I’m late to this story and no one will probably see this but I just wanted to give you a shout-out Purdom. This is a really good write-up of Braid and the late 00's Indie Boom in general. Glad AVC still has good-ass games writing like this. Shit makes my day!

I live in the Midwest and work for a company that has recently purchased a bunch of companies in Montreal over the last few years so I just work with a lot of Montreal folks. Based solely on Spark convos and phone calls though I’ve found the stereotype that French Quebecois are rude to be incredibly false. They seem…

Yeah, it could’ve worked if he was going for something simple like “androids were the baddies all along” but he doesn’t play it that way. It’s just weird. I also still don’t fully understand why A2 stabbed a goddam baby. There’s a lot of questions coming from Nier Automata but it’s at least a hell of a ride.

I have been surprised by how effective throwing a traffic cone through C4 traps and waiting for guards to get bored is. The overclocked Augs aren’t that great but I understand they had to extend your skill tree and at least there’s an interesting side quest tied in with it. These guys care about their lore and world…

*Extremely Chinatown Voice*

Pokemon grew way faster than my patience for it’s gameplay style but I’m glad people are still out there enjoying it. I recently tried to give the new Hawaii versions (sun and moon right?) a try but it still didnt click with me. Gold is where I left off and that was a good stopping point for me.

hey man, maybe the anonymous ebay buyer was Chum!

There’s a nice logic to the puzzles involving the back of those Hex Robots that I found really enjoyable. I even busted a pen and paper to track all the different variations. Act I had better story and lore set up but Act II has better puzzles imo. Also you’re probably closer to the end of BA than you think. The game…

You should’ve done the right thing for the group and loaned your Switch out like in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants but it’s a Switch instead of Pants and it’s just so I can play Mario Odyssey without having to buy a Switch.

Deus Ex Mankind Divided got me shook. Been a while since a game hooked my compulsive side this well but I’ve been staying up late everynight to climb through vents, hack safes and get into moral debates about drug use in mob basements for nights now. The game isn’t perfect. The story lacks momentum and the “maybe the…

“In my day, Molly wasn’t something you took before a party! Molly was your roommate who got assaulted by her sweetheart who later went on to be a Congressman.”

All the PS Vita Metal Gears are pretty helpful for understanding what’s going on in Phantom Pain so maybe those?

Shoot this shit straight into my veins!!!

Broken Age is great but be prepared to see the very definition of a rushed game in the coming act. Still lots of great puzzles and dialogue though.

Gone Home can be finished in 60 minutes and it’s good as hell. Do it!

I did the first hour or so of Oxenfree and while I didn’t feel hooked I’ll probably finish it. Right now I don’t have much of a stake in any of the characters but the game seems to take minimal effort and has nice aesthetics at least.

Bad Company 2 was the FPS that really pushed me over the edge into the online fps world back when it came out. Honestly no game has ever come close to how good it was in it’s prime. The destructible buildings and maps centered around my favorite game mode (Rush) just guarnteed I had a great time every time I logged…

Nier is lucky it has such a vocal online fanbase because with how long it takes to really kick into gear, I could’ve seen myself giving up on it if people weren’t egging me on to get every ending.

I know Warioware Gold isn’t the Warioware Switch the world deserves but at least it shows the franchise isn’t completely dead. I lost a stupid amount of time to the Warioware Gamecube game in highschool with my friends so the series holds a very warm place in my heart.

Great writeup as always Shin! And man those two Phantasy Star videos reminded of one universal inalienable truth, the Sega had one of the most banging sound chips out there. Seriously that Phantasy Star II exposition music is just out of this world. I’m probably going to queue up that OST today even though I’ve never…