I started Wandersong shortly after completing Marvel’s Spider-Man. Going from a big-budget AAA console-exclusive title to a small, independent game was a jarring play experience for me to say the least, but the lighthearted tone of the game’s opening and the charmingly incessant optimism of The Bard endeared me to what I expected to be […] More
Everybody faces conflict. Sometimes these conflicts are mild inconveniences while other times they are unexpected, unavoidable, and life-threatening. The latter is often true in video games, which, by their nature, are filled with obstacles that will impede your progress or end your play session altogether. For decades, mindless violence has been the primary method in […] More
A month after proposing to my girlfriend, I went with her to her hometown to meet her grandparents who were visiting from Peru. They were very kind and loving towards me but only spoke Spanish. I communicated with them as best as I could but found that my five years of Spanish in high school […] More
About 20 hours through God of War, I was sprinting from a boat dock to a shop in order to unlock a new piece of armor I’d had my eyes on for hours. Kratos threw open the shop’s gilded black doors for what felt like the twentieth time and rushed to the shop. Nabbing the […] More
It’s rare that I find myself getting emotional during a story. My stoic personality generally deflects the manifestation of physical emotional reactions to movies, books, poetry, and, yes, video games. Yet halfway through Celeste’s brief but powerful journey, my eyes started to water. The game tackles so many of life’s struggles, especially anxiety and depression, […] More
In the lead up to the release of Far Cry 5, developer Ubisoft strongly promoted the game’s antagonist, a charismatic leader of a doomsday cult that has taken control of fictional Hope County, Montana. The development team enlisted the help of cult researcher Mia Donovan to advise on the creation of their fictional cult and extended its […] More
When it released in 2007, Halo 3 had enormous expectations to live up to. The previous two games in the series defined the first person shooter genre on consoles in terms of single-player and multiplayer components, and many gamers looked to this third entry to do the same. On release, Halo 3 received almost universal […] More
Last year I compared Final Fantasy XV unfavorably to The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. My primary point of criticism was the game’s split identity between an open-ended first half and a linear second half that emphasized an improperly developed narrative. Despite this, the game’s first half is still a fantastic example of […] More
Released at the end of 2016, The Last Guardian made a momentary impact on the industry, mostly due to the sheer miracle of the game escaping over a decade in development hell, before seemingly fading from the general gaming consciousness. Fumito Ueda’s follow-up to the monumental 2005 game Shadow of the Colossus was a polarizing […] More
Arcade culture started to gain true momentum in the late 1970s, with the release of games such as Asteroids and Galaxian and became widespread by the time Pac-Man and Defender were released. The golden age of Arcade Games started with the release of Space Invaders in 1978 which stands as one of the richest in […] More
Every year The Game Awards are a celebration of the people who work tirelessly behind the scenes to make the incredible games that we play. While last year’s show put emphasis on gaming’s unsung heroes, epitomized by Overwatch’s victory as Game of the Year after a nightmarish development cycle, this year more than ever developers […] More
Progression systems in games are often used as a stand-in for helping the player improve at the game. Rather than training your player to get better and play the game with more skill, you simply outfit them with stronger gear, weapons, or abilities and let them have at it. Sure, you’ll increase enemy difficulty as […] More