"Monumental feats of music"

Punk, silly and probably intentional… Hickey's "El Farolito" is basically a lift of GnR's "Sweet Child o' Mine."

I'm assuming The Hollies' "The Air That I Breathe" / Radiohead's "Creep" is saved for part 2…. that's another case of a successful plagiarism suit.

Driving to get your rectum hair cut?

On topic, I generally forego fast travel if the game is immersive enough, or if the gameplay traversing from point A to B is fun enough. Lately I've played the hell out of Forza Horizon 2 and I don't think I've used the fast travel option once. That game's unique approach is that fast travel costs you credits (the…

I've got a mountain of unfinished games I paid my hard-earned cash for that I should be playing this weekend, but damned if Rogue Legacy isn't free on PS Plus, and double damned if it doesn't live up to the hype unlike a lot of acclaimed indie titles.

Yeah, it's so much better to game with a close friend. When my buddy and I played shooters online, everyone else probably thought we were nuts (or muted us) as all of out chat involved inside jokes. We both kind of sucked at the games too but we had a blast anyway. But I got the feeling it kind of irked other gamers…

When I was a kid I totally wanted the robot owl from Clash of the Titans.

On the topic of gaming with friends—I sure do miss it. Heading into my late 30s I'm kind of last man standing when it comes to serious gaming. I'm married but have no kids. My best friend, who we used to play Battlefield from 1943 to 3 together and CoD from MW to BlOps II on PS3, recently got married and is expecting…

Got back last Sunday from a week's vacation that was relatively gaming-free other than a little OlliOlli on Vita in the car. After getting frustrated with the final mission on Assassin's Creed: Unity, I popped in Hyrule Warriors and haven't been able to put it down. I'm almost finished with the Legend mode. Should I…

Damn, reading this really makes me wish I had held onto my Atari Lynx, if only to play Gauntlet: The Third Encounter and Todd's Adventures in Slime World.

Don't know about that, but several games I mentioned are available on the Wii virtual console.

The TurboGrafx-16's later, CD-based incarnation—the TurboDuo—is a perfect example of this. It was released long after NEC was written off as a player in the 16-bit wars, but some incredible games came out during its death throes. Lords of Thunder, Beyond Shadowgate, Bonk 3, Neutopia II, Dungeon Explorer II, Cosmic…

I bought one Amiibo—Link—and while it's a cool figure I don't get what the big deal about them is. I can unlock some costumes in Hyrule Warriors and train an AI in Smash Bros. Big whoop.

Protip: When playing games on your HDTV, particularly if it's an LCD, turn your sharpness setting completely off to 0, and turn any noise reduction filters off too. This helps a lot with artifacting/aliasing.

I think I would have probably smashed my controller to bits playing Assassin's Creed: Unity were it not for wikis to alleviate my frustration when I got stuck. And they were a godsend for those damn Nostradamus Enigmas. Unlike the murder mysteries, which were actually kind of fun, the enigmas were just a huge pain in…

I bought SMG2 and I could swear that it looks a little cleaner than I remember. Maybe the colors pop a bit more. I wonder if Digital Foundry or someone like that will do a download vs. disc comparison.

I'm stoked that they're giving us Wii games, I bought SMG2 and am looking forward to Punch-Out! and Metroid Prime Trilogy.

Going relatively off the gaming grid for the next nine days. Going on a trip to visit my wife's family in Georgia. I'll have my Vita and 3DS along for the ride, so I might finally dive into the copy of Freedom Wars I got for Xmas. I also got a 64 GB Vita card so most but not all of my Vita collection is portable now.…

Obviously, Zack is not a member of the Academy.