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Christopher Nolan’s 2001 film, Memento, is my biography (minus all the murders) because my memory is garbage. Video game releases are the checkpoint flags I plant along the trail of my memory to recall important events. A variation of the following conversation happens at least once every two weeks: Friend : Hey, you remember when we all went to the fall festival our sophomore year of college? Me…
Some people just need killing. In ye olde Japanese roleplaying game tradition, there is a real bastard awaiting you at the end of the world in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. [Mild mechanical spoilers follow for an optional boss in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s third act.] The good news is that you won’t simply stumble into him. No, first you’ll traverse an impossible wasteland of dilapidated…
The sphinx from Dragon’s Dogma 2 is by far the most interesting part of the game, and this lengthy questline is completely missable. In fact, it’s likely that you’ll miss it. 2024 was a very good year for video games, but it was an even better year for me. I made things official with the woman I’m dating, I started my ADHD medication journey, I embarked on a five-country tour of Europe for the…
The most upsetting thing about my 291-day hiatus from this website about video games is how 2023 was probably the best year ever for video games. The second-most upsetting thing is that I finished half of the games on my top 10 list well into January 2024. But better late than never, right? Instead of the usual 45-pages-of-notes-in-my-phone approach I take to these GOTY posts, this year—mostly by…
For all the time I spent in them as a kid, churches always did scare me a little. The first time I ever reckoned with my own mortality was in a place of worship. I’ll never forget sitting in my cousin’s lap when the pastor’s words fell on me like a piano, Looney Tunes-style. I was three or four and probably inconsolable. No, it didn’t help that everyone else would die too. Why would that make me…
Samus stares down her first infant metroid on Tallon IV, moments before committing wholesale genocide deep within a Phendrana Drifts research lab. I read this issue in particular so much that the ink started wearing off. For 20 years, 3 months and 3 days, Metroid Prime has been my favorite game of all time. You deserve to know that upfront. My January 2003 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly,…
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. I have unfinished business with Bloodborne. Despite platinuming the game seven years ago, I never came back for the expansion, The Old Hunters. Trust me, I am fully aware of how tremendous a screw-up that is. I have heard Ludwig’s theme and, despite my fervent Nobuo Uematsu standom, it’s probably one of the five best video game…
See that mountain? You probably shouldn’t climb it. Tarnished journal entry #27 : It’s 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning, and my eyes are redder than a Caelid sunset. I’ve ridden for days through the pea soup fog of the Consecrated Snowfields, giving runebears, wolfback archers and invisible black knife assassins a proper berth. I’ve descended what must be miles down the trunk of this massive tree, one…
In terms of video games, 2021 for me might as well have been 2001, wherein I rekindled an old flame (Samus), destroyed my sleep schedule with Halo and miraculously found time to complete multiple 80+ hour RPGs. 2021 is maybe the first year that proved my burgeoning social life (Those first few post-vax months were something, weren’t they?) and video game habits don’t necessarily sit in diametric…
Abrasive rock-n-roller Johnny Silverhand (Keanu Reeves) and Night City itself are the two main stars of Cyberpunk 2077. You may be surprised by which one grows on you more as the narrative unfolds. 2020 has been full of surprises. Some of them were good; but most of them were decidedly not good. I’m sure I don’t need to get into it. Actually, Judy Alvarez is the main star of Cyberpunk 2077, and I…
