Before we talk about the games I’m playing, let’s talk about what I’m going to be playing: Last week Chris and I wrapped up our series on Batman: Arkham Origins. In that final entry, I put up a poll asking people what we should cover next. Here are the results: Resident Evil 5 (2009) – […]

And so we begin the new year with a bit of positivity and a whole lot of mailbag questions. Also, we got at least four different emails asking me to comment on Walmart’s proposed virtual mall. Given my history, do I have anything new to say as this idea re-appears after vanishing for 20 years? […]

I’ve spent a lot of time pointing out when game writers break the rules of storytelling. Sometimes I feel like the storytelling police: A dull prescriptivist that endlessly harangues writers with a list of simple Do’s and Don’ts lifted from Creative Writing 101. But look. Storytelling rules are more guidelines than laws, and I’m willing […]

THIS FUCKING GAME. The game starts out with a ton of backstory and exposition that goes on way, way too long and drops too many proper nouns. But it all boils down this: the big, evil empire from up north, Archadia, stomped its way south and took over its next-door neighbor, Landis. Then it took […]

And so we come to the end of this series. Scroll down for some final thoughts, and a poll regarding what game we’ll cover next. I complain a lot about how Batman behaves in these games. From Arkham City onward, he seems to be clumsy, violent, reactive, stubborn, and generally bad at working with his […]

If I had to describe Final Fantasy XII in two words, I would pick “fascinatingly flawed.” The game is like a junk sculpture: a grand amalgam of pieces that, individually, are often nothing special, and are often, well, junk. But sometimes, in the right light, from the right angle, these parts form a whole that […]

You might remember that back in 2016, I did a retrospective on Final Fantasy X. You might also remember that during that series, The Rocketeer showed up in the comments, throwing down these huge walls of text that basically ran circles around my analysis. On one hand, it’s sort of embarrassing to have a member […]

Happy New Year! If you’ve been meaning to watch the Batman streams that Chris and I have been doing, then tonight is your last chance. We’re going to finish the game tonight on his Twitch channel. That show begins at 8pm Eastern. Here is the VOD from last week: Chris has been in the driver’s […]