And honestly, rather than being monotonous—as I expected—it was rather fun. It didn't take long to do and it was nice to do more than just walk around and fight—though, I will say that when I was on death’s door in battle, the idea of having to redo the whole map since my last save was more daunting than losing an…

The permanency of Dark Souls. The permanency of death. No pretending. Your death fits a very unique set of rules that we all must adhere to. There will be consequences. If you suck, you will be punished.

Dekar: great character or greatest character?

If you've never played it, you may want to take a look at Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. It brings that element of using your weapons on the dungeon map to solve puzzles. It got a lot of hate because people expected an epic on the level of FF2US when it came out, but it's a really underappreciated game that's a precursor…

I work with people who have substance abuse problems, and I think it's important to point out that even in my field - where the concept of "addiction" originated - there is debate as to what addiction is. I think it's a very long stretch to apply it to other areas than substance abuse (not to say that it shouldn't be…

It could be worse. It could be a cat jumping on your table during a game of Empires in Arms...

Unfortunately, it seems Ubi has decided they didn't really like games with playable female characters after all...

June 20 - Lufia 2

Am I the only one who glance quickly at the title and saw "Why Game Developers Keep Getting Laid"? It's funny the difference a tiny adverb can make...

It's obviously just a game, but I can't help but think it highlights what kind of judgments make about other people when they see things that are meant to be private. Just think of the NSA spook browsing over the details of people's personal lives making similar judgments.

They're trying 12-year-old kids as adults?! :(

Yay! 3x3 Eyes! That series deserves more love.

Back when I was a kid in the late 80s and early 90s, game music didn't seem like anything special. Sure, I knew the Mario Bros. Rap and could hum the theme to Sonic the Hedgehog, but no game music ever captivated me. Then I played Final Fantasy VI.

My opinion of Dragon Ball as always been that Toriyama set out to parody martial arts manga, and then realized he was just frigging awesome at drawing a martial arts manga and ran with it. He can't do anatomy though. :P

...and Nintendo fails to realize that people want to play Gameboy games on their phones, and that they'd shell out money for it.

Wait - I don't get the legal rationale. They are not infringing on the trademark, they are not using the art, characters, or setting of Magic, and game rules cannot be copyrighted. What are they basing their lawsuit on?

KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!!!!! ;)

Mr first language is French, and having learned English, I can testify first-hand to how much to ability to speak, understand, read, and write English is a privilege. Also, the flipside to that situation is that native English speakers are much less likely than anybody else to learn a second language (at least it is…

Of course, denying gay people the right to get married in a game about relationships and marriage is itself "social commentary."

Hey Doc. Really enjoying the column. Some of your advice has been helping me quite a bit over the past few months. I've officially been single for a year now. I've only been in two serious relationships in my life and each of them lasted four years. I ended the last one April 2013 because I realized that I wasn't…