For the record, God of War 2 opening with Kratos doing the exact same thing Ares had been doing, thus invalidating any resolution the first game had, really did strike a sour note even as it was drowned out by the gleeful fun of that first Rhodes level.

Using Rot13 wasn’t my idea. I forget who exactly I saw using it first, but I had no idea it existed until other posters here suggested it as a replacement for Disqus’ old spoiler tags. It may deny the use of bold, italics, etc, reducing the tools for communication down to plain text, but I still think it’s the best…

Their hashtag to get people talking about their moive has a flaw.

It really bugs me how DDLC has set the Youtube community on fire. Not only is its over-saturation denying people the ability to figure out the puzzle for themselves just by sheer collateral damage when searching for it...
(Rot13 spoilers)

I am reminded of my time playing MOBAs with friends. Being paired with random anonymous teammates carries the risk that poor team performance will cause players to start blaming these strangers instead of themselves. When five of us hop on Skype and queue up in game, we know that that feeling of helplessness shouldn’t…

I have a zeal for art that is about its own genre, containing what its creators both celebrate and criticize about their passion. But I often feel like a fraud since I’m rarely among the diehards; I’ve usually absorbed a basic understanding of style and tropes through cultural osmosis.

I also have a low tolerance for what mc chris once deemed “anime bullshit,” and am happy to report that DDLC has almost no trace of it. I mean, your character is kind of a hormone-addled dolt, but that seems to be an intentional slight against VN protagonists and players that are immature and obsessed with their own…

The Punch-Out “Two Games One Controller” challenge was cool, but I was particularly fond of Awful Block; they usually provide lots of laughs.

Have you played Doki Doki Literature Club yet?

I still remember the impression Doom 3 left on me in 2005, even though I was running it in a 320x240 resolution in order for it to be playable. And I remember, years later, getting the Unreal Tournament 2004 announcer to go “Holy Shit” when cranking every graphics option to max. That was gratifying. Cheesy, but…

Reminds me of an old xkcd comic.

I have a habit of instinctively recoiling from pop culture that becomes omnipresent. Even when it turns out to be something I quite enjoy when I get around to it, that expectation I see in co-workers’ eyes of “This is what people do I guess” is something I can’t help but want to mess with.

I’ll add my voice to the chorus: Thanks for all the expertise and enthusiasm. I saw an entry in Together Again yesterday, so I can’t say this column is the only one remaining from the glory days of The New Cult Canon, My World Of Flops, and Scenic Routes, but the signal-to-noise ratio around here is still far lower…

Back in the day, we called Painkiller “The Real Doom 3.”

I never played the WW2 scenario that came with Civ2, but I did play a bit of the other one, the Rome scenario. I was amused to learn that its makers would allow tech research to go at such a pace as to replace all my Legions with Musketeers. Can you break history to such a degree with this scenario? Unleash Stealth…

Munchkin is easy to learn, provides players with choices over what to keep and what to ditch, and is filled to the brim with jokes about D&D and those that play it. That last part, while amusing for those familiar with what it’s spoofing, is actually supplemental to its appeal, as playing Munchkin is one of my gaming…

I’ve never played Tacoma, but Errant Signal’s video on it made a joke about it and its predecessor Gone Home which I really liked and will paraphrase here:

That reminds me of the second generation Pokemon games, for the original Game Boy. Among the sequels’ innovations was a day/night cycle, run by an internal clock with its own battery.

And a Thanksgiving new year!

Because of my formative years playing this game, I look at everything through a 3rd Edition lens, so this might not apply under your ruleset.