Losing Wayne Newton’s “Mr. New Vegas” is a substantial loss, I feel.

I had honestly thought that a “ball tap” was a parody of extremely toxic “locker room” behavior they made up for that one episode of the Good Place, rather than a thing an actual human had done more than once.

Amalur was an odd beast since it was a mixture of some really pretty locales, solid dynamic combat, and really great character building with really vapid characterization, predictable and cliche storytelling, and the very worst “you are the chosen one, only you can save us” pandering I have ever seen in a video game.

I miss when Bioware made exclusively single player games. I simply don’t ever play video games with other people who aren’t in the same room I’m in, and Anthem seems to be pointless solo, so I guess I’ll have to wait for the next Dragon Age.

While there are privacy concerns, I would be pleased if this feature was added to single player games as well.

Pre-capitulating to the hate mob is easily the most cowardly thing I’ve seen a video game company do, which is honestly a pretty high bar to clear for this industry.

Mass Effect 3, the original ending (since the Extended Cut kind of ruined it.)

Since I got the achievements, I was able to put a“Wants to play 1 vs. 100" beacon on my Xbox Live account that I intend on leaving there forever.

Among Fallout grognards “being mad about something Fallout related” is perhaps the most popular activity going, so I’m not sure Fandom is wise to give us an easy target.

I feel like if “women and people of color are valued and capable” is what causes a person to be unable to further suspend belief, that should be cause for *significant* self-reflection.

Anything anybody makes or says is some linear combination of two things: the politics that you intend to put in there, and the politics that are smuggled in there from your base assumptions. Both are worth thinking through but the latter is especially perilous since you run the risk of saying or implying something you…

I really can’t see how a multiplayer game set in the Fallout universe isn’t going to completely miss the point of Fallout, even before nukes get into it. But Bethesda bought the franchise to make money, not art, alas.

So one thing I’m kind of confused about is that given how Destiny did not become a money-making machine previously unparalleled in this industry through two iterations, and a lot of the similar “MMO shooter” games also kind of underwhelmed (in at least the public consciousness), and how people have become largely…

I am very happy that I don’t have to play the game with other people, but am concerned with whether or not this will be a pretty hollow experience like Destiny solo play is. Like one of the reasons I’m big into Bioware games is that I would rather go on adventures with Garrus or Varric than with internet randos.

I mean, if Steam is just going to abdicate all responsibility for their platform, I don’t see any reason to see Steam as anything other than a launcher for games I already own.

As a Fallout Grognard, I’m pretty okay with this. I’m not going to play it (I don’t play online games with strangers) but the franchise has shown a remarkable ability to be unaffected by mediocre spinoffs (tactics, shelter, that awful BoS game, etc.) So even if this isn’t very good, people will just ignore it like…

It seems like demanding scrupulous accuracy and realism in a war game, of all things, is just bizarre. Since there are two things I know about war- it is frequently extremely boring and when it isn’t it is dreadfully unpleasant. So it seems like job #1 here is “make your war game not like actual war.”

To this day your Fallout 2 piece is still my favorite bit of games writing I have ever read. I’m sad to see you go, but I’m excited to see where you go next. Best of luck to you in all that comes.

I grew up in the Twin Cities, and no joke, it was not until I went out of state to go to college that I became aware that “Dago” was an ethnic slur. I just never managed to encounter it in any context other than a sandwich (and occasionally a pizza topping.)

Really, it feels like the sorts of “exploitative business practices” we see in video games are just “business practices we see elsewhere”. I mean, how often does the “reduce the amount of stuff in the box while keeping the price the same, then later raise the price while keeping the amount the same” dance happen at…