out the answer for myself…
Sometimes you can just buy and thing, rip it out of the box, plug it in and just go without any problems, whereas other times you might buy a thing, turn it on once, later learning that it would be the last time it would ever turn on again. That plug and play appeal has been a big selling point for a lot of products like gaming consoles and at one point, Apple devices just to name a few. But no product is immune to defects, something we all have to learn at some point in our lives. For some of us, we learn this lesson every few months thanks to our superhuman-like powers of bad luck…
I recently spent some time playing a little restaurant management game that I found thanks to a post on Reddit by the creator themselves. Normally I don’t take game recommendations from the infinite void that is Reddit, but it was interesting and cheap enough for me to take the chance on this early access title. It’s called Tastemaker and it needs a lot of work, but there’s definitely something there that’s got me hopeful enough to keep an eye on its progress…
Last week the incredible yet nearly forgotten Super Mario 3D World, formerly a Wii U exclusive, was re-released on the Nintendo Switch. That game alone is very good and you should certainly check it out if you’re one of the many people who missed it when it was initially released back in 2013. That’s all well and good, but what I really want to talk about is the bundled game that comes alongside this new port of Super Mario 3D World, a little game called Bowser’s Fury…
Even though our 2020 Game of the Year coverage is dead and buried with the rest of 2020, there’s still one list that I felt needed to be published in regards to the games I played last year. See, my partner and I started dating towards the end of 2019 and like most people, were put into a really challenging position when it came to maintaining our relationship while we were both quarantined. Luckily we both had Nintendo Switches and were able to have “date nights” where we’d just play games and talk for hours, something we still do only now in person thanks to them moving closer to my place. So in celebration of Valentine’s Day, here are some of the games we played and continue to play together that they have specifically called out as their most memorable games that we’ve played together in no particular order…
Look, I’ll be honest, there isn’t really a ton to talk about this week. I’ve been struggling with what the hell I would actually write for this blog, and I’m just kind of flying by the seat of my pants here. I’ve been playing some stuff here and there, including the excellent Hitman III and the less excellent but still good Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection. It’s just been a pretty uneventful week honestly. So yeah, no blog today. Thanks for checking in though. There will be an article going up on Friday that I’m really excited for. Oh, and Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury comes out on Friday as well, and that’s one of the best 3D Mario games out there, so that should be fun. Anyway, enjoy the rest of your day, and we’ll be back with an actual blog next week…
There’s a moment when playing an action game where you fall into a rhythm and everything just clicks, making your deft dodging and precision platforming feel less like conscious choices and more like you’re just acting off of pure instinct. When a game manages to get you into that zone, it can be the difference between enjoying said game and loving it. Cyber Shadow is a game that’s filled with these moments of pure 2D action and platforming bliss, but it’s also filled with a lot of bullshit that can rip you right out of that rhythm. Yet none of the lows of Cyber Shadow are enough to outweigh its highs…
Recently a demo for the upcoming Square Enix game, Outriders, was released to the public in what I can only assume was to get people like myself to finally stop asking, “what the hell is Outriders?” Seriously, I had no idea what this game was or when it was announced or who was making it, but ads for started cropping up everywhere so I figured I’d just try the demo and seek out the answer for myself…
Sometimes you can just buy and thing, rip it out of the box, plug it in and just go without any problems, whereas other times you might buy a thing, turn it on once, later learning that it would be the last time it would ever turn on again. That plug and play appeal has been a big selling point for a lot of products like gaming consoles and at one point, Apple devices just to name a few. But no product is immune to defects, something we all have to learn at some point in our lives. For some of us, we learn this lesson every few months thanks to our superhuman-like powers of bad luck…
I recently spent some time playing a little restaurant management game that I found thanks to a post on Reddit by the creator themselves. Normally I don’t take game recommendations from the infinite void that is Reddit, but it was interesting and cheap enough for me to take the chance on this early access title. It’s called Tastemaker and it needs a lot of work, but there’s definitely something there that’s got me hopeful enough to keep an eye on its progress…
Last week the incredible yet nearly forgotten Super Mario 3D World, formerly a Wii U exclusive, was re-released on the Nintendo Switch. That game alone is very good and you should certainly check it out if you’re one of the many people who missed it when it was initially released back in 2013. That’s all well and good, but what I really want to talk about is the bundled game that comes alongside this new port of Super Mario 3D World, a little game called Bowser’s Fury…
Even though our 2020 Game of the Year coverage is dead and buried with the rest of 2020, there’s still one list that I felt needed to be published in regards to the games I played last year. See, my partner and I started dating towards the end of 2019 and like most people, were put into a really challenging position when it came to maintaining our relationship while we were both quarantined. Luckily we both had Nintendo Switches and were able to have “date nights” where we’d just play games and talk for hours, something we still do only now in person thanks to them moving closer to my place. So in celebration of Valentine’s Day, here are some of the games we played and continue to play together that they have specifically called out as their most memorable games that we’ve played together in no particular order…
Look, I’ll be honest, there isn’t really a ton to talk about this week. I’ve been struggling with what the hell I would actually write for this blog, and I’m just kind of flying by the seat of my pants here. I’ve been playing some stuff here and there, including the excellent Hitman III and the less excellent but still good Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection. It’s just been a pretty uneventful week honestly. So yeah, no blog today. Thanks for checking in though. There will be an article going up on Friday that I’m really excited for. Oh, and Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury comes out on Friday as well, and that’s one of the best 3D Mario games out there, so that should be fun. Anyway, enjoy the rest of your day, and we’ll be back with an actual blog next week…
There’s a moment when playing an action game where you fall into a rhythm and everything just clicks, making your deft dodging and precision platforming feel less like conscious choices and more like you’re just acting off of pure instinct. When a game manages to get you into that zone, it can be the difference between enjoying said game and loving it. Cyber Shadow is a game that’s filled with these moments of pure 2D action and platforming bliss, but it’s also filled with a lot of bullshit that can rip you right out of that rhythm. Yet none of the lows of Cyber Shadow are enough to outweigh its highs…
It’s times like these that I’m really grateful that my internet provider hasn’t saddled me with data caps, because I’ve downloaded a ton of demos from the ongoing Steam Game Festival that would certainly have resulted in some sort of additional charge on my bill. But the point is that as of February 3rd, 2021, you can open up Steam and download a bunch of demos for upcoming games. While I could never play all of them, nor would I ever want to be in a position where I had to, I did play some of the titles and have a few thoughts about what you should try and what you should avoid…
Last week I spoke about my decision to invest my money into my computer rather than endlessly try and chase down a PlayStation 5, a decision that I’m ultimately glad I made. But I wanted to follow up on last week’s post and briefly go over the roller coaster of emotions that I experienced in a mere 7 days. See, I was sweating the overall installation of the components more than I really needed to. The real hassle, while brought on by replacing my hardware, actually turned out to be more of Windows fucking me over than anything else…
Over the past few months you might have heard me speak (complain) about my desire to buy a PlayStation 5 that’s been consistently undermined by the fact that getting one is basically impossible. A real quick summary of that situation is that I had saved some money over the past year, specifically to buy one of those goofy looking boxes. But as I spent more and more time in front of my computer, unable to buy one of these stupid things, I finally decided that even with a PlayStation 5 I’d probably still end up spending most of my time on my PC. So I spent my console fund on some new computer parts that hopefully wont get outdated the moment I install them…
Everything is so chaotic right now and it’s insanely difficult to focus on anything outside of the ever growing train wreck that is American politics. Even now as I write this, I fear that by the time this article goes live some horrible bullshit will have happened. I pray that everything goes smoothly and America doesn’t collapse in under its own weight, but literally anything is possible these days. But at some point I can’t keep staring at the wreckage and need to focus on things that make me happy. So here are some of the distractions I engaged in last week that brought me joy…
I don’t know that I necessarily have the words to properly describe my feelings about the events of last week, nor do I know that I want to go into too much detail about it. In short, it’s been extremely difficult to watch my country rip itself apart at the behest of a sore loser who refuses to believe that more people told him to go fuck himself than those who begged for him to stay. Things are bad right now, and with the ongoing threats of violence all around the country planned for the next few days I think we’re all kind of just hanging in a limbo and waiting for whatever is coming to finally arrive. It’s times like these that I’d normally try and turn to my hobbies to distract myself from the hourly misery that’s been foisted upon us, but there hasn’t been a video game that’s done that for me in the past few months…
I currently play in two Dungeons & Dragons groups, one of which I run and the other I just play in. For my group, we’d been running the newly released Icewind Dale – Rime of the Frostmaiden, while my other was neck-deep in a Dragonlance campaign. However, as we crept closer towards the end of 2020, we found ourselves in the middle of one of the weirdest holiday seasons of all time. So with a lot of people unable to see family and get particularly festive this year, I wanted to do something special for them the only way I knew how to: A holiday themed one-shot. It was also an opportunity for me to move away from the lackluster module of Icewind Dale – Rime of the Frostmaiden, but that’s a story for another time. Instead, I’d like to tell you the story of Holiday Havoc: The Clausening, the holiday one-shot I ran for both of my D&D groups…
There was a small part of me that expected 2020 to draw itself out by introducing a secret 13th month we’d never had before, but thankfully the calendar held together and we’re finally in January. Since the New Year ticked over however, I can’t really say that I’ve been playing much of anything, partly because there’s nothing new that excites me right now, and partly cause I’m busy focusing on other stuff…
Welcome to 2021, a year that I will set no expectations for because we all saw how well things turned out in 2020. But before we leave 2020 to rot in it’s rightful place in the universe’s dumpster, let’s bid one last farewell to the worst year I’ve ever experienced by celebrating the games that got me through it…
This year has seen its fair share of great video game experiences worthy of both praise any recommendation, but it’s also seen plenty of stinkers too. Now this list isn’t meant to imply that these games are the worst games of the year, because they simply aren’t. These are just some games that I happened to play this year that I really did not enjoy for one reason or another. A lot of the games in this list either already have or will eventually see significant fixes and updates that can technically fix a game I had issues with, but some of the games on this list are beyond what a bug fix can rectify…
