25,361 community articles
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This weekend I stripped all the data off the hard drive of my original Xbox 360 and put the machine in my closet for good. This wasn’t a launch 360, but it was the first one I owned; an elite I bought in early 2008 when there were finally enough good games to convince me to scrape together the money. It had an RROD not long after I purchased it, but Microsoft fixed (or maybe replaced) it for fr...
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If you’re even moderately into gaming, you’re aware of Cyberpunk 2077 . A game that has been notorious for recent release date delays and a subject of controversy around crunch, the game’s developer CD Projekt Red cite the game as an Open World Action/Adventure Role Playing Game based in the futuristic joint called Night City. Night City is a city filled with many perils and threats around its...
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Watch_Dogs is one of my least favorite games I ever finished. I hated almost everything about that game, from Aiden Pierce and his terrible attitude to the lame story to the stiff combat and bland driving to the boring open world. There were a few minor highlights. I thought the Ubisoft tower climbs were moderately entertaining, liked the voyeuristic aspect of profiling people with your phone,...
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I’ve been attending university to become a teacher for quite a while now. I remember starting back in 2017 being completely overwhelmed and have been busting my butt since doing an enormous amount of theory. Lots of reports on child development, theorists, higher-level calculus and a never-ending demand for lesson plans. So many lesson plans. But five weeks ago, I got to do my very first practi...
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Something I've encountered a few times of late is the "non-RPG RPG Maker game": a case of a resourceful developer taking software meant to help in the creation of turn-based RPGs in the Dragon Quest / Final Fantasy mold, and instead dropping the combat element entirely to tell a conflict-free story with the occasional adventure game puzzle. This week's entry OneShot is such a game, presenting t...
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Throw up those horns, baby! \m/ \m/ I had to curtail my usual Tuesday rundowns of old-ass Genesis games this week due to being tied up (in a good way, but not in that kind of good way) by all the Giant Bomb Extra Life charity streaming last weekend. (Speaking of which, thanks to all those who got involved, either with your own streams or supporting others as donors and/or as an audience.) Inste...
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After playing probably over 400 hours of these games, some final parting thoughts on the Cold Steel franchise. I tried to organize this into a good part/bad part format so that it doesn't seem like I'm just ragging on the games. I truly enjoyed these games more than pretty much any JRPG I've played in recent memory (well other than maybe Undertale), and even though I do think Cold Steel is not...
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I am on record as buying an Xbox Series X despite not being very hyped for it. I spent most of the day with one eye on my FedEx tracking information to see as soon as it would get dropped off, but the guy brought it up to my apartment door and rang the bell after he dropped it off, which was nice of him. The packaging was smaller than I expected, and the console is actually pretty compact. I am...
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It's new console day today (and Thursday) for those lucky enough to snag one, and that means some discussion about launch libraries. Leaving aside comparisons between the two (for the record I think PS5 wins easily, even though I did not manage to get one) one thing that's interesting about them is how little filler/shovelware there seems to be. Launch exclusive games generally fall into one, o...
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This is not a review. This is a reclamation. Last month I played Dead Space for the first time since the spring of 2009. It's a game that I have long held as one of my all-time favourites, a viscerally terrifying third-person action-horror title that pays homage to the likes of Ridley Scott's Alien while building upon the winning formula of the seminal Resident Evil 4 . Dead Space is often the...
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Deck 4 Thieves' Guild Enforcer (M21) 125 10 Swamp (ANB) 116 4 Ruin Crab (ZNR) 75 10 Island (ANB) 113 4 Frantic Inventory (M21) 50 4 Drown in the Loch (ELD) 188 4 Soaring Thought-Thief (ZNR) 236 4 Teferi's Tutelage (M21) 78 3 Agadeem's Awakening (ZNR) 90 4 Mystical Dispute (ELD) 58 4 Into the Story (ELD) 50 1 Vantress Gargoyle (ELD) 71 4 Dismal Backwater (M21) 245
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A stressful Indie puzzle game during a stressful election week may not seem like the brightest of ideas, but Wilmot's Warehouse - the organizational puzzle game from Hollow Ponds , the creators of Loot Rascals , and Richard Hogg (who was not created by Hollow Ponds just to be clear) - has proven to be the right kind of stressful; that is to say, that once I'm in that game I am fully focused on...
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I'm back again for a 6th year for Extra Life! It's been a hard year with everything that has been happening around the world, but we're going to keep things going this year for the kids! Last year the schedule was a little more sparse, with some more time spent on a few fewer games. This year, I'm going back the other way and running a new game every hour with the exception of 2. (Edit:) Thankf...
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So here I am 10 years from my last blog post, and I didn't think I would ever post again here. I don't know what I can really say about this year that others haven't already said; however, I do need to vent, so why not do it here. 2020 started out looking so promising to me. I had a good-paying full-time job I enjoyed. I was on schedule to make the most money of my life this year. I planned and...
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Welcome back to the Mega Archive, which once again resumes after we took a little break for some Halloween festivities. I'm going to have to work on the next Mega Archive CD before too long and get that caught up, but until then we've still got (almost) the rest of the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive games released in October 1992 to process this entry. The good news is that there weren't any new sport...
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Note: The following article contains major spoilers for Hypnospace Outlaw. This is a graphical version of this article. If you would prefer a text-only version, click here . Sources Title Banner made with PICASION Glitter Text Maker . Space Background from Untitled Spiritualist Site . Raindrops, Pot Leaf, and Fairy Backgrounds from mommy9876 . Rainbow Banner from BLAGOSAH . Under Construction B...
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Note: The following article contains major spoilers for Hypnospace Outlaw. The technicolour mirage of Hypnospace Outlaw is familiar and yet distant. Online empires can rise and fall in the space of a year, and social trends can be forgotten a fortnight after they started. The exhausting pace of internet culture means that the turn-of-the-century web is now comparatively prehistoric. But that ve...
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The year: 2014. The day: Halloween. The show: Unprofessional Fridays. This was the moment Jeff Gerstmann dressed up in a penguin costume. Gerstmann as Penguin (2014) This was also the moment I happened to pause the video, was amused by the results, and decided to start saving screenshots from random paused moments in various Giant Bomb videos. Why? Uh... It is Halloween once again. It is also t...
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To celebrate Halloween this year, I'm playing through a bunch of horror games that were included in the Itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality from a few months back. The goal is to play and blog one of these horror games every day until the 31st; I've deliberately picked shorter ones to make this work. Each will be rated on their overall quality and "spookosity" in what I'm sure will b...
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Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir It's extremely weird to think that this expansion was kinda the last major traditional D&D video game until Baldur's Gate III (or Siege of Dragonspear, I guess) Developer : Obsidian Entertainment Release Date : November 4, 2008 Time Played : A little more than three hours Dubiosity : 2 out of 5 Best 5e D&D Module : Curse of Strahd, probably? Would I play mor...
arbitrarywater (Premium member)
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To celebrate Halloween this year, I'm playing through a bunch of horror games that were included in the Itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality from a few months back. The goal is to play and blog one of these horror games every day until the 31st; I've deliberately picked shorter ones to make this work. Each will be rated on their overall quality and "spookosity" in what I'm sure will b...
