I don’t believe that the recent God of War would be anywhere near as well-regarded nor widely-recognized if it wasn’t prepared to disassemble its own foundations and leave reams of material on the floor in favor of what makes it really work.
Category: Video Games
PAN-PAN and Implicit Direction
One of the very quickest ways to kill my interest in a game is to railroad me into a tutorial. Conversely, the fastest way to get me on board is to display trust in the audience. But Pan-Pan just takes it to the next level on top of that.
The Game Awards and Apples-to-Oranges
Obviously, I love looking back at movies, games, shows – darn near anything under the umbrella term “media” – and celebrating what makes it so memorable. Heck, that’s effectively the mission statement of this blog. Awards shows seem custom-built to do that, so in theory I should be completely and totally on-board with them. Not so much.
Digital: A Love Story and Interactive Fiction
Unfortunately, in the context of video games, it always feels like there’s some degree of separation between the fiction itself and the delivery method. which makes games that do bridge this gap well that much more notable. Games like Digital: A Love Story.
Bravely Second and Mechanical Pacing
Bravely Second is seemingly unafraid to utterly bury you in options for possible party builds and accompanying tactics. But it never really feels like too much at any point, owed to its fantastic pacing.
Kingdom Hearts and Sunk Costs
As an up-front qualifier to the rest of what I'm about to say, I absolutely adore the Kingdom Hearts series and (most of) its associated games. But here's the rub: I have serious doubts that I would start playing the Kingdom Hearts series if I heard about it for the first time today.
Nier Automata x OST and Conlang
One of those elements that instantly makes a setting feel fleshed-out and well-realized to me is the presence of conlang, or constructed languages. It's dead impressive that the invented "chaos language" in NieR: Automata is custom-made just to deepen the series' often-haunting and sometimes-thrilling soundtrack.
R.A.D. and So-Bad-It’s-Good
By any objective measure, Robot Alchemic Drive is a garbage game. Yet I love this rough little clunker so very very much.
Last Remnant and Software Extinction
Yesterday, it was announced that The Last Remnant would be discontinued for PC in a week and some change. For sales/support reasons? Some issue with licensing? Who knows! Point is, no new players on those games. This isn't even the first time this has happened by a long shot.
Saints Row and Variable Tone
Back in the college days, Saints Row 2 was our vice of choice. Yet even with our inbuilt good faith in in the series, I've barely spent a third of the time in Saints' Row The Third as I have its predecessor. So what happened here?
Bravely Demos and Succinctness
I love me a good JRPG. I have for about two-thirds of my life now. But here's the thing - I can only really play a very limited number of them.
Yakuza and Closed-World Environments
The Yakuza series of games has been gaining a lot of traction recently in the West . Like with S.T.A.L.K.E.R.’s sparse inventory space, its unwillingness to let the player off the proverbial leash works in its favor.
Shadow of Mordor and Genre Borders
Video games are a weird thing to think about as a category, and sorting them into different genres is tricky. The RPG label just might be the worst of them these days.
Digimon Story and Consumer Relations
Digimon was part of my normal Saturday morning cartoon block, so naturally I jumped on Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth when it came out a few years back. A few issues with that.
Pokémon Johto and Tenderfoot Role-Playing
My gut reaction to Pokémon: Let's Go, Cute Critter! was admittedly on the pessimistic side, and while I stand by what I wrote, it definitely comes from a certain perspective that doesn't represent all - possibly even most - potential players of that game. So I'd like to leverage that same perspective to talk about what has and still does excite me about the Pokémon games, and a huge part of the reason why I'm still willing to come back to the table every single time one of these games comes out.
