25,361 community articles
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Like many of you, I was fortunate and privileged enough to drop down some money for Itch.io's recent Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality : not only a worthy cause in aid of those protesting the murder of George Floyd and several others, but a cause that attracted an unprecedented number of contributors from larger, well-known Indie teams to passionate hobbyists: 1,391 contributors to be exac...
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The above image is pulled from one of Ellie’s flashbacks, her birthday. Ominous and haunting, foreshadowing the heartbreaking truth she will inevitably have to learn, this bloody painting of a betrayed Firefly punctuates the happy adventure Joel had just taken her on. “Liar.” A word which repeats itself throughout the entirety of The Last of Us Part II . A concept which, I believe, is the pures...
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Nintendo 64 - Christmas 1997 Game Boy Color - Spring 1999 PlayStation 2 - May 2001 Xbox - January 2003 Xbox 360 - November 2005/August 2007 Nintendo Wii - Summer 2007 Xbox 360 S - December 2011 Nintendo 3DS XL - May 2013 Xbox One - November 2013 Nintendo Wii U - May 2014 Xbox One X - May 2018 Nintendo Switch - May 2018 Xbox Series X - December 2020 PlayStation 4 Pro - May 2024
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I don't usually go in for debates about who "won" a console generation or "won" E3. If two good games consoles come out, then it seems pointlessly pessimistic to say that one has failed just because another has succeeded a little more. But we can find insight in comparison. Game companies don't make decisions in a vacuum; they react to each other. And when a technology or experience falls down,...
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Finally, a game emerges to answer the age-old question of "what if Zelda was a girl?". Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King is about as straightforward a Legend of Zelda clone as you could conceivably make, though without necessarily feeling all that stale or uninspired. This is opposed to games like Ittle Dew or The Binding of Isaac , which repurposed the iconic top-down dungeoneering format of th...
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What's The Deal With The Story? Mistakes were made.... When I started this blog series, I knew there would come a day where I would need to set higher standards for what I played. I knew the abyss would stare back. I knew I would be biting off more than I could chew. I knew I would be diving into a barrel of pond scum. However, I did not suspect I would experience an existential crisis about my...
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SPOILER WARNING: This blog assumes you are familiar with everything that happens in both Final Fantasy VII Remake as well as the original Final Fantasy VII . As such, there are massive spoilers below for both games (and this blog may not even make sense if you are not familiar with their plots anyway). Additionally, I give brief spoilers for the endings of the first Mass Effect , Star Wars: A N...
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I just spent the last month and a week or so of my life playing this game. 151 hours of in game time, at least according to the game itself. I suspect it might not count some of the time spent in menus, but I'm not entirely sure. And maybe it feels a little weird to open this with the time spent, but in so many ways this series is all about time, how we spend it, and amongst the myriad of jumbl...
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Sega's war on Nintendo in the 16-bit era was largely won by persuasive marketing, at least outside of Japan, but there was always an undercurrent of technological one-up-manship. The Sega Genesis came roaring out of the gate with a "does what Nintendon't" promotional campaign, highlighting the difference in power between itself and the NES when it released. After Nintendo answered with the much...
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Back again for another chapter of Trails in the Sky SC ! We've got some real good plot development this week, and there's so much going on that I'm going to have trouble picking out a few to write about. Anyways here we go! As always, everything below are going to be SPOILERS! Previously in Trails: Que music Proof of a Hero . Chapter 6 Back to back with last week's amazing chapter 5, this was a...
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As I'm sure many of you are aware Kotaku/Jason Schreier ran a pretty revealing and insightful piece into the shitty studio conditions over at Naughty Dog . For those of you that aren't up to speed, here's the highlights; - Naughty Dog encouraged rolling crunch for months at a time causing widespread burnout and depression among their developers “It’s an amazing creative environment,” said one d...
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I listen/watch to The HotSpot this week, and I just get frustrated with the ownership discussion. Nobody actually ever says what they WANT, just how the situation IS. I WANT TO OWN the stuff I pay for. Why is it that hard? It doesn't have to be "noble" like @jeff puts it. https://www.giantbomb.com/shows/the-hotspot-episode-366/2970-20364
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Wizards and Warriors Just a reminder that there are somehow zero screenshots of this game on the Giant Bomb wiki Developer : Heuristic Park Release Date : September 27, 2000 Time Played : About 3 ½ hours on stream (I’ve played around 20 on my own time) Dubiosity : 4 out of 5 Would I play more? Yes. Should you play more? Maybe? When I pick the dubious RPGs to put on the wheel for this ill-advise...
arbitrarywater (Premium member)
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Continuing a mini-series within IGotW I could pragmatically name "free shit I got from the Epic Game Store," Sundered is one of the only games I'm aware of that defines itself as a "roguevania". That is, an explormer game that procedurally generates the majority of its map after every session (or, more accurately, every death). For the record, I've seen this specific hybrid a few times before,...
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Had to skip last week, but here we are again. Week 4! Things are starting to get wild! And as always, This is entirely comprised of SPOILERS! (I don't know if anyone's reading at this point, but I apologize again if the specific names/quotes are not the same as the English translation. I try to find the actual English names at least, but I translate the quotes on the spot.) Previously in Trails...
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I've been playing Burnout Paradise Remastered, and somewhere along the line the act of tearing through those mostly empty streets dug up a cobweb covered tomb hidden in the recesses of my mind containing pure kernels of childhood gaming bliss. Feelings forgotten over more than a decade of "growing up," over college papers and coming to terms with a world which shrouds its intent behind doublesp...
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Single player games serve two primary purposes to me. They provide a fun, relaxing experience that I consume for enjoyment. For example, something like Mario Odyssey distills this essence, a game that strives to achieve no more than to provide a joyous space to explore. Games also provide me with opportunities to learn, experience and challenge myself. This can come in many forms, such as the e...
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Yo, before we start , just a quick update on the whole Dragon Age II thing: It’s still coming, but I’ve accidentally gotten sucked into Origins and now want to play through the entire thing without a captive audience watching me the entire time. So… because of this, the Dragon Age and Dragon Age II retrospective is now going to be its own separate deal. I’ll stream more when I feel like it, and...
arbitrarywater (Premium member)
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The original Final Fantasy VII was a milestone game for me. It was the biggest game in the world when it was released in 1997, setting my school ablaze with rumors of its production values and 4 disc length and it was hyped on the back of its breathtaking cinematics, which promised a whole new level of fidelity in gaming. It was the reason I got a PlayStation despite being a primarily PC gamer...
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Tonight I finished the main game of Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition, though I haven't played the new epilogue yet, and while I want to write up full thoughts at some point, for now I just want to complain about the end of the game, or really the back third. I think that XBC falls into the incredibly common JRPG trap of starting out telling a personal story about relatable characters and...
