On the “what is good, fun, compelling game design, and what is evil behavior-conditioning design” topic, which really is something that has become relevant ever since the rise of MMORPGs and mobile games, I like looking back at the 90s, a more innocent time where reviewers and advertisers were, irony-free, writing…

That reminds me of Final Fantasy X, when Kimahri has a solo fight against his old bullies, to prove to them how much he’s grown since they were children. Except he hadn’t grown. I’d never used him. I still grinded out a victory, but instead of proving “You have to respect my strength and skills,” I proved to them:…

I rewatched Anaconda and was disappointed when at no point in the movie did Owen Wilson say, “Wow, that’s a big snake.”

I checked out two French metal bands this week, starting at their most recent releases:

I like the seed of an idea that the Alien Vs Predator arcade game sets up, with the game’s Dutch character being both a lookalike for Arnold’s character of the same name from the movie and a cyborg designed to fight Predators. However, what the game implies to me is that, like Big Boss from the Metal Gear series,…

I can’t imagine the Predators care to fight mechanical life forms: with no bones to take as trophies, what’s the point?

Propeller Brewery’s Double IPA. After a year in Alberta, I arrived back to my homeland of Nova Scotia this summer, and was able to buy my favorite beer again. Sipping out of the bottle while reading a book outside is my favorite way to spend an afternoon.

The book has one of Hammond’s geneticists recommending that they redesign the creatures to be slower, weaker and more docile, and Hammond brushes him off. I think it’s implied that the feeling of encountering something that could easily prey on you, while you’re safe behind an electric fence, would cause the same sort…

Yeah, the book has lines from the geneticist Henry Wu about how the life forms in the park are artificial, about the impossibility of historical accuracy, about the deliberate design that’s gone into these creatures by the scientists who created them. There was a little paraphrasing of that when they brought his…

That’s a neat meta-narrative bit about Jurassic World. People lamenting “Jurassic Park was state-of-the-art in 1993, coming as close as it could to our at-the-time understanding of dinosaurs, but the current movie rejects contemporary breakthroughs and clings to those 20-year-old concepts!” were rebuffed in the…

I too have had it beaten into my head by musicians that a fade-out is taking the easy way out instead of writing an ending to your song.

The thing about Grumble Volcano is that, while Bowser’s Castle had an element of shock and awe to go with its function as yet another of the Koopa King’s monuments to himself, it didn’t feel like a videogame boss, gameplay-wise. Rather, I got that it was supposed to be just as fun as Wario’s and Waluigi’s stadiums,…

Brownie Mountain’s gone and now there’s nothing left
All is gained, on the desert plain
Fudgy ripples swirling through your wandering soul
All is lost, in your melted brain
Praise be to our perfect (perfect) chocolate god
We worship you, till the day we die
Yeah

There’s a dropdown menu marked with an “Aa” at the top right of your comment box while you’re typing it up. It has all your formatting options. Dunno if it works the same way if you’re on a mobile device though.

I was happy that they made another “get shot out of a cannon to the top of a downhill race” track in the next game, with DK Summit. Mountain is the better track, but Summit charmed me through sheer gimmickry.

No, it’s not just you. I’m well familiar with, in the middle of a crash, thinking: “Dammit, I saw that coming. Why did I do that?” Maybe it’s just the wrong muscle memory being accessed, since the game makes equal demands of “Aim At The Thing” and “DON’T Aim At The Thing!”

I have a lot of nostalgia for Coconut Mall as well; my friends and I played a ton of Mario Kart Wii back in college. I liked the variety of paths and approaches the track offered, but my main memory is the ecstasy and the agony of getting run over by our Miis in the parking lot right before the finish line.

I love how the first thing you unlock in Saint’s Row 4 is the ability to run faster than any car. “Oh,did you think this was like Grand Theft Auto? Nope, now it’s like Prototype/Infamous. Surprise!”

“But just as important is the way the game’s combat has been refined within an inch of its life, removing all but the most unavoidable of player deaths... Rapture is all about addicting the player to a steady drip of empowerment and success, gently leading them from point to point while making them feel like they’re…