A blog covering far more than you ever needed to know about the original Kidz Bop album.
A blog covering far more than you ever needed to know about the original Kidz Bop album.
Episode 0 of a soon-to-be-biweekly blog about the Kidz Bop franchise, featuring an overview and an "FAQ".
All the mess that's fit to hot, 2026 edition!
It's another tardy Game of the Year list from every dinosaur!
The votes are in, and the Hottest Mess of 2025 has been chosen by YOU!
Game of the Year! You know, for kids and featuring the thoughts and opinions of said kids! Gonna fire off five GOTY blogs that have been in the backburner
Always a good sign when this song won't stop playing in your head. (Credit: The Mountain Goats) As unbelievable as it may seem, 2025 is drawing to a close. While I'm sure there will be absolutely dogshit developments for humanity as a species in the final 50ish days, I can't think of a recent year I'm more anxious to put in the rear view mirror. Based on the sheer number of entries (and the she...
Our mascot, Hott Messi, returns! (image credit: Seth Rorabaugh) Back on the final day of April, I wrote the first 2025 entry in this Hottest Mess series . This would not be notable if not for the fact that at the time, it felt like it would be the last one I would ever write. Fortunately, things have changed with this website, mostly for the better. The, ahem, presumptive winner of Hottest Mess...
Would you be surprised to learn this image comes from a pro-AI site? (Image Source: Digiday) For the past three months, I've been writing versions of this intro in my head. And basically every day during that time, I've made significant changes to it. Until, oh, a week ago, I wasn't sure if I should even bother writing this blog because of an obvious winner. But now hot messes are all the rage,...
It’s a little hard to believe that this is my 6th consecutive year of making GOTY blogs; it is not at all hard to believe that I’ve failed to finish a single one on time. Part of the reason is that I’ve only ever written the things as long as I’ve been a parent. This fact likely informs my choices, as indie games with shorter runtimes tend to dominate my lists. Another major factor is Game Pass...
I'm pleased to also unveil the official Hottest Mess mascot (image source: Seth Rorabaugh) In a time of years, 2024 was certainly one of them. The year began with some optimism that things might not be as bad for the games industry as 2023, but that bright side attitude quickly gave way to even more layoffs and turmoil. There were bits of good news as well, and some great games even came out, b...
God damn it, who left this stick with the kids?!? (credit: IMDb) I didn’t do one of these last year for a couple of reasons. First, I barely had enough time to write my own list, and I hadn’t been super diligent on tracking what my kids were into throughout the year. Second, neither kid (4 years old and 1 year old at this time last year) seemed all that into gaming; I was prepared to make the B...
To give you some perspective on how this year has gone, not just for the games industry but for me as well, my original version of this post was dated June. As you may have guessed, the wild spree of bizarre and terrible news kept pushing my plans further and further, and being busy at work sure didn’t help me finish the draft. As I typed this intro, I refreshed Twitter to see which of the Game...
I was too engrossed in the game to take any action screenshots, OK?!? Note: This blog contains unmarked spoilers for Hades , as well as unmarked spoilers for the mechanics of Hades II . Story elements included in the technical test of Hades II have been marked as spoilers, with the exception of the main character’s name and general descriptions of the supporting cast. The first thing I would li...
Pictured: Embracer entering the games industry (source: news dot xbox dot com) When I started this series in 2022, it was to resurrect a defunct feature of Game of the Year discussions that I’ve enjoyed in the past. After 2023 and 2024 so far, it’s clear why Giant Bomb staff past and present shelved it. The real winner of Hottest Mess in the game industry is the forces that continuously abuse,...
Throughout the second half of 2023, we charted its hottest messes and debated which terrible thing was the most worth screaming at. The polls have closed (not really), and the people have spoken. Without further ado, it's time to crown the winner... Poll Winner: The Embracer Group's Leadership I couldn't use the image from their own website (source: Fandom) Summarizing the actions of The Embrac...
2023 was a rough year. The industry saw unprecedented layoffs despite sky-high profits, as c-suite executives ruined thousands of lives in the developer, publisher, and media spheres to avoid taking even a shred of personal accountability. On a personal level, I feel like I spent most of the year low-key sick, mostly due to caring for a second, high-needs hatchling in the Dinos clan. I also spe...
Back in July, I took a look at some of the games on my work-in-progress GOTY list , and it seemed that I would miss the chance to write about them. Staring down both a loaded October and a swollen backlog of games released this calendar year, it seemed like a good time to make a sequel. It's possible a couple of the games end up being honorable mentions, especially the last one on the list. So...
A few days ago, I was lamenting to a friend that the Hottest Mess competition had cooled recently. Somewhere, a monkey's paw must have curled, because Unity decided Embracer shouldn't go unchallenged for this dubious crown. This is not to say there are only two viable candidates for the top prize, but... hoo boy. There is no shortage of candidates this year, both from news items I've pulled and...
For the last few years, I've been able to play 25-35 games in sufficient quantity to rank them for a GOTY list. I write at least a paragraph about my top 10, as well as short blurbs on my Honorable / Dishonorable Mentions. An unfortunate side-effect of this structure is that I fail to even note some games that are worth discussing. This is especially unjust for any early releases that occupy a...
Around the end of last year, I expressed my desire to see the Hottest Mess category return to Giant Bomb, even if it needed to come to the forums rather than Game of the Year discussions. Hottest Mess 2022 got a pretty good response, both in the call for candidates and in the voting. I meant to post something a week after the vote, but life got in the way until the topic felt moot. Recently, a...
Just when you thought it was over Just when you thought we were done Just when you thought it was safe, man We did it, did it again - Ja Rule feat. Metallica and Swizz Beatz, "We Did It Again" In some ways, this is a blog I didn't want to write. When the site announced Albummer! was ending after a 66-episode run, I was upset by the news. I held out hope when it was announced as a hiatus rather...
Ever since I watched Dave Lang play some of this game during Extra Life 2022, it's had its hooks in me. They made a fairly major update in early February so I dropped off of it, but the 1.0 announcement came a lot sooner than I predicted. Has anyone else been playing (or was playing and stopped) WarTales, and if so, what were your thoughts on it? Semi-related, since I've been monitoring several...
Bethesda gave a proof of life statement release date for Starfield this morning via a short trailer and an equal amount of Todd talking at the camera: Additionally, Bethesda is hosting a Starfield Direct on June 11th, 2023. I don't have much to say on the content of the trailer, but it seems like they needed a fair amount of extra time to make the game (hopefully) be in a complete state. At thi...
Not my screenshot, and not from the DLC, but a reminder that this game looks pretty neat! I like The Outer Worlds . Hell, I ranked it #4 on my 2019 Game of the Year list , and I stand by it. But when the DLC was released in September 2020 ( Peril on Gorgon ) and March 2021 ( Murder on Eridanos ), I didn’t bother checking either of them out. In the case of the former, Hades had just come out and...
What can I say, I have a brand to maintain. 2022 was a big year of change, both in the industry and in my personal life. On the former, the slow trickle of pandemic games began to open up at long last. I ended up playing 35 different games that were released this year, a personal record. The change was not all good, though, as massive layoffs seemed to hit both developers and games media alike....
Pictured: Lil' ALLTheDinos meets Baby ALLTheDinos Last year, my daughter began to notice video games and express preferences on what I and her mother would play. I wrote up a quick ranking while snowed in on New Year's Day, and it was enjoyable enough to do again this year. Of course, this was a huge year for the kid, as she is no longer my only child. Being a big sister is a huge deal, and it'...
Newborns look way more like this than I've ever been comfortable with. Parenting in the time of video games is a very strange thing. The predictable effect is that you have far less time for gaming than you did before there were squirming and squealing half-copies of yourself roaming your living space. We all make sacrifices (RIP Civilization series), but they’re worth it. The less predictable...
You know, when I started this series, I never imagined I would make it this far. Not only for common sense reasons (listening to and writing about all these albums has to be bad for my health), but I was fairly convinced Albummer would end well before its 50th episode. I'm absolutely delighted to be wrong on the second point, because it's one of my favorite features on the internet. I hope the...
In case you missed it, Wizards of the Coast announced a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons today, with a preliminary release date of 2024. As with 5th Edition, they've started a playtesting process, which you can find out more about in that link. I participated in the previous playtest and was pretty confused by the early form of 5e (which attempted to go by the name "D&D Next"). This one seems...
Yes, I bought this and had it shipped to me from a St. Louis-area Goodwill store for $5. Spoiler: I hate my dirty basement carpet more than I hated this album. Last year, I made an ironclad commitment in a blog post to rank the Albummers every 13 albums. In March, I made good on that promise, thinking it might be the last time I fulfill it. Fortunately, I turned out to be wrong, and I've receiv...
In the wake of, uh, this entire week so far, I'm not surprised this topic hasn't come up in the forums yet. However, I did want to put something out there, because I happen to be enjoying this game despite its flaws. For reference, I'm playing the PC (technically in beta) version using a mouse and keyboard. Here's a bulleted list of some of my thoughts: Positive The gameplay loop is authentical...
Three years ago back in October 2021, I created a ranking of the then-13 records the Albummer! crew had discussed to that point. Through rigorous scientific and empirical processes, I found which albums were secret successes, which were solidly in "bummer" territory, and which caused listeners physical pain. Now that the show has covered an additional 13 albums, I feel compelled to update my ra...
This is one of three screenshots I've taken of the game, so I'm using it, goddamn it! The first time I played a Souls game was the original Dark Souls back in 2013ish, when it became free on Xbox Games with Gold. I immediately fell in love with the aesthetic, its contemplative pace, and its dense RPG systems. Choosing a sword-and-board character, I found progression difficult but rewarding, and...
This is the third year I’ve actually had the gumption to post a Game of the Year list, and in the past two I’ve written a couple of paragraphs about the year and overall mood I had with the games I played. Well, fuck you 2021, you don’t deserve a couple of paragraphs. Let’s instead get right to my favorite games of a year I don’t want to talk about (yet). (With apologies to Hitman 3 , Resident...
Pictured: us enjoying a long cutscene Over the last few years, nothing has changed my taste in gaming quite like having a little hatchling toddling about the house. For 2019 and most of 2020, it meant that I would just wait for my daughter to go to sleep before I played anything. But as she grew older, and smarter, and more capable, my instinct was to find things she would enjoy watching. I bec...
To start things off, this blog entry is 100% inspired by Jeff's awesome review of Halo Infinite and also reviews in general , which I strongly encourage reading first. It got me thinking about how I prefer to consume video games-related critical works, as well as what I hope to get out of them when all is said and done. In the interest of avoiding a rambling post (EDIT: too late), I'm going to...
If you're a masochist like I am, you've probably listened to at least part of every album covered in the Albummer show. And if you grew up in the ranked-list-obsessed era of the Internet like I did, then you also have the same kneejerk reaction to sort the albums into a hierarchy from best / "best" to worst. The crew just reviewed their 13th album this week, which seemed like an auspicious numb...
AN: 2020 has been a terrible year for many people, and I want to avoid trivializing or being flippant about it at all costs. If anything written below contradicts this goal, please let me know and I’ll edit / remove it. I don’t remember what expectations I had for the gaming industry in 2020. This time last year, I had started a playthrough of Control , which I found equal parts brilliant and f...
AllTheDinos' Favorite Games of 2019 2019, huh? If there is a consensus on this year in games, it’s that it’s been a weird one. As the calendar marched on and high profile releases seemed to be in short supply, it looked increasingly likely that Doom Eternal would tower over everything else. And then that game was delayed to… March 2020, when seemingly every huge game is slated for release. Perh...