Such a fantastic drummer, and a stand-up guy to boot. I remember back when he stepped in to drum on Coheed and Cambria’s No World for Tomorrow when Chris Pennie couldn’t play on the album for legal reasons, and he did a damn fine job. RIP.

I’ve been plugging away at The Last Cube, and I think I’m nearing the end. I’ve got 2.5 worlds left to go, as far as I can tell, but I think each will take about an hour, since the difficulty has ramped up immensely. Once you unlock all the mechanics, the game goes to some very entertaining and inventive places. One…

I’ve been playing The Last Cube. It’s a puzzler in the vein of Portal or Q.U.B.E., albeit in third person. It can be a bit finicky, but its mechanics are clever, and the puzzles are well designed. I’m only about a third of the way through, though, and I haven’t even unlocked all the mechanics yet, so there’s probably…

On the docket for this weekend is finishing Swery’s disastrously bad The Good Life. Instead of being the slightly rough but quirky and charming game I thought it would be, TGL is rough to the point of being nigh-unplayable at times, and its quirk is more grating than charming. I can say without a doubt that it’s one…

Now this is good Kinja.

I’ll always appreciate your film writing. Even when I disagree with your opinions, I can’t deny that you’ve given every film you watch a fair shot, and you bring the same critical, analytical eye to every movie. “C+” will always be a fun gag to me, but as far as I’m concerned, your writing deserves an A, and any…

It’s been mostly Halo Infinite for me for the past week. I beat the single player campaign on Monday, and since then I’ve been playing a bit of multiplayer every night.

Finally, a major event that Novak Djokovic can attend!

I honestly don’t even agree with the idea that the movie is smug. Preachy and didactic, sure. But self-satisfied? I don’t see it. I mean, the whole point of the movie is that everyone agrees that the comet is a problem; it’s just that moneyed interests prevent regular folk from stopping it. The movie isn’t saying,…

Speaking of open-world games, I’ve been playing Halo Infinite, which is the kind of open-world game I like: no crafting or bullshit extra mechanics; just story content, side content, and a very basic upgrade system. I don’t know if I’d say the mechanics are the best they’ve ever been — the dual-wielding of Halos 2 and…

Yeah, I have no idea how this will be enforced. I run a gaming podcast, and pretty much every episode from the past couple of years features some mention or discussion of COVID-19, often just in the banter at the start of the episode. Is the onus on me to mark all those episodes as containing COVID-19 content? Or is…

I’ve played quite a bit of Escape Simulator with my co-op buddies. The real draw is the user-generated content; the built-in levels are good, but they’re way too cramped. There are some really clever ones out there that use the game’s limited mechanics in neat ways.

I plan to finish up Type:Rider this weekend. It’s a pretty basic 2D physics-based platformer set in worlds based on typefaces throughout history. There’s nothing really notable gameplay-wise, but aesthetically, it’s wonderfully inventive; I wouldn’t be surprised if the library level from Pyschonauts 2 had been…

Yeah, those are basically my thoughts on the game as well. Occasionally the writing delves into some interesting ideas—-I like how the game illustrates that the “work” doesn’t end with the revolution—-but its treatment of those ideas is often clunky and obvious. And I 100% agree that bosses and mini-bosses are just…

Top 5 big-budget games I’m looking forward to in 2022:

It’s kinda strange that the Saints Row reboot has pissed off the purists, because it seems like it’s largely going back to 2 in tone and gameplay. Kinda makes you think they’re pissed off about something else...

Speaking of games that take too long, I’m approaching hour 70 of Tales of Arise. I think I’d have a much more positive impression of this game overall if it had ended 10 hours ago. But instead I’m stuck in this slog of a final dungeon, and it just. won’t. end. -sigh-

Just bring Hugh Jackman back.

For my money, the best three-vowel starter is URINE, but I may just lack maturity.

Honestly, I think Grint is happy to do steady, low-stakes work (especially since he has a kid now). He gets reliable income, he’s not on stressful, months-long shoots, and he keeps getting to do what he loves. It’s a pretty good deal, all things considered.