25,363 community articles
Published
Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino, Billy, and Pete discuss the nutzo-wutzo...
Published
Update 1 March: Panzer Dragoon Zwei advances over Mighty Final Fight to the semifinals! My special boys all get byes into the quarter finals of this thing, but I want YOUR opinion as to what I should be playing as part of my return to the GBCER. So, head on over to Twitter Land for up to date progress on this thing or follow this blog post where I'll be doing my best to link the current poll! N...
Published
The SNES Classic had a sterling assortment of games from Nintendo's 16-bit star console, but it's hardly all that system has to offer a modern audience. In each installment of this fortnightly feature, I judge two games for their suitability for a Classic successor based on four criteria, with the ultimate goal of assembling another collection of 25 SNES games that not only shine as brightly as...
Published
On the whole, I probably write more about JRPGs than CRPGs. That's not to play favoritism, but until fairly recently JRPGs were more frequently released and more convenient for someone who largely sticks to console gaming rather than chance anything halfway modern on this basic bitch laptop. CRPGs are having a big resurgence of late, however, beyond the occasional Todd Howard wanderlust sim and...
Published
Creating the sounds of the monsters in Monster Hunter World is an art in and of itself. Many different organic and inorganic sounds were blended together to give each monster a unique, identifiable voice. Without even seeing a big monster on screen, simply hearing its roar tells you who you’re going up against. Nature’s bounty gives us a nearly endless fount of luscious sounds from which to dra...
Published
A recurring problem with video games is that certain games tend to be revealed or announced way too early. Normally this is when the publisher and/or the developer makes an announcement for an upcoming game, whether it’s a new IP or a new entry in a series, and the game comes out 3-5 years after its initial reveal. Kingdom Hearts 3 is an example where it got announced 5 years ago, but it is exp...
Published
It's the distant future. The cities of man lie in ruins, nature having taken most of its territory back from the concrete monoliths that once defied it. What remains are not people but machines: robots created by humanity in their image but are abandoned and bereft of purpose with their absence, left to eke out existences of their own choosing and ponder their own inchoate stirrings of consciou...
Published
As the months pass, it's becoming more and more likely that Kingdom Hearts 3 is actually going to release in 2018(update: January 29, 2019. I was close!). Judging by the latest trailer, it also seems pretty likely the game's plot is going to involve some pretty deep lore cuts that even fans might not remember. That being the case I'm feeling compelled to write something, a primer of the informa...
Published
It's that time again! i a cat If any of you were around for the old days at Screened, you'll recall that we used to run a contest called Box Office Winners League when we got the feeling to do so. It's a simple premise: guess how much money a movie is going to make in a given weekend, and if you're the closest guess, you win! There's a bit of skill in it, since box office is roughly predictable...
Published
Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode, Gino, Chris " @zombiepie " -REDACTED-, and @...
Published
Our look at the cottage industry that are HOPA games - Hidden Object Puzzle Adventures, though I'm still not certain if that's common nomenclature or just some Steam reviewer's preferred acronym (and I know a lot about preferred genre names that no-one else uses) - continues this week with the introduction of yet another developer who works alongside our old titular friends Artifex Mundi: Brave...
Published
It occurs to me that despite making this site my home over the past... oh god, nearly a decade huh?... I don't really talk about Giant Bomb and its output all too often. There's some big changes coming down the pipe fairly soon (nothing too grand as far as the content is concerned though - I don't have any scoops on new staff members or anything) but we've already seen a lot of unexpected chang...
Published
Ahh, it's great to be back in the comforting embrace of the traditional point-and-click genre, after some earlier tangential dalliances this year with the likes of The Wolf Among Us and those HOPAs I've been experimenting with. I have plans for plenty more of these this year, between Indie Game of the Week and the upcoming return of May Maturity, and Bear With Me is a fine game to start us off....
Published
NamCompendium is an attempt to survey the output of NAMCO from October 1978 to present. The primary goal of this work is to provide as authoritative of information as possible for Giant Bomb’s Wiki, with the secondary goal of considering the relative merits of individual games. In this entry, we shall consider Namco's immediate followups to their single best known work. Spoilers: they aren't as...
Published
Man, it's already February! One month down, eleven to go, and not a single urge to browse the Steam sales. I'd say this resolution is off to a banging start. January Recap: Games Completed: Sleeping Dogs Horizon: Zero Dawn Pyre Games Shelved: NieR: Automata (though I did beat Route A) Other Games Played: Overwatch (ugh...) Heroes of the Storm (ugh...) Divinity Original Sin 2 Cuphead ###########...
Published
As much as I hate linking to Elsevier, this paper seems interesting . Selling violent video game solutions: A look inside the APA's internal notes leading to the creation of the APA's 2005 resolution on violence in video games and interactive media Abstract For decades politicians, parent groups, researchers, media outlets, professionals in various fields, and laymen have debated the effects pl...
Published
The SNES Classic had a sterling assortment of games from Nintendo's 16-bit star console, but it's hardly all that system has to offer a modern audience. In each installment of this fortnightly feature, I judge two games for their suitability for a Classic successor based on four criteria, with the ultimate goal of assembling another collection of 25 SNES games that not only shine as brightly as...
Published
Hey there folks, and welcome to my first blog post of 2018 - a belated 'Happy New Year' to one and all is in order, I guess. I had planned to put something out there a lot sooner than this. I'd been thinking about jotting down a list of priorities for 2018, both gaming and otherwise, but the moment has probably passed for such a blog to be relevant at this point. I'd also intended to resume my...
Published
The North American/European JRPG fan had quite the banner year in 2017 with the releases of Persona 5 , Tales of Berseria , Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana , NieR Automata , Dragon Quest VIII (for 3DS), Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age , Xenoblade Chronicles 2 , The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd , Nioh , and others. If I were to narrow down the most exciting of those, objectively spea...
Published
Dragon Ball FighterZ has been making major waves in the fighting scene and for good reason. Arc System Works created a 3v3 fighter starring the cast of the Dragon Ball series that feels more like a spiritual successor to Marvel vs. Capcom 3 than Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite ended up being. While Arc Systems is known for creating technical and complex fighting game systems, this seems to be its m...
Published
Hiya folks, So this week has been a bit crazy with work, so I apologize for what is both a late and short blog entry. With that in mind, I will keep this short, sweet and to the point. FUCK THIS GUY! Seriously...I took nearly 2 weeks playing nothing but this boss, before finally besting him. It was honestly quite frustrating and not something I enjoyed in the least bit. Between the RNG elements...
Published
In truth, I acquired Affordable Space Adventures in a special "Friends of Nintendo" Humble Bundle from a couple years back that I bought largely for a Wii U copy of Shantae and the Pirate's Curse , and promptly forgot about it. It wasn't until I played Uurnog Uurnlimited last December and was doing some research on Nifflas - the Swedish Indie developer who usually fills his 2D games with puzzle...
