I’ve been singing the praises of the Steam Controller for about five years now, and I look forward to using the next generation of its tech. With any flight game (excluding detailed sims like DCS or IL-2), one of my favorite genres, I’ve been able to remap the keys to control more like Ace Combat, which is very…

I was an English major for undergrad and did a huge chunk of an M.A. in English Lit; I was lucky that the majority of my research involved reading literary criticism, written by academics who had both extensively studied composition and actively taught it. When I did research in classes outside of the department,…

Every year, HD competes with BMW for the absolute bottom of Consumer Reports’ motorcycle reliability ratings, but, year in and out, both brands also compete for the top spot in owner satisfaction. I guess riding a Yamaha is far less satisfying to some than taking an HD or BMW to the shop and talking about how awesome…

My first ride was a red, basic package (manual locks and windows, am/fm) ‘96 Cherokee with the mighty 4.0 under the hood. I bought it in 2001 with 120,000 miles, and, between me and my brothers, we put another 150,000+, with it finally needing too much maintenance for my dad to justify holding on to it. He sold it to…

Inspired to download and finally finish Automata. It’s easy to forget how slick the game is when you haven’t played in a while.

Very true. I wasn't a 64 owner, and I never could along too well with Goldeneye, so I did enjoy the XBLA release simply because I finally got to see the whole game. It was very easy, but I also enjoyed myself.

A Goemon collection sounds like a good job for Konami to farm out to M2.

On the other hand, the long i-frames in the mounting animation have saved my ass numerous times. I also appreciate being able to quickly create space between myself and enemies before closing at high speed to avoid ranged attacks, such as dragon’s fiery breath.

It’s great. I put an Ash of War on it that makes it scale with Dex (B) and it slays; the “Bloodhound’s Finesse” is a great weapon skill: three quick slices and a backflip to safety.  

Heck, I used Steam Link and streamed Elden Ring from my home PC to my phone/Razer Kishi setup 100 miles away in a hotel. I didn't think it would work; my PC is on a wireless network. Stuttering? Sure, but it was eminently playable.

Yeah, the merchants are pretty expendable in this game. It seems as if you can eradicate the lot and buy everything from one shop.

Why not? He gifts a Spear +7, Leather Armor, and you can take his bell bearing to the twin husks in Roundtable Hold to access his merchant items. A Spear +7 is a precious early on.

I can’t think of a potential UI element that would ruin a From game more than enemy difficulty indicators. 

The sad thing is that, otherwise, the game seems to be pretty well optimized considering the hubub around the "minimum requirement" specs. On my 970, it runs a pretty solid 60fps @ 1080p/medium...until it stutters. 

The discount finally convinced me to go in. I was gonna wait until I upgraded my 970, but, given the GPU market, that isn’t happening soon. It’s running fine (1080p, mixture of medium and low settings locked @ 30fps), and I’m having fun. One crash, a levitating car, and an NPC sitting without a chair are the only bugs…

HR inquiries into workplace behavior are about as legitimate as an “internal affairs investigation” at a rural Sheriff’s Dept. HR is often nothing but a paperwork middleman and contract enforcer without robust, unionized collective bargaining to hold them accountable. HR departments should more accurately be named…

It sounds like one of the names my students might try to use as their handle when we play Kahoot! (online multiple choice trivia platform commonly used for whole-class reviews). For 75% of high school boys, coming up with a moderately offensive moniker, even if it is only seen for 5 seconds before I nix it, seems the…

Setting and personal preference for settings make or break these games for me. FC3 was awesome, even though I don’t like the setting; it did something newish with the FPS genre and was generally fun. I didn’t play 4 or Primal, but I did eventually get 5.

Whenever I would "switch" consoles with my cousins for a weekend, I was always ready to get my PlayStation back by Friday night. 

I’m actually likely to buy the $400 model. This is exactly what I’ve wanted for quite some time: a premium device for in-house handheld streaming. I’d say that, in the past year, at least 50% of my gaming has been done with my phone+Razer Kishi. It works great, but I want a more robust, dedicated solution. I also love…