arbitrarywater's Articles

ArbitraryWater recounts his experiences with Pokemon Champions and the dark hole he found himself in as a result. Sometimes you just have to use a Garchomp, okay?

ArbitraryWater recounts what it's like to get back into Pokemon after several years, up to and including finishing the pokedex. He's not sorry.

With the continued success of the Giant Bomb feature “Blight Club” I thought it good and proper that I, Mr Dubious Wheels himself, inject himself into the conversation uninvited and undesired. Here are a handful of games I think would greatly benefit from the Blight Club treatment, mostly because I played them at some point myself and think other people should suffer as well. I recommend all of...

Hahahahah oh fuck I guess we’re still doing this huh? While the state of this website and its various features are in flux, I guess I’ll still keep posting my write ups here, partially because I would like to still keep writing things and partially because I still haven’t gotten up the enthusiasm to purchase a stupid domain name for too much money. That’ll still happen though. Anyway, here’s th...

I've been writing dumb bullshit on this website since I was sixteen years old, literally half my lifetime ago, and this year was the year where I decided I wanted to be a little more regular with that. That didn't end up being the case, although you can be sure that I'll finish my Mid-Budget Action-JRPG write ups once things in my personal life have calmed down a bit. Unfortunately, given the s...

Well I didn’t manage my goal of doing this on a weekly basis, so you’ll have to forgive me. I had the flu, then I had the charity. A lot of stuff has happened. As recompense, here are more unnecessary words about role-playing video games made in Japan with an action component to their combat. I think I’m about done streaming these, so please look forward to more Dubious RPG write ups in the pot...

Hello and welcome back to my blog thing. Look at me, putting out another blog in short succession to that last one I wrote! Now that's productive! Or maybe not, given that I probably should've been doing my grad studies homework instead of writing this thing, but it's fine. Once again, I'm here writing about the video games I've played for my silly internet streams, or at least what I was playi...

Hello and welcome back to a lightly distinct version of the thing I used to write about more often before writing became hard and motivation became harder. In what is definitely not a soft lead-in for The Wheel of Dubious RPGs Season 3, I’ve decided to catalogue my adventures in streaming through my RPG backlog in the only way I know how: writing dumb internet blogs. I used to do these things o...

Hello nerds welcome to my internet blog. You can follow me on a more consistent basis at my internet twitch or on the Deep Listens Family of Podcasts . Here is my internet list. Biggest Disappointment: Dragon’s Dogma 2 It’s not that Dragon’s Dogma 2 is bad, it’s that they intentionally made the same game again but bigger and also it runs the way that first game did on the 360, which is to say “...

Where I Left Off If you’re ancient like me and cling to old memories like a comforting blanket before death, you may recall my enthusiasm for the first two God of War games back in 2015 and 2021, which are two very real years that certainly happened recently and not nine and three years ago respectively. In addition to being technical showpieces for the Playstation 2, they’re both fun video gam...

Alone with my Snark Remember when video games were good? No? Maybe we've moved on and have made better things? Where are you going? I had to be the one to do this. As the internet man whose current internet brand is “Playing bad horror games” I’m gonna be the guy that has a take about the Alone in the Dark reboot. Despite being delayed twice to avoid competing with heavier hitters, THQ Nordic s...

Hello I'm back, almost a month into 2024 to tell you that, at the very least, like half of this blog was written in early January. We still have our Christmas tree up, no major new releases have come out (for like two days) so this is still relevant and cool, damn it. I'm not going to wallow in it, but my life is in a weird place right now and my writing output has suffered. Listen, there was g...

Hello and welcome to video games. 2023 was a bad year for me but a good year for video games. Here is a list of the ones I liked this year. 1. Alan Wake II Some say that this road loops forever this road road road Having played it this year, I think the original Alan Wake is mostly quaint. Coming to it 13 years later, you can see all the ways it was salvaged from an open world game they couldn’...

Hello and welcome back to dubious horror I swear I'm gonna try and put these out at a regular clip. If you'd like to follow along with the dumb internet streams these write-ups are based around, I'm on the Twitch under this dumb internet moniker. Or you can find the VODs on Youtube. A reminder of what categories we have for this season of Dubious Horror. Spoiler: as of this writing we've barely...

The Tower of Dubious Horror Games 2023 READER BEWARE, I'M IN FOR DESPAIR Welcome back to the realm of Dubious Horror. I’ll be honest: I have a shortlist for The Wheel of Dubious RPGs III: The Absolute Dregs with more than 40 games, as well as a smaller list of dubious character action stuff I'd really like to show off. Both of these will likely come to fruition next year, but I think it’s time...

Help, Armored Core has consumed my life You better believe I have a lot of takes about CURRENT POPULAR GAME. But instead of that let's talk about a niche series of robot games made for lunatics between the years 1997 and 2006. Oh hi, it’s been a bit, hasn’t it? What if I got back into the habit of playing video games and writing about them, hm? Too much has happened to me in the last few months...

It’s time to finish my plate. I figured before I started my next dubious streaming project*, I might as well clean up The Tower of Dubious Horror Games. So here it is, a testament to my 14 years of writing dumb things on this silly webzone. Should only need one more part after this. If you'd like to find stream VODs of all of my playthroughs of these games, consider checking out my youtubes Cou...

PLAYER PHASE I was going to finish this blog last week before FE Engage came out but then two people from this website got laid off and I had to deal with existential peril haha lol. Pour one out for Jason and Jess. Much to my chagrin, I am not a being with infinite time and infinite patience. Playing enough of a tactics game to feel comfortable writing 3-5 paragraphs about it is a surprisingly...

Oh Hi, it's me again. Did you miss me? No? Well, too bad. When I'm not playing terrible fucking Sonic games on stream or entertaining a particularly anxious 4-year-old Goldendoodle while his owners are visiting the in-laws, I like to tactics. Here are two more high quality (this isn't me doing a sarcastic bit, I think both of these games are fantastic) video games worth your time if you like he...

If you had told me around a decade ago that XCOM Enemy Unknown and Fire Emblem Awakening would help usher in a new wave of turn-based tactics games, I would’ve been irrationally stoked. Too much, honestly. After spending multiple years of my life griping that they weren’t making the video games like the video games I liked, there is suddenly an abundance. A surplus of games what with square and...

Hello bombardinos. Bombfriends? Bombos? What do we call each other anymore? Fandom wiki editors? It's been a bit, and I'd like to apologize. I'd also like to apologize because this absolutely isn't a dubious horror blog. Haven't had the time to give Countdown Vampires the write up it deserves, but now that I'm currently "done" with the Tower of Dubious Horror games (at least, I'm taking a break...

Illbleed Credit where credit is due: The Sega Dreamcast is the most consistent purveyor of weird-ass dubious video games Category : Sega NightmareCast Developer : Climax Graphics Release Date : April 25,2001 Time Played : Around 11 hours Dubiosity : 4 out of 5 Quality of 20-year-old GameFAQs walkthroughs : terrible and amazing Would I play again? Could be convinced to do a true ending run if I...

Hello it's that thing I've been doing for the last few months. In case you're wondering, I'm still doing it. Follow me on the twitches. Hello and welcome back to another SURVEY OF TERROR. That’s right. The Tower of Dubious Horror Games is back, with another handful of interactive entertainment vaguely relating to the act of getting scared and/or conserving ammunition. I apologize for this one t...

Welcome to the new age of dubious. The new age of terror. The new age of streaming gimmick formats because I was tired of being subject to a randomizer wheel and wanted to mix things up. It’s time for THE TOWER OF DUBIOUS HORROR GAMES. More structure, less chaos! More democracy, less transparency! More full playthroughs, less two hour introductions to RPGs! That’s right, it’s up to me to climb,...

Hi, I don’t have much to say about the *current state of things* on this website, at least beyond what others have already said. I’m going to miss Jeff Gerstmann’s presence on Giant Bomb, but I'm excited to see what this new team can cobble together (Dan and/or Bakalar, my DMs are open if you'd like to listen to my pitch for turning Dubious Wheels/Towers/etc into a GB Feature.) I’ll leave it at...

Trespasser Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should - Dr. Ian Malcom, Jurassic Park (1993, dir: Steven Spielberg) HEYYY I HEARD THERE WERE BOOBS HERE At this point, I imagine most folks reading this have a general idea of my predilections regarding the playing of video games most ancient and obscure, especially when it comes to my str...

Welcome back to The Wheel of Ukraineous Video Games, a cavalcade of high quality (and sometimes not-high quality) interactive software entertainment mostly developed in the sovereign nation of Ukraine! If you'd like to donate to the Ukrainian Red Cross, I'll include the link here, as always . ATOM RPG I can't think of a more obvious signifier for this game than an item description where it's br...

Welcome back to The Wheel of Ukraineous Video Games, a celebration of video games developed mostly in the sovereign nation of Ukraine and also an accidental vector for me to play through the entirety of some of them, apparently. Man, I watched a friend play some of Sherlock Holmes: The Devil’s Daughter and that seems pretty fucking wild in a way I’d like to see firsthand. As always, I’ll be inc...

https://fundraise.pencilsofpromise.org/ArbitraryWater2022 Hi hello it’s once again time for me to put my body on the line to help Pencils of Promise raise money to build schools in the developing world. As always, my brand has become a garbage hell nightmare where I can only approach things in terms of randomized wheels of weird, questionable, and obscure video games. I will not apologize for t...

Hello, and welcome to The Wheel of Ukraineous Video Games, a celebration of video games made in the sovereign nation of Ukraine, partially borne out of frustration at my own powerlessness and partially borne by my personal brand being the hell garbage nightmare I've let it become. If you’d like to help the people affected by the ongoing war, I’ll be including a link to the Ukraine Red Cross in...

Killing Time Kudos to whoever picked up the rights to this game for a nickel to resell it on digital platforms to absolute rubes like me Developer : Studio 3DO Release Date: August 15, 1995 Time Played : Around 90 minutes Troubleshooting: One surprisingly comprehensive fan patch. Who is the person weird enough to make this game not only playable, but surprisingly troubleshooting free on Windows...

Nosferatu: Wrath of Malachi Boogity boogity, I'll Scare Your Dad! Developer: Idol FX Release Date: October 21, 2003 Time Played: A little under two hours Troubleshooting: Fan-made widescreen patch Dubiosity: 5 out of 5 Questions I have for the people who made this: Several Would I play more? ... maybe. From the developers of noted Xbox disasterpiece Drake of the 99 Dragons (no, seriously) comes...

Mars: War Logs That's right: To celebrate a full 50 dubious RPGs for this featureblog, I'm covering one of the most consistent purveyors of dubiosity in the industry today. Also I streamed these games and need to further justify the time I played with them as to avoid feeling like I've totally wasted my life. Developer: Spiders Release Date: April 26, 2013 Time Played: A little over 6 hours Tro...

Apologies for taking so long with this one, but between Game of the Year blogs and starting school again, it’s been a bit for me to sit down and pump out some blogs. As a recompense, I’ve just thrown all four games I’ve played since the last dubious write-up into one package. Truly I am generous. Clive Barker’s Undying TFW you and your family accidentally unleash an ancient curse of darkness be...

Hi my last blog took me too long so let’s get this done with. I’ve got like two dubious FPS blogs I need to write after this. Order is pretty loose for most of these. Honorable Mentions: Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, Quake, Brigador, Battletech, Total War Three Kingdoms These are some games I played this 2021 that I couldn’t fit on this list. I recommend them. 10. Grandia II So hey, I’m going...

Hello once again it’s time for ArbitraryWater presents: “Video games I have played this year that came out this year.” Much like its predecessor, 2021 has been a bit of a mess for me personally but at the very least my continuing physical, mental, and social isolation meant I played far too many video games, including some vaguely relevant to our shared online conversation. This is what we’re h...

Realms of the Haunting I'm genuinely sorry I don't have more to say about this but sometimes shooters don't actually have a whole lot going on Developer : Gremlin Interactive Release Date : Early 1997 Time Played : A little less than 90 mins Troubleshooting : There’s some tomfoolery you can do to revert the version that’s on Steam and GOG to the US version of the game, which lets you remap keys...

Singularity Remember when Activision made video games Developer: Raven Software Release Date: June 29, 2010 Time Played: A little under two hours Troubleshooting: some foolery if you want the FOV reasonable (I recommend Flawless Widescreen) Dubiosity: 2 out of 5 Would rather play than : Call of Duty Warzone Would I play more? I already did play another hour or so and may get around to finishing...

Command and Conquer: Renegade Also hey surprise the soundtrack to a Westwood-era C&C game is very good Developer : Westwood Release Date : February 26, 2002 Time Played : A little over two hours Troubleshooting : Fun fact, all of the fan patch improvements are straight up just INCLUDED in the version of Renegade available on Origin. Dubiosity : 1 out of 5 Would I play more? Potentially? I am no...

Rise of the Triad 2013 Truly, both ahead of its time and also far, far too late. But hey, these are the guys who went on to make Ghostrunner, so they clearly made something people like Developer : Slipgate Ironworks Release Date : July 31, 2013 Time Played : 94 minutes too long am I right. Troubleshooting : None Dubiosity : 4 out of 5 Would I play more? No. No. Nope. While it’s not entirely fai...

Painkiller Developer : People Can Fly Release Date : April 12, 2004 Time Played : around 90 minutes Troubleshooting : one unofficial fan patch Dubiosity : 3 out of 5 Kills pain? Honestly, no. If anything it made my arm hurt more than it usually does playing games like this. Would I play more? Sure? Listen man he's bootleg Frank Castle fighting a bunch of doofy looking monsters in a variety of d...

Strife So apparently the reason the Night Dive remaster is called "The Original Strife" is because there was a (now defunct) MOBA using that name. Video games are dumb. Developer : Rogue Entertainment Release Date : May 15, 1996 Time Played : A little more than two hours (some of which was offstream) Troubleshooting : Used Night Dive’s remaster, so there was none whatsoever Dubiosity : 2 out of...

John Romero’s Daikatana ArbitraryWater is about to make you his friend. Developer : Ion Storm Release Date : May 23, 2000 Time Played : About Nine Hours Troubleshooting : Light, mostly just works with the fan patch (this is a new thing I’m gonna put in here, which is the amount of work it took to get this game running in an acceptable, streamable fashion) Dubiosity : With the fan patch? Probabl...

The Legend of Dragoon Developer: Sony Interactive Entertainment (but like, specifically Japan Studio IIRC) Release Date: December 2nd, 1999 Time Played: A little more than four hours Dubiosity: 2 out of 5 CD count: 4 Would I play more? Probably not, if only because there are so many other weirder PS1-era JRPGs out there. Still gotta touch them Suikodenzz… or like, Xenogears. There’s something r...

Konung: Legends of the North Oh did I mention there are three of these games. Developer : 1C Company Release Date: September 3, 1999 Time Played : about two hours Dubiosity : 5 out of 5 Russiosity : пять out of пять Would I play more? Very seriously considering an encore stream. Dunno if I’d manage to play the entire thing though. Konung is… special. I’ve flirted with Eurojank plenty of times f...

Beyond Divinity Developer : Larian Studios Release Date: April 28, 2004 Time Played: Around three hours, including a spontaneous podcast with ZombiePie where we dunk on the revived TSR brand, a topic that I think is already out of date given that they seem to have deleted their twitter and retreated into their grognard lair. Dubiosity: 4 out of 5 Soundtrack: 6 out of 5 Would I play more? Cards...

The Last Remnant A weird, ambitious, and deeply flawed 360-era JRPG? Isn't that the only kind though? Developer : Square-Enix Release Date : November 20, 2008 Time Played : Two Hours and not a bit more Dubiosity : 3 out of 5 Amount of this game I felt like actually understood at the end of that time : 1 out of 5 Would I play more : There’s a part of me that absolutely wants to understand this g...

Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear The Dragonspear is slaying Transphobia, or something. Developer : Beamdog Release Date : April 1, 2016 Time Played: Around three hours on stream (more on my own time) Dubiosity : 2 out of 5 You Must: Gather Your Party Before Venturing Forth Would I play more? Yeah. That’ll happen eventually. I cannot emphasize enough how weird Baldur’s Gate Siege of Dragonspe...

Lost Kingdoms II Hi hello it turns out this game I rented like 18 years ago might not actually be that great Developer: From Software Release Date: May 21, 2003 Time Played: A little more than 90 minutes Dubiosity: 4 out of 5 Amount I paid for this game: Less than Xenosaga Episode III, but more in terms of a mental toll. Would I play more? I mean, maybe? I certainly paid too much for this to le...

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura In my restless dreams, I see that game. Arcanum. You promised me it would get good eventually. But it never did. Well, I'm alone here now. Waiting for you to come. Developer : Troika Games Release Date : August 22, 2001 Time Played : Around Three Hours Dubiosity: 4 out of 5 Number of times I’ve played through the opening hours of this game : at least ha...

Before we start, I want to thank everyone who watched and/or donated during my Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run stream. Thanks to your generosity we managed to reach our $15K team goal, and I personally managed to raise more than $680 on my own personal page (which hey, if you feel like making me revisit a previously played dubious RPG you could always donate to reach my goal $800.) I also pl...

Hi Hello and welcome to another exciting installment of “ArbitraryWater plays video games in order to incentivize people to donate money towards charitable causes. ” Following my Mass Effect Andromeda hijinks from Extra Life and my RPG Ironman Ironman runs from last year, the time has come for me to ramp it up a notch. Not only is this my second Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run, this also mar...

Suikoden IV ArbitraryWater playing a less-beloved installment in a long-dead PS2 franchise? Is it a day ending in -y? Developer : Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo (KCET) Release Date : August 19, 2004 Time Played: A little over two hours Dubiosity: 2 out of 5 Random Encounter Rate: 108% Would I play more? It might eventually happen for the podcast, but I’d be lying if I said I was relishing...

Enchanted Arms A perfectly normal RPG about an anime boy with a doom arm who punches pizza golems Developer : FromSoftware Release Date : August 29, 2006 Time Played : About Two Hours Dubiosity : 3 out of 5 Problematicosity : Significant??? Would I play more ? Yes? It’s kind of serendipitous that the first two games for Season 2 of the Wheel of Dubious RPGs: “This time I have console stuff I pa...

Alpha Protocol Uh so hey remember how I didn't like this game 10 years ago? It turns out I still don't much care for it. Developer : Obsidian Entertainment Release Date : May 27, 2010 Time Played : About Nine Hours Dubiosity : 4 out of 5 With All Apologies to : Matt Rorie Would I play more? I beat the game. I don’t think I’m gonna play it again anytime soon. To open Season 2 of everyone’s favor...

Hi Hello and welcome to the true Game of the Year blog; the one that matters. For you see, during my many mythical journeys to escape the real world, I played many a video game that did *not* come out in 2020. In some ways, is this not the true game of the year list, unconcerned with time and space and merely quality? No? Well, in any case, these are games I played a significant amount of durin...

Sorry this is a tad late, but between accidentally spending too much time re-ranking the factions of Total War Warhammer II and various Holiday-related hijinks, it took me a bit longer to put this out than I would've liked. Introduction I don’t feel like I need to express how bad 2020 was for a lot of reasons, between the world plague and the fascism, and the deep psychological scars that have...

GOTY 2020 BONUS: Ranking of Warhammers revised The image you see on your screen is not a simulation. It's something that I did once, god have mercy on me. Yubi Yubi. Hello and welcome to the start of ArbitraryWater’s 2020 Game of the Year Championship Awards. No anime blog this year, because I’ve barely watched any anime in the last handful of months, but just assume that it would be me constan...

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...

World of Aden: Thunderscape Pros: Very Good Menu Developer: Strategic Simulations Inc. Release Date : August 30, 1995 Time Played : About 90 minutes Dubiosity : 3 out of 5 Soundtrack : ROCKIN Would I play more? Just a reminder that I’ve put more time into some of the games featured in this blog series than I have on actual beloved RPGs like Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (which I swear I’l...

Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator So it's the 90s and the Final Fantasy is popular, but you don't own a Playstation. Developer : Valkyrie Studios Release Date : October 31, 1999 Time Played : About Two Hours Dubiosity : 2 out of 5 Final Fantastosity : VII out of VII Would I play more? Would not be opposed, but I’d prefer a turbo mode kthx Septerra Core occupies a similar space to Dubious RPG...

Ultima IX: Ascension THEY KILLED Mass Effect ULTIMA Developer : Origin Systems (RIP) Release Date : November 23, 1999 Time Played : A little over 3 ½ hours Dubiosity : 5 out of 5 . You might be able to convince me that it’s a 4 by simple value of “it’s pretty playable” but from a historical angle I can’t say anything less than a 5. Virtues : 1 out of 8 ( Sacrifice , probably) Would I play more?...

Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader I'll take "Bullshit literally only I care about" for 400, Alex Developer: Reflexive Entertainment Release Date: August 13, 2003 Time Played: About three hours Dubiosity: 4 out of 5 Video Game Lies Rating : ½ Molyneux Would I play more? Listen if you wanted to pay me money or like… do a thing for charity, this is the level of bad I would be willing to do for a c...

The Bard’s Tale Games you could be playing instead: Literally any other video game of note from 2004 Developer : InXile Entertainment inc. Release Date : October 26, 2004 Time Played : A little over two hours Dubiosity : 2 out of 5 Mediocrity : 5.5 Would I play more? Only out of morbid curiosity It’s only fitting that following the release of Wasteland 3 , an honest to goodness non-dubious RPG...

Sudeki If the 5/5 from Maxim and scantily-clad anime girl with large boobs front and center didn't give it away, this game might be more than a little thirsty. Developer : Climax Studios Release Date : July 20, 2004 Time Played : About 3 ½ hours Dubiosity : 3 out of 5 Crimes this game is responsible for : Getting me to talk about Fate/Stay Night and other pervert anime on stream. Would I play m...

Risen I would like to apologize for calling this series "Pirate Gothic" since apparently the actual pirate stuff doesn't happen until the second and third games. I will now rephrase this nickname to "Island Gothic" Developer : Piranha Bytes Release Date : October 2, 2009 Time Played : Around three hours Dubiosity : 3 out of 5 Gothic : Yes Would I play more? Honestly my time with this game might...

The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (Daggerfall Unity) MOVE OVER SKYRIM, IT'S TIME FOR THE UNDEAD KING TO RECLAIM HIS CROWN. VENGEANNNNCE! Developer : Bethesda Softworks Release Date : August 30, 1996 Time Played : About two hours on stream, messed with it a little more off camera Dubiosity : The original game is definitely a candidate for the coveted 5 out of 5 Dubiosity rating, but honestly Dagg...

THE WHEEL OF DUBIOUS RPGs GAIDEN Hey, remember how this was the first BioWare game to be finished and published under the ownership of Electronic Arts? Well, it's good that didn't change anything about BioWare's development practices. Don’t say that I don’t commit to the bit. Thanks to my popular streaming/blogging series “The Wheel of Dubious RPGs” I’ve taken what should’ve just been 2-3 two h...

Ravenloft: Strahd’s Possession Darkness falls, and you suddenly find yourself surrounded by a strange mist. You are no longer in the realm of popular, seminal RPGs, that much is certain. Developer : Dreamforge Intertainment Time Played : A little more than two hours Dubiosity : 4 out of 5 Spookiosity : 3 out of 5 Would I play more? If I was compelled. There are two things you should know when i...

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...

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...

Nox A video game that didn't make me say "I could be playing the new Total Warhammer DLC right now" Developer : Westwood Studios (RIP) Release Date : January 31, 2000 Time Played : About 3 hours Dubiosity : 1 out of 5 (I’m like EDGE Magazine, I use the whole scale) Number of times I made comparisons to the classic 2001 Dreamworks Film Shrek during my streams: 2 Would I play more? Yeah. Of all t...

Two Worlds Fun Fact: The only games I played a decent amount of last week were this and Gears Tactics. Plz send help. Release Date : September 7, 2007 (PC, Xbox 360) Developer : Reality Pump Time Played : A little under 5 hours Dubiosity : 4 out of 5 Voice Acting : 10 out of 5 Would I play more? You know what? Yeah. Yes. The thing that always stuck out in regards to the original Two Worlds was...

Welcome back to the most horrifying, terrifying, mystifying, thing on the internet to feature a wheel of chaos since that ill-fated Giant Bomb feature where they pretended to play Donkey Kong 64! It's a bit of a short one for today, because it turns out I don't have much to say about Sacred Sacred is the living embodiment of a mid-2000s video game critic's 7/10 Release Date : March 19, 2004. Un...

It’s nice to know that after being pleasantly surprised by Rise of the Argonauts’ mid-budget competence, this feature has already started to live up to its name. I might as well set out a couple more “ground rules” for the wheel while I’m here, because shoving more restrictions on myself is fun! I am obligated to play any game picked by the wheel for at least two streaming sessions. Thus far, t...

First off, I want to thank anyone who tuned into my Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run streams and/or donated. It was (mostly) a lot of fun and I managed to raise $500 for COVID-19 relief. You can find a playlist of my archived stream here . Unfortunately, I forgot to hit record for part of it, and I still need to do some editing before I upload my day 2 stream, but if you really want to watch...

Hello internet friends, this year I’ve decided to take part in the Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run, raising money for Direct Relief’s COVID-19 efforts! In a move that is very on-brand for me, I'll be playing a game near and dear to my heart for too many hours in the day! That's right, I'm going to be playing Temple of Elemental Evil for like 14 hours next weekend, and you can help make that...

Even if I wasn’t currently living through a profoundly strange time for myself and basically everyone in the world, I think this would be a weird time for me and video games. Other than the sudden overabundance of time to play them these last few weeks have seen the release of no less than three sequels to previous “ArbitraryWater Official High-Quality Game of the Year” winners. Nioh 2 (sequel...

Here's Part 1 and Part 2 , for your pleasure. We've managed to reach the end of my Total War: Warhammer ranking list, an endeavor that accidentally became way more of an endeavor than I thought it would be. It's been a nice writing exercise, and a good reminder that I can try and follow a prompt of my own making, but now my RSI is acting up and it's time to wrap things up. Before we get to the...

Part 1 is here if you want to see all that sweet sweet faction ranking from the top. Or, the bottom, as the case may be. In unrelated news, I made the mistake of looking up prices for a bunch of semi-obscure PS2 JRPGs thanks to Giant Bomb's recent episode of Demo Derby. I... will probably not be purchasing any of the Shadow Hearts games anytime soon. Oh hey I'm back again with my favorite "Writ...

Plz Help. I played about an hour of Ancestors Legacy and it seemed pretty cool, but in that hour I just ended up going back to Total War Oh hey there. Because I’ve put myself down a dark path, the games I’m currently playing the most in this current year are Monster Hunter World’s Iceborne expansion, and my continual Total Warhammer II habit. Backlog? What even is that? Oh, I guess I did play B...

I’ve put it off long enough. If you are looking for the games that didn’t come out in 2019, that blog is over here ! Starting at ten and working our way down: AI: The Somnium Files Listen, I’m probably not going to do an anime blog this year. For better or worse, I didn’t watch a ton of Japanese Animation in 2019, and most of what I did watch has already been discussed to death (an overdue rewa...

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! It’s time for everyone to get very excited, and very upset about what other individuals, various gaming publications, and even mainstream outlets decide is their “Game of the Year.” Sure, 2019 was a pretty great year for games, but what if I told you there was a better way? What if… there were games that didn’t come out this year? Hard to believe, I kno...

(And Other Good Uses of Time and Money) Hi, hello. With the year winding up to a close, my life winding up to a mess, and video games continuing to exist, I figured I should write something. But, since my inevitable overdone Game of the Year and “Real” Game of the Year blogs are only a month away, why not instead spend my time dumping on a popular, relevant game that a lot of people like? The O...

This is your yearly reminder that The Temple of Elemental Evil is a fantastically weird, difficult, singular game that I will never stop plugging. When I started blogging on this site a decade ago, my original focus was almost entirely on older video games that I had “missed.” While part of this was an attempt to distinguish myself from the other blogging types, it was also an extension of what...

Kingdom Hearts will be discussed at some point in the near future. But not today. I’ve decided to keep writing. If nothing else, I’d like to keep in practice and celebrate a decade of me writing stupid internet blogs on Giant Bomb, which is a terrifying thing to fathom. June 29 marked 10 years since I wrote… whatever the hell those adolescent scribbles about Goldeneye were supposed to be about,...

It only took 5 months, but I finally mustered enough willpower to start long-form writing about video games again after a combination of a capstone paper and two back-to-back Game of the Year blogs ruined my desire to throw thousands of words at a screen. I’m sure you’re as excited as I am, so let’s get to it. Bioshock 2 Hey, remember how they made a sequel to Bioshock? No, not the sky one. As...

Alright y’all, it might be late, but it’s time for the REAL game of the year list. You can take those cowboy simulations, dying cells, and drug tetrises elsewhere. After taking a year off, it’s time to talk about the best games I played in “two thousand eighteen” that did not come out during said calendar year. In some ways, I actually like putting this list together more than the other one . F...

Boy, 2018, am I right? It’s been a weird rollercoaster for me, with plenty of good stuff and goals accomplished to go alongside the endless nightmare of our current political reality™ and the more personal nightmare of sometimes life sucks.™ For better or worse, I haven’t exactly written as much as I thought I would. I wouldn’t exactly say the Giant Bomb’s blogging community (or the forums in g...

While the summer slowly creeps to a close, I’ve been slowly creeping my way through a handful of games, as one does when they don't have much of a social life and a fairly large backlog of video games to look at. I could tell you about how I think Dead Cells is pretty good even though I’m sick to death of “run-based games with a similar permanent death structure to the old computer game Rogue a...

COURAGE IS THE MAGIC THAT TURNS DREAMS INTO REALITY Top 10 Anime Betrayals I wasn’t expecting things to go this way. Really. All I wanted was something to play with a controller after a repetitive stress injury in my right arm made playing Pillars of Eternity 2 (or anything else with mouse and keyboard) an actively painful experience. I figured, sure, why not try the bad sequel to Tales of Symp...

Dad of War will not be the subject of this internet blog. I think it's quite good. Maybe not "Game of the Year" good, but absolutely worth a look. Oh hey. I guess it’s been a while since the last one of these, huh? You can blame a couple of factors for that. The first and most obvious is that, for as much as I’d like it to be otherwise, my amateur blog about video games simply doesn’t demand pr...

Alright, so here’s the thing: I’m not doing a “Best of 2017 that didn’t come out in 2017” list. That came about for various reasons, the most obvious being that I didn’t play a ton of noteworthy older games for the first time this year. Aside from Ninja Gaiden Black/Sigma 2 and a handful of visual novels it wasn’t an especially great year for new, old experiences (I still intent to finish Light...

Video games! They came out this year! Honestly, I could probably switch some of these around and still be totally fine! Screw the preamble, descending order, let’s GOOOOOOOOOOO! 10. Most Surprisingly Good Game from a franchise I had all but written off: Resident Evil 7 Biohazard Never not my favorite thing about this game I make no secret that I’m a Resident Evil 6 apologist. Oh, don’t get me w...

Hey all, it’s November, and all the video games have apparently come out. Now I can spend the rest of the year actually playing them, or in the case of Divinity Original Sin 2, Zelda, and The Evil Within 2, going back to them after getting sidetracked by other hot 2017 releases. Like you all, I have been riding that zeitgeist wave and playing only the hottest, most relevant things. Super Mario...

Hey, wassup. Summer has basically ended, leaving us with the oncoming torrent of new releases that won’t let up until the end of the year. Personally, I’m excited for Divinity Original Sin II next week. That game, alongside Etrian Odyssey V and Mario Odyssey are probably my most anticipated games of the year, though honestly I still have a lot of Zelda that needs playing somewhere along the way...

So, August huh? Welp, shit. There goes my summer. I guess I could tell you about video games that I’ve played, or something. Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc I like to play video games to play video games. And also read text boxes. One of the reasons I haven’t written as many video game blogs in 2017 (aside from the usual issues of life, school, work, a lack of motivation, etc.) is because I’ve...

It’s… been a while, hasn’t it? There are no less than two half-finished blogs on Google Docs that I abandoned for various reasons, but this time I think I’ll manage to drag myself over the finish line. It seems like my drive to write stuff has been low lately, but that’s not because there aren’t games to talk about, far from it. It seems a little ironic that I have less time during the summer w...

I’m currently not playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, for as much as I wish I were. Unfortunately, the Wii U is currently at my parents’ house, where my younger brother regularly uses it to play Smash Bros and there’s no chance in hell of me getting a Switch at launch. I know my tastes well enough to know the dozen or so first party exclusives any given Nintendo platform accrues ov...

Hey everyone, it’s me, ArbitraryWater. I’m not as busy with school as I was last semester, and as a result I’ve had more opportunities to make poor choices with my free time and disposable income in the form of video games. 2017 has already been a surprisingly good year for that stuff, and I’ve already gone back to Resident Evil 7 to speedrun it in under 3 hours (very doable) and start a playth...

Hey everyone! It’s your favorite sporadic internet bloggsman ArbitraryWater here with another hot club banger of an internet blog. I know you were wondering, deep in your heart of hearts when I would emerge from my dark hole and start 2017 for real with an overly-long internet blog, but wonder no longer! What I’ve been playing Image presented without context For whatever reason, I spent a decen...

I already gave my little “Boy guys, wasn’t 2016 an endless nightmare? But at least video games were good!” preamble (that seems almost required) in my last list , so I’ll spare you from having to read it again. Here are my top 10 video games that came out in North America within the 365 & 1/4 day-long period of time as our planet rotated around the sun, representing my dedication towards the ze...

Oh hey, guess it’s this time of year again, huh? Hope you all had a good Christmas, or whatever alternative floats your boat. I have to admit, 2016 was actually a pretty alright year for me personally even if, in a broader context, it was kind of a horrific trainwreck that I don’t think we have seen the end of. It also was a good year for Video Games! But WHOOOOOO CARES about this year’s bounte...

Summer is over, and with the end of summer comes the tide of new, exciting AAA video game releases. I also have a new (functional) computer with some fairly decent graphical specs, which means I can partake of this new and exciting wave of games from my PC instead of my PS4. In fact, I’ve already done so in the form of two modern, fairly-safe sequels to successful reboots of old PC games from 4...

EDIT: Stupid website ate half my blog. Hey, it’s been a bit since I’ve done one of these, hasn’t it? I’ll be honest, I haven’t felt a ton of motivation to write long-form stuff like this for a while. There is an almost complete blog on Might and Magic VI-VIII (written as a follow-up to that Baldur’s Gate blog I posted back in late May) that is lurking on my google docs folder and may eventually...

This product is a product I endorse. On my blog. Oh hi there Giant Bomb and friends, how is it going? It’s going okay right now, thanks for asking. I was working on a blog about Dark Souls III when I realized that, honestly, I didn’t have much to say about that game that hadn’t been said elsewhere. It’s a really good game that becomes better as it goes on, but I think its nature as a very refle...

It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows my tastes that I have an opinion on Intelligent Systems’ newest entry in the Fire Emblem series. It’s one of my favorite long-running video game series of all time, which likely explains why I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 130 hours playing this one over the last month between the game’s three separate campaigns. Did I just say three? Y...

2016 is here. It’s been here for a bit, actually, but now I’ve finally played some video games I feel like writing about. All I have down here at school with me are my PC (which works, sometimes), 3DS (which I’ve been using the most) and PS3 (which I haven’t hooked up yet). Don’t expect my hot take on Xenoblade Chronicles X or The Witcher 3 anytime soon, is what I’m saying. I do have some stuff...

Okay, now it’s time to party. Game of the Year is over everyone, get ready to pack up and leave because I’m here to drop the last GOTY list of 2015 that you need to care about. Well, besides the site-wide overall top 10. And maybe the lists of people you like more than me. And your own list, if you haven’t gotten it out yet. Regardless, 2015 was a great and generally productive year for me and...

You can’t start a show with a showstopper, which is why this blog is coming first. Feel free to expect the proper Game of the Year blog thingy in the next day or two. Unfortunately, the side-effect of 2015 being a great year for new games was at the cost of me playing old stuff to completion, which is why this is a top 5 instead of a top 10. There are probably multiple reasons for this, likely...

Oh hey guys! I wrote that Code Name S.T.E.A.M. review , which took me longer than it should have. Now that junk is out of my life, I can write about the other bajilliondy games I played since the last time I wrote a thing about games, before eventually writing two Game of the Year blogs sometime in the next week (unless I want to get dangerous and wait until 2016). Buuuuut, before I write those...

Greetings, denizens of the wasteland. Have you been collecting your scrap in order to make a sweet scope for that hunting rifle? Did you see that guy walking into a wall trying to initiate a scripted event? What a charmer. Did I mention that Fallout 4 is a video game people seem to be playing and talking about on the world wide web? Oh, I did? Well, I guess I could tell you what I think about i...

Oh hey everyone, I’m here on day 18 of my backlogblogtober series ready to crack into all of those hot old games I’ve been wanting to catch up to! Oh… what? I’m still playing the same handful of games I was at the start of this month? Weird. It’s almost like juggling the longest Fire Emblem game and another 50+ hour King’s Bounty game (with just a hint of Destiny on the side) doesn’t leave room...

Alternate Title: writing stuff is hard, but I did it anyways. EDIT: Wait, why did it cut my thing off halfway through? Should be fixed now. Remember when I said I was going to write a group of blogs about the Heroes of Might and Magic series in commemoration of its 20th anniversary? That’s… been harder than I thought it would be. Turns out that writing an overview of something I have a disturbi...

Well, there goes my summer. Not the most productive one I’ve had, both on a video game and an “important life stuff” angle, but I feel alright about where things are going.The real life stuff is both none of your business and also boring to anyone who doesn’t know me, but the video game stuff is fun and exciting and easily sharable with the internet at large! I’ll admit, as I’ve gotten older an...

August is upon us. There is only one month of summer left and I’ve hardly written as many blogs/reviews as I’ve wanted to. July was a weird, somewhat aimless month for me with that extending beyond personal stuff into the realm of video games. I picked up and played a lot of things, watched my roommate play some other things but didn’t actually finish a ton of stuff. I did get that review of Th...

In which, to no one's surprise, I feel the need to talk about Fire Emblem first. The Nohr path is meant to be the more challenging of the two. But does it have better face-rubbing waifus? What’s up everyone? I've had a bit of a weird week for video games. I went on vacation for a little while and was sorta busy with family stuff for the past few days, but even before that last week involved a l...

Ho there wanderer, how farest you upon the roads of the Internet? Well, I hope. Not being in school and only working part-time right now means I have way too much free time on hand to engage in dumb video games or sleep for a regrettable number of hours. But that’s not your problem. That’s my problem. And I’m working on it. But while I’m working on improving myself and my life in general, there...

It’s been awhile since I’ve written one of these things, hasn’t it? Well, things are going ok. I bought a PS4 (along with Bloodborne, Mortal Kombat X and Lords of the Fallen), so now I can hang with all the cool kids and play catch-up on the stuff that I missed last year because my computer couldn’t handle it. That means at some point down the road I need to purchase/borrow/steal copies of The...

Hey guys, apropos of nothing and definitely not related to this week’s blog, here are some hour counts for some video games according to my steam library/3DS usage statistics. XCOM Enemy Unknown : 59 hours Civilization V : 108 hours Fire Emblem Awakening : 92 hours Pokemon X : 84 hours Etrian Odyssey IV : 73 hours Persona Q : 42 hours The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim : 64 hours Bravely Default : 68 h...

This last week has been something of a nightmarish blur. Between getting sick, playing 45 or so hours of Monster Hunter, watching EXCEPTIONALLY questionable garbage anime that at 3 in the morning (which I will not specify, lest I lose whatever shred of respectability I have left) and at one point sleeping for 12 hours and missing all of my classes, it’s fair to say that I’ve had a weird time ov...

I dunno about you guys, but I had a pretty fantastic holiday break. I opened presents, hung out with family, held babies and watched a copious amount of Mystery Science Theater with my younger brother. Well, 2015 is happening. Time to get back to school and start hating myself again. That’s how that works, right? Oh, you want me to talk about the video games I played over said break? You don’t?...

The year is finally over, and so is my other list. Which means it's time for the big guns: Games from this year that I actually played this year. 2014 hasn't been the best year for video games, though it's been a much better year for me personally than 2013 or 2012 were. These forums have also seen better days, mayhaps, but I clearly still think this place is worth saving. Game of The Year 2014...

It's that time again, dear readers. The time for us all to reflect and think "What have I actually accomplished in my life?" In my case, the answer is "I played some video games and didn't do super great this semester". But because I'm not a slave, devoted to games that merely came out this year, I choose to recognize those games that didn't come out this year. What I've learned is that most of...

Alternate Title: Resident Rambling, the return of me talking about old games. I’m definitely studying for finals. No, really. Ask my Spanish professor. For some reason or another, writing about stuff isn’t a bad way of decompressing from catching up on missed assignments (which also includes writing about stuff) or trying to remember exactly what Toni Morrison said in that one article she wrote...

Ah, greetings dear readers. Turkey day has come and gone, as has Black Friday (I didn’t buy anything), and I’ve been enjoying the comforts of family and friends along with the usual discomfort of eating an inordinate amount of food. Know what else I’ve been enjoying? Anime! Thought I was going to say Video Games, huh? Nope. Those too, but let me take a second to say that Steins;Gate and Psycho...

It’s November, which means two things: Video Games are coming out (of course, they did that in October too) I don’t actually have money to purchase most of them, because I’m paying my own rent and want to pretend to be responsible once in a while In my personal case, there is only one major November release that will likely see any play from me, and that is Dragon Age: Inquisition. It’s the kin...

Yes, I still play video games, dear readers. School and work have eaten into my free time, and suddenly it’s like I’m a busy adult who has to be responsible for once in my life. But if browsing internet forums has taught me anything, it’s that no one actually wants to hear your personal life story. Instead how about we talk about a game that everyone has already talked to death because it’s hot...

Hey there internet. Notifications are still broken. My computer is finally fixed, and while I’m reinstalling a bunch of crap that I bought during the summer steam sale but have yet to play much of (Hi there Transistor! Hi there State of Decay!) I figured I should bother telling you all what I’ve been up to over the past month as summer ends and school finally starts. I’d lie and say that you sh...

Oh hey! It’s been a month since my last blog write-up thingy and a lot of stuff has happened! Namely the part where I’ve been browsing this site on my phone for the last two weeks because my stupid computer finally broke all the way and I am not exactly in the financial straits to buy another overpriced laptop capable of playing modern games. While this means that I have yet to finish Divinity:...

Greetings fair readers! I am still here, still looking at Final Fantasy XIII-2 with a mixture of apprehension and optimism, still slowly crawling my way through random games (This blog was going to be about Demon’s Souls, but then speedrunning marathons happened and then the cheap garbage power cord on my PS3 broke and now I probably should buy a new one), but I figured I’d tell you about stuff...

Kratos Sez: I'M ANGRY BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN EXACTLY A MONTH SINCE YOUR LAST BLOG. *Commits violence* Oh, hey there. I hear some sort of video game convention happened? Well, that’s cool. I now have a respectable handful of Playstation 3 games, none of which I have delved very deeply into since I last blogged (also I bought that God of War 5-game collection . I’ve never played a God of War game be...

Because talking about this game always leads to level-headed rational debate. Oh, and feel free to recommend some PS3 exclusives if you want. Whoops. Accidentally bought a PS3 for $150 and a handful of games to go along with it. Don’t know how that happened. Finally, I can play exclusive installments of series I already enjoyed on other consoles, with hot recent games like Demon’s Souls, Valkyr...

Sup my young parsons. I finished school for winter semester (I did alright, much to my own relief) and am now bumming around with a part time job and a semi-broken computer. What do I mean by “semi-broken”? I mean that this thing probably doesn’t have much time left, given its propensity for crashing under weirdly specific circumstances and the part where I had to wipe it to get even that far....

Oh hey, what's up? As promised, I've been busy with school and junk, and since finals are right around the corner, I figured I should probably write something about the things I've been playing in sporadic chunks before things get really crazy. Unsurprisingly, video games are still dumb. Know what else are still dumb? Lengthy research essays. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow Anime Spacewhipping acti...

Hey guys. How's it going? It's going okay, thanks for asking. I'm just a little bummed right now. You see, there's this game called “Dark Souls 2” that everyone is talking about, and I can't play it until April 25 th , which might as well be a trillion years away with all of the school junk that I will have to inflict upon myself until then. Oh well, if it's any solace, I have these other video...

One must be quite BRAVE to fight the same 27 bosses you just spent the last 30 hours of the game fighting Yay Video Games. I have a rough draft of an essay that I should be doing right now, but while I have that half-page of writing in another window I should try to warm my writing brains up by doing this super hot exciting blog. It was going to be a competition between this and Bravely Default...

This blog has been sitting around on my hard drive for a while, so I figure I should post it now and leave what was to be the other half for another time. School is going okay, I guess. Thanks for asking. I wasn't lying when I said that things would slow down (when compared to the last 6 months when I was living in my parents' basement and had a lot of discretionary time to play a lot of bad vi...

2014 is here. Well, it's actually been here for 2 weeks, but between dealing with some personal junk and going back to school, my time with the vidja games has been here and there. I was going to write something up about Splinter Cell Blacklist , but because my brother uses the Xbox pretty much exclusively as a FIFA machine I was unable to finish it over the holidays or bring it down with me (s...

2013 is over, and so are my Game of the Year lists. It's been a pretty good year for video games, and a pretty terrible year for everything else. Actually, it decided to give me one last punch in the gut this week and I've had to re-plan my immediate future quite extensively (including such fun tasks as: Registering for classes and trying to find housing two weeks before the semester starts). S...

Now that people are all up in their GOTY business, I figure it's time to finally unveil my list after last week's pile of misfortune and sorrow. My other usual list (Games of X that did not come out in X) is still in flux, so that probably won't be for a bit. As you might expect, I probably missed some of the biggest and “most important” games of the year, either because I didn't have the conso...

It's December now. Time to start thinking about Game of the Year junk and all that. While Giant Bomb will no doubt grace us with some amazing, overproduced video magic nonsense and 4 hour podcasts involving grown men arguing about the quality of games that involve the word “Brothers” in the title, I'll be over here, making my two usual holiday lists and accompanying write-ups. But I'll be takin...

Well, I CLEARLY can't finish up my Game of the Year list until I play more New Super Luigi U. Just look! It might as well say SYSTEM SELLER right on the box! What's a 3D World? Thanksgiving has come and gone. It was a fairly low-key one for me this year, with surprisingly little in the realm of “eating a regrettable amount of turkey/stuffing/sweet potatoes/green beans/sparkling cider/pie” and m...

Hey guys. I played video games once again for your sick pleasures. In this case, I continue my way down the magical path of questionable video games. Sure, I also played some Batman: Arkham Asylum , but you already know that game is good when you played it 4 years ago. I now know firsthand that game is great, and from what I've played of Arkham City it seems to be of a similar quality. But that...

Of all of my video game purchases this year, my best one thus far is probably that 3DS I got off Ebay for $120. With it, I was finally able to dispose of (i.e. sell) my launch-era DS Phat with a broken hinge to one of my friends in exchange for $20 and possibly his copy of Muramasa. Fire Emblem is still my preemptive game of the year (though, it probably doesn't hurt that I haven't actually pla...

Transfarring Compatible! Once again you find yourself on the precipice of doom. That, or you accidentally clicked on this blog thing. Either way, you've clearly made the right decision and should probably continue reading. This blog still isn't about the impact of torture in GTA V, the quality of the satire in GTA V, the disillusionment of “Games Journalism” in regards to GTA V, the general qua...

I don't think it unfair to say that I've been blogging about some ancient and obscure stuff recently. Between games that (thankfully) no one bought, Russian-developed Heroes of Might and Magic derivatives, and generally terrible independently developed Role Playing Games. Well, today is... probably different, inasmuch as you've probably heard about this game if you haven't played it. But before...

OR: This blog isn't about Chrono Trigger, but I think Final Fantasy V is the best Final Fantasy. No, seriously. It's King's Bounty, but with vikings and a few mechanical tweaks. I'm totally ok with that. Sooo... yeah. Video games, right guys? Since my last blog I started King's Bounty: Warriors of the North and will probably at some point think about finishing Kameo . While I feel like any writ...

I'm told this game is popular So hey guys, Grand Theft Auto V. According to “The Internet” it's pretty cool, but I give it a month before the backlash hits in-earnest and a vocal contingent starts going after that game, much as Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us got theirs. Probably won't stop it from earning a bazillion Game of the Year awards because games journalists are a bunch of predict...

Soooo... I finally reformatted my computer with the hope that it'd stop being difficult. Thus far, my wish has been granted, though reinstalling 11GB games sure is a time-consuming process. I salvaged most of the documents and save files that mattered, so at some point I'll be able to continue where I left off in regards to Quest for Glory 2 and The Witcher 2. But why talk about potentially goo...

What am I doing with my life again? Oh, right. Looking for employment, bolstered by the fact that all of the teenagers with summer jobs have to go back to school in a week. I would too, except for the part where I'm not. Living at home has its perks, don't get me wrong, but I'm also stranded in Southeastern Idaho with a handful of friends who are either still in High School or are skipping fall...

Another week of unemployment means another week of me bumming around my house while my parents make passive-aggressive remarks about how I spend my time. If I was going back to school for the fall (I’m not) I’d probably be getting ready for that. But I’m not. So I don’t. Instead I play video games! Oh no. What am I doing with my life. Might and Magic X Early Access This screenshot that I took i...

OR: I stop playing a game that I stopped enjoying, both to my own shock and that of others. Well, now I've done it. Oh hi internet. Short-term unemployment has its benefits, especially when you’re living at home and don’t have to pay for anything. One of these benefits is the ability to spend far too much time on dumb nerd stuff, like the video games, when your parents aren’t getting on your ca...

Oh hi there. How’s it going? Pretty well for me, having just finished up a temporary job with the IT guys at my dad’s work, with another job opportunity lined up in the future.Ah, sporadic, temporary employment. As long as I don’t have to regain my job of the previous summer (Starts with “Frozen-Dairy Associate”, ends with “Worldwide retail chain ending in –Mart”) I’m pretty content to do whate...

As of June 29 th (which coincidentally happened to be when I posted my previous blog) I have been doing this for 4 years. What. I… what? Man. Starting from a rather basic write-up about how Goldeneye was ok despite having aged rather poorly, to that time I accidentally talked about fighting games and it blew up in my face, to that time (last week) where some prick said I came off as an “over-pr...

This is the face of unemployment crossed with a lack of friends in town. Oh well, going home for the 4th will be good. No preamble this time. I did it. I played the game you people voted for. After the 12(!) hours it took me to beat this game, I can confirm that Jade Empire is indeed a RPG of questionable quality. Ok, that's maybe a little harsh. It's fine, and I might even go as far as to say...

I also played Costume Quest, but that game is too shallow and brief to deserve more than this passing mention Oh hi there. Didn’t expect me to come back so soon, did you? Well, guess what. Expansion packs are short and I still haven’t found a job in the last… 5 days since I wrote that other NWN2 blog . As you may have seen on the forums , I have an ongoing poll about which questionable console...

It’s been… like a month? Good news: I’m done with school for at least another semester. Bad News: I still don’t have a job lined up for this downtime. I could really use a job. Hopefully one of the applications I’ve filled out will go through, but if not… that means even more time for stupid video games than I anticipated, which is probably a bad thing since I’d like a social life and sitting a...

Hey, how's it going? I beat a video game and in celebration of that momentous occasion I wrote about it. But, as per usual, other games. Baldur's Gate This game was a big deal. Considering that the last D&D game that interplay put out before this was Descent to Undermountain, there was nowhere to go but up. I wrote about Baldur's Gate a little over two years ago (which frightens me quite a bit)...

It's been a few weeks, has it not? In that span of time I finished winter semester, went home for like a week and came back to start spring, with the intention of hopefully getting my GPA out of the toilet and into the realms of academic success. That being said, I chose a deliberately light load of general classes so that shouldn't be a problem... hopefully. I also played video games, because...

Finals are over for me, and with only a few make-up assignments left I’m almost ready to close the book on this semester. In-between study sessions and periods of self-loathing I found that Expansion, Exploitation, Exploration and Extermination were a decent way to relieve stress, allowing me to mess with junk I had laying around in my steam library that I hadn’t really touched. In this case, I...

I used to be good at writing long essays. Not anymore. DAMN YOU LEAGUE OF LEGENDSSSSSSS Ah, here I am, sitting in the library not writing the essay on Che Guevara I’m supposed to be writing. It is my intent with this blog to, if nothing else, get me in the mood and mindset for writing about something serious and meaningful (like an essay worth roughly 25% of the grade in my Modern Latin America...

Yes, this is the game with Roy in it. It's a pity he's probably the single worst Fire Emblem lord besides maybe NES Marth, with his bad stats and stupid late promotion. Oh, hey person. Thanks for reading my blog thing. Assuming this is a few days out and my blog thing has dropped off the front page of the forums, I congratulate you for being able to find it, considering that you’d have to look...

Oh, hi there. If you're reading this, that means you've won? Since I'm not posting this to the forums, the first 3 people to write a short paragraph about N64 era platformers will win some games. Some good ones, for once.

"Two blogs in one week? That's as crazy as having two games linked together into one big game!" said Lord Xeen After the start of this year being nothing but the new and shiny, it’s time to talk about old games. Again, for the first time. I mean, it’s only been like 3 days since I posted that Fire Emblem blog , so other than me saying that “ Endless Space seems pretty cool from the first game o...

Me? Writing about a Fire Emblem game? Crazy, I know. Oh, I’m sorry. Were you surprised? No. Of course you weren’t. As the second most obsessive Fire Emblem fan on these forums, you knew that this would come up sooner or later. And, after only a mere 25 or so hours I can tell you with absolute certainty that… Fire Emblem Awakening is a Fire Emblem game and is definitively a better time sink than...

Alternate title: On the Ice Planet, no one can hear me scream except my co op buddy and that's because we failed that stupid climbing sequence like 4 times. Man, I’m surprisingly relevant this year. Normally, you’d be listening to me talk about some RPG that came out more than a decade ago and probably only came out in Japan or from similarly obscure roots. Well, not today. Today, we talk about...

Alternate title: ArbitraryWater versus lengthy tactical RPGs and also heavy metal demon murdering. Oh, what's that you say? A new year and only one blog from famed bloggist ArbitraryWater? Well, that's about to be fixed. Now there are two blogs. Before we talk about a video game, let's talk about a different video game. A DIFFERENT VIDEO GAME: It's not necessarily the best game in the series, b...

Here I have sunk to writing about what I want to write about over the next few months. Oh well. It fulfills my self-inflicted rule to write something every two weeks, and since I'm not taking an english class this semester I guess I won't have any other real output. I figure this is dumb and personal enough that anyone who would care is following me, and thus I don't need to attach this mofo to...

Because nothing quite says bringing in a new year like dragging the old one through the mud a bit. Which is fine with me. 2012 wasn't necessarily a great year for me personally, but as my GOTY list will attest, it was preeeeettyyy good for video games. So thus, let's talk about some games that I've now had the opportunity to play thanks to my overly long Christmas break. So let's dive in? Drago...

Hey guys! Remember that other list I made before you made all your lists? Well I made another one. I'd like you to see it. GOTY 2012 My personal games of the year. As per usual, the optimal place to see this list is in the blog form, where any game marked with an asterisk (*) has additional commentary, and the ones that don't probably don't because I wrote something lengthy about them in the pa...

Best Games of 2012 (that didn't come out in 2012) Ah, it's december, is it not? A time to reflect, a time to spend with family, and a time to wallow in self-loathing whilst studying for finals. It's also the time when people order games in a numerical fashion and declare them as having significant qualitative merit. For my part, I have always stood by this trend as something I do as well, but i...

Hey there guys. Let’s sit down for a while, maybe have a chat about the video games. Thankfully, my haul from the Steam thanksgiving sale was decidedly low-impact, or at least as low impact as one can do when they’re purchasing stuff from steam because “shiny”. In this case, I got The Walking Dead , KotOR 2 (you know, just in case I ever need to trash that game again), and Dishonored , two of w...

Hey guys. In the interim between this blog and the last, I’ve played some video games, done some homework, had a birthday, voted, and suffered rejection at the cruel hands of a woman. Truly a large variety of things. Thankfully for you, I will be focusing pretty much entirely on the first one, since the internet is probably the worst place to talk about your personal life and that’s what Facebo...

In "commemoration" of GOG's ended "Pay what you want" promo for Interplay's entire catalog on the service, I have decided to blog about every game. Actually, no. That would be stupid, because if there's anything to be learned from that promo, it is that Interplay's catalog is pretty awful at this point and the desiccated husk of a company has been sustaining itself off the original Fallout for...

Oh hey there. I write about video games sometime. Not yesterday. Yesterday I was at a funeral. Video Games Borderlands 2 is pretty great. Have I said that before? I must admit, rather guiltily, that I never finished the first one because I got bored of it. That has yet to happen with Borderlands 2, and that probably comes down to tighter pacing and enemies that aren’t totally dumb. You aren’t g...

Here I was, randomly looking up the high resolution mod for Heroes of Might and Magic III when I found out that batshit crazy russian mod that was in development forever had been released. No, not WOG. That's the other batshit crazy russian mod. I'm talking about this: As such, you can expect my impressions on it within the week. No, it's not in english yet, but that's not going to stop me.

OR: I play new games that look like old games to the point where it's a bit unsettling how old the new game looks. Fill out a survey, get free game featuring Germanic Pen and Paper RPG rules? Hey guys. Remember that one time I was like “CRPGs are pretty good maaaannnn” at which point I probably told you about Icewind Dale or Planescape or whatever? Well this is the part where I do the opposite...

Oh hello there. I've actually managed to finish Icewind Dale II, a game that I've been talking about for at least the last century, during the first week of school before it actually gets hectic and difficult. Hopefully the mistakes of the past (namely getting my roommate and several other guys in my dorm addicted to League of Legends) will not be repeated and I can theoretically aim to succeed...

Hey guys! Video games! I play them on occasion! Even sometimes blog about them! Like right now. Thus, it is my pleasure to present to you yet another Fire Emblem blog where I talk in explicit detail about the myriad of systems in such a way that only people who play the games would understand and... what? You say the title isn't about Fire Emblem? Oh. Oh right. 3D platformers. But first, as per...

Hey there faithful following. Do you like free stuff? How about conditional free stuff? Well that is what I have today. I have, in my steam inventory, a copy of Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines , that one heavily flawed RPG that people seem to like a lot after the application of a fan-patch. The conditions? You must engage in a battle for the ages with in blog form. With who? I haven't figure...

So I actually finished Fire Emblem Thracia 776 like a week ago, but due to me being busy (at work), or busy (vomiting) or busy (not really wanting to write something) you get it now. Just in time for me to be able to theoretically talk about other stuff too? Sure. Let's go with that. Because there are things in this world that are not Fire Emblem. Saints Row The Third is fantastic. But you prob...

Oh Fire Emblem. A franchise that I am totally cool with being some variation of the exact same thing in every installment. Yes, swords will beat axes, axes will beat lances and lances will beat swords. Yes, you will invariably start with a pre-promoted character (usually a Paladin) who starts out powerful and either ends up sucking (Jeigan archetype) or actually is able to keep up with the rest...

Ah yes. Remember me? Thought not. I used to blog here, once upon a time. But then I went to school and got addicted to League of Legends/procrastination/staying up far too late and the best I could muster was some talk about Deus Ex Invisible War, Dark Souls, and The Witcher in all the time I was in that dorm room. Oh. And I wrote my thoughts about Mass Effect 3 like the week after I got home....

The DS emulator I am using has a built-in video codec, much like DOSbox. This has potential. Oh yeah. Also a not so subtle hint at what I am planning on writing about next.

Seriously. If you are sick of talking about this, why did you click on my topic to begin with? Because everyone is probably sick to death about talking about Mass Effect 3, I apologize. If you are sick of people talking about it, please press the back ( button on your browser and continue looking at the forums. I however, am not sick to death of talking about Mass Effect 3 because I feel like a...

This sucker isn't going to be attached to the forums, if only because it's not in the formal style of my other blogs and is more just a stream of consciousness-type ordeal. Also because I am offering you stuff and I don't want those forum plebs to know about it. Kickstarter-funded development is definitely going to blow itself up at some point. There's just no way that something this feel-good...

It only took me 3 months of on-again, off-again playing to do it, but I've finally manged to finish one of the more egregious black spots on my RPG backlog. I've been meaning to do this for some time now, as my impressions blog from mid January shows , but silly things like "School" and "Other Video Games" got in the way and helped contribute to my personal assumption that I am horribly ineffic...

Believe it or not, I have a half-written blog on my computer that was originally going to be on Might and Magic VIII, which I totally started and finished over Christmas Break, with the hypothetical blog being posted on January 1st. However, after realizing that most of it would involve me ranting about how easy, bland and uninspired the entire affair is, I stopped, since that can be conveyed i...

Best games of 2011 that didn't come out in 2011 As someone who until recently had a totally garbage computer and not much spending money, I had to make due with whatever old games would come my way. Thanks in no part to Good Old Games, as well as that shady Gamestop downtown, I have been able to play more stuff than I used to, both new and old. That's not to say anything about my free time thou...

Best of 2011 Alright. I figure now is as good a time as any to put out my GOTY list for this year, as I probably won't be playing any more new stuff for the remainder of December. Unlike last year, I actually played an acceptable amount of actual console releases this time, and not just the downloadable stuff either. List is in order, but as always take it with a grain of salt. I'm particularly...

So Image formatting is still pretty much the worst thing ever. That being said, I think this looks way cooler than the actual box art. I play old games sometimes. But this blog isn't about those. We could discuss how I find Lands of Lore surprisingly decent from what I've played so far, or how Icewind Dale II continues to be a game that I probably should complete. Or even how that " Mod the eve...

Believe it or not, I may be starting to burn out on Skyrim. This is not the game's fault, by any means. It's great, if the internet hadn't told you already. No, it's clearly my problem, and in order to avoid total overexposure, I might as well try something different. And by something different I mean "Mod the everliving hell out of that copy of Oblivion I bought during the Midweek Madness sale...

Oh yes. This is what I spent my time doing, during my wait for Skyrim. While, as a full disclaimer, I have not finished Final Fantasy X-2, I'm currently distracted by school work and Skyrim (oddly enough, those things don't mix especially well), and therefore figure I should write what I have done, and I think after around 20 or so hours, I have seen most of what this game has thrown at me from...

Pictured: My Childhood At the end of the day, if you had to make me nail down any given franchise as one I could talk endlessly about with no real rhyme or reason, it would have to be... Fire Emblem ? Yes, oddly enough, Intelligent Systems' hardcore strategy franchise is one I would probably internet murder you for talking shit about while also having far more to say than you, despite the fact...

So it's fair to say that I've played enough of Temple of Elemental Evil to blog about it. Again. This most recent playthrough was obviously spurred on by the silly faux competition I started when I gifted Video_Game_King and Mento copies of ToEE because "It was dirt cheap and I wanted some entertainment". Obviously, that $5 that I spent on two copies of the game has already reaped dividends in...

What is up my brodog. I can hold this gun sideways, making me a legitimate person from "the hood" This blog is brought to you by me figuring that I should contribute to Sweep's great social blogging experiment, as well as the general idea that yeah, I should probably write more of these. With that out of the way, let's talk about disappointing sequels for a second, shall we? When I think about...

Yes, yes. This is a list. You ask: Why don't you just keep it that way? Because more people read blogs. Duh. Not attaching this one to the forums though. Blog fodder that I would like to write about before the end of the year. With the laptop capable of playing games arriving at some point in the near future, I might as well catalog all the games that I'd like to finish before the end of 2011,...

Ah yes. Old games. What is to be said about them? They're hella old. They're games. I play them and then write blogs about them on the internet for no real determinable reason. To be fair, they help keep me motivated, knowing that at the very least I have an output for my thoughts and opinions on these titles. But anyways: DOS. In some ways, DOS is my favorite game platform. True, the SNES may...

Here be lengthy impressions of dragons That's right! I do play games that have actually came out this year on disks! Ok, to be fair, this game's original version, Divinity II: Ego Draconis came out in late 2009/early 2010 to generally middling reception. But technicalities smecnicalities! Not since Alpha Protocol have I really wrote a blog that is singularly about a game that is actually modern...

WHAT ARE THEY DOING Yeah. That's right. I'm talking about Fire Emblem. Again. Along with Might and Magic, it's probably one of my favorite game franchises. And really, I could make another 10 or so blogs simply about Fire Emblem, like how it's totally retarded how S hin Monshou no Nazo has yet to come to the US despite seeming like a better game than Shadow Dragon ever was in like... every capa...

Yes, I've been off of whatever magical mystery trip I was on for almost a week now, so I might as well talk about some of the games I've been messing with since then. That's fun and relevant, right? It's also what my rivals in the Blogosphere do. Since Steam apparently hates me though, both Vampire the Masquerade and Civilization V have been weekend deals for cheaper than when I purchased them...

Despite the number of poor financial decisions I have made in regards to Resident Evil, The Mercenaries 3D will not be one of them In my fairly vast swath of gaming preferences (yes, I do in fact like games other than mid-late 90s CRPGs) there are only a few games, franchises or brands that inspire the kind of irrational loyalty in me that one would expect of a fanboy. While the layman's weird...

Planescape: The only game where that charisma stat actually comes in handy! It's true. In between writing blogs about fighting games that get a bunch of comments I've been playing the lengthy, convoluted CRPGs from more than 10 years ago, as I am accustomed to do. In this case, Planescape Torment is the game of choice. Released in late 1999 and developed by some segment of Black Isle (now avail...

Like legions of you have no doubt done already, I went ahead and purchased the Arcade Edition DLC for Super Street Fighter IV. I too was waiting with feverish anticipation, only to totally forget because E3 and then remember later that afternoon. As far as I can tell, my $15 (or 1200 Microsoft points) for this particular purchase went towards 4 new characters, some extra online tweaks, and char...

Yep. Since none of you seem to have any appreciation for fighting games or Street Fighter Alpha, you can forget any more of those blogs. That's what I get for putting part 1 in the title I guess. I still intend to tackle story and choice for bad RPGs one of these days, even if it means making it more of a discussion topic or... I dunno. Asking Ahoodedfigure. He seems like the type to write a lo...

Yes, this Fighting Game blog, long in the running, is finally here and ready to be posted! After a bit of contemplation, I've decided to save my Mortal Kombat and SNK related discussion for another time, so that I may more easily compare and contrast the new (awesome) Mortal Kombat reboot with it's overindulgent, overblown 3D predecessor: Mortal Kombat Armageddon as well as espouse the virtues...

Not even the internet going down at my house could stop me from giving you this blog. That's right, I actually finished this game after threatening to do so in my previous blog (under: Yo, don't use dice rolls to determine where gunshots land). And thus, here we are now, me clearly not writing about how to make a bad RPG story because, really, that's such a tricky topic to address. Do I talk ab...

Unlike the examples in this blog, this game has good combat I'm sure you were all waiting with bated breath, but here comes the second installment of my observations/subjective opinions about what makes a bad Role Playing Game of the western, possibly computer sense. After going through such exciting topics as "Balance that makes the game either stupid hard or unwinnable", "Making everything th...

Happy Anniversary Arcanum! You're not a good RPG! Today is a very special day. "What day is that?" you may ask. Well, April 28 was the day that I did my first Arcanum blog and got this entire subject stuck in my head in the first place. That, and people always crapping all over Dragon Age 2 and I also finished KotOR 2 recently . Thus, to celebrate this momentous occasion, I've thought long and...

Notice that it says GAME OF THE YEAR in big text and right above it "The sequel to" in smaller letters? They knew. Oh yes. I decided to play this game . I already went back to the first game around New Years , a cherished childhood game and the beginning of my obsession with traditional CRPGs. But we've been over that. KotOR 1 doesn't hold up as well as you might think, and while it's still a c...

This game hates me. And it hates you too Yes. I was on Spring Break. Yes, it was nice. But enough on that, instead I'm here to talk about something I spent a decent (but thankfully not overwhelming) amount of time playing during said vacation, usually on a plane of some sort. I'm talking about The Dark Spire . A game that manages to not only define niche, but also manages to be more niche than...

Not so much ruining my childhood now as it ruined it then In one of the more random things for me to do since I stopped playing Dragon Age 2, I've been playing a surprising amount of this game. Which gave me the inspiration to blog about it, as well as the fact that it is now available for $10 from GOG.com For those who couldn't tell, Heroes of Might and Magic (hell, Might and Magic in general)...

With my current misguided playthrough of Neverwinter Nights 2 in full swing (at least, until Dragon Age 2 comes out next week and ruins everything), I thought it best to once again take a look at all the obscure shit from the DOS era that none of you (or I) really have any deep knowledge of. Chances are, these games have a poorly formatted or poorly written walkthrough on GameFAQs mentioning us...

The screenshots! They work! Soooo, Neverwinter Nights 2. Is still a game. That I am playing. And I'm still telling you about it. Why? Because I can. And now that Steam allows for Screenshots, I can show you the silly things I talk about instead of just browsing the wiki looking for stuff that fits what I'm talking about. As a bonus, the screenshot key is also the quicksave key in game. So that'...

The most Dwarfiest Dwarf in all the land Yeah? Who would've thought I'd still be doing these? I'm sorry it's taken me almost a week to get anywhere, but a long weekend and a misguided attempt to finish Resident Evil 5 on Professional (I'm on chapter 6-1, so I'm in the home stretch) are enough for anyone to not play an RPG that hasn't especially drawn them in yet. I wrote a list about my worst i...

Although I don't entirely agree with this image, I thought it fit Soo... yeah. I'm still here. And I'm still playing Neverwinter Nights 2. But I restarted and made another character after coming to the not so difficult realization that (as someone put in the comments of the previous blog) "Warlocks are fucking boring". So, instead I made a Fire Gensai Swashbuckler (Name: Fire Dude), in order to...

Not since saturday have I done so much D&D blogging So Neverwinter Nights 2 totally works on my computer. As someone who was interested in that game back when it initially came out, but was intimidated by the specs, I find it somewhat ironic that I tried installing it on a whim and found it entirely playable. "But this isn't an (especially) old game!" you may ask. Well, sure. It came out in 200...

Yeah. That was unexpected. After the first two chapters of Icewind Dale II kind of underwhelmed me, and my brother took the TV to play Call of Duty (thus interrupting my Dave Snider Approved! time to play Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne, still in progress), I started playing this game, formerly a member of my "I wish I was capable of playing these games" list, and am only a few hours away from comp...

It may use the Baldur's Gate engine, but it's not Baldur's Gate. Yeah. Finally, right? Wrong. Technically, just like when I blogged Baldur's Gate, I have yet to actually finish Icewind Dale (then again, I never did technically beat Sarevok. Because that final battle is literally eons harder than anything else in the game and I didn't feel like playing the game for another dozen hours to get my...

As opposed to "I play old games", in which I play an old game for the first time because I have heard good/bad/mixed things about it, this is more me going through some of the games that defined my childhood. And then ruining them for myself through knowledge and perspective. Should be fun, right? It hurts me as much as it hurts you. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic isn't as good as you r...

For those out of the know, Good Old Games is having an absolutley stupidly huge sale right now. While it's not quite Steam "Bioshock for a dollar" level of madness, you can get all 5 infinity engine games for $7 each. Unfortunately, I already own all the Infinity Engine games, digitally or no, as well as some of the other premiere titles on that site, such as Heroes of Might and Magic III. Thus...

Best games of 2010. That actually came out in 2010. I also play new games, believe it or not. And I actually played games that came out this year. Like Alpha Protocol. But that game sucks. As per usual, the ordering on these things is pretty shaky and should be taken with a grain of salt. Chances are, I still like them all enough to put them on this list. Please note that while I am fairly sure...

Best games of 2010... that didn't actually come out in 2010. I play old games. This much is sure. Even though I will no doubt make a list concerning my favorite games of this year, that actually came out this year, this list is just as important. Remember, these are games that I came to this year. Not games that I have been playing for years. Because then Heroes of Might and Magic III would win...

Yeah. I'm doing another one of these. Sure, as my Alpha Protocol blog shows, people are far more likely to comment on something modern than old crap, but everyone's always talking about modern stuff. Old stuff is my wheelhouse. Anyways, thanks to DOSbox's internal video codec, I can show you people exactly the kind of obscure crap that I run into in my quest to play old games and blog about the...

Hey all, with all the new releases and such, I really haven't gotten around to much old game playing. However, because I feel obligated (and because AP was made by Obsidian, who used to be part of black isle, who made or published some of the best RPGs of the past decade, so it's kinda connected), I've decided to blog about this game, which I finished around 20 minutes ago. Did I like it? Or wa...

You must gather your party before venturing forth. Be warned, this is going to be a long one Yep. Remember how I vowed to finish this game? Well, I didn't. But I must have, at maximum less than 5 hours to go before I go and murder Sarevok and his stupid Bhaalspawn face. But because I really don't... feel like doing those last few hours right now, I figure now is as good a time as any to put dow...

It's long been established: I hate KotOR II with a burning passion. I know there are those who think otherwise, but for the most part I can simply say that those people are wrong: and the world mostly agrees with me. However, since I am close to finishing the first game right now (Blog coming soon.), I figure I could use a brushing up on why I hate this one as well. Maybe I'll even install the...

The Antarians suck. Turn them off. Right now. Hello persons of interest. While you were playing Civ V on your no-doubt somewhat modern-ish computer rigs, I was busy getting my 4X strategy from a different source, namely Master of Orion 2 (1996). Because my computer is from 2002. Which, in its own way is one of the reasons I play old games to begin with. But enough of my computer. I got this (as...

It's been a while, hasn't it? In any case, I have been busy with school and such and as a result haven't had a ton of time to play old games. Nonetheless, here I am, once Is that the Microprose name I see? again telling you people about an old game that you have never heard of, no less played. Because making surface judgments on DOS games gets old eventually. In this case, the game in question...

Hey all, since I just reached a pointless even number for my post count, I thought it befitting that I blog about it. Because that's what I do. Except it's usually about old games that nobody has heard of. While I am not the most prolific poster on Giant Bomb, I would hope that at the very least people are capable of recognizing my avatar/username. I've been here since the start, after all. But...

Or: I continue to play old games of slightly less questionable merit. Yeah. So remember how I made a blog thing two weeks ago where I showed you all the questionable games I had encountered recently? Remember how it had part 1 in the title? Well I finally am getting around to part 2, because when I tried to launch Stalker it gave me an error message in German and Arx Fatalis isn't giving a very...

Or: I play old games of questionable merit. Hello all. As you might remember from my last blog , I was on the cusp of finishing Wizardry 8. And so I did. Needless to say, the last 15 or so hours were about as good as the rest of the game, although I admit that it started getting a little stale by the end. But enough talk of modern games that don't require extensive workarounds to function prope...

Let's get something out of the way right now: There is no actual revenge in this thread. But since it's the first game I have blogged about since the 1 year anniversary of me Yes. I will compare this game to Might and Magic several times. doing this stupid crap, I think it deserved a better title. Oh, and let's get something else out of the way: 80's cartoon themes are insanely catchy. You all...

Hey all. I am finally back from vacation in Europe, where I not only got to miss all of E3 but also probably see some old buildings... or something like that. But enough of me telling you that Venice is the worst kind of tourist trap compressed into tiny alleyways that is also a maze and smells like sewage. You guys aren't the audience for that. Some things before I get onto the main part of th...

Aliens. Spaceships. Stuff like that. If I was writing a 5 paragraph essay, then this part would be the attention getter. I would probably say something provocative right now like "I don't care about Red Dead Redemption, or really anything that Rockstar makes." or "Deus Ex doesn't give a very good first impression" But I'm not. Instead I'm writing a stupid blog type thing about Video Games. This...

Greetings my good people. Even though I am currently working my way through Persona 2 Innocent Sin (i.e. the one that only came out in Japan and has Hitler), I figured you all deserved some sort of an update from me. Thus, here are some videos of games that I considered, at some point, to do a blog thing about recorded through DOSbox's internal video codec. Unfortunately, music for this codec o...

You can take this blog as a message that I have finally given up on Arcanum . 20 some hours later, the problems I stated in my impressions blog have become much That's it. I give up. Sorry to those who wanted otherwise. harder to ignore than they were initially. Because the gameplay has yet to change for the better, and the story is beginning to squander its own potential, I would like to make...

In order to pretend that I can, in fact, do these kind of things semi regularly, I figure my 5 or so loyal readers deserve an update on the game that I said I was going to play Pretentious high fantasy subtitle ahoy! when you voted for me to play it. For those who don't remember, it was Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura , which despite having a totally lame, yet totally necessary subtit...

So the rest of you wouldn't have to. Since Game Fuel is once again gone, instead of leaving a highly caffeinated and probably-bad-for-you hole in our lives the people at Pepsi have already launched a new "Dewmocracy" push with 3 new flavors. Those who remember the last time they did this (i.e. right after the Halo 3 game fuel thing was done) remember that there were 3 flavors, all of which kind...

Hello all. Once again it's time for me to ask you, the public, what games you would like me to play, hopefully beat, and summarily write a blog thing about. You may remember me deciding to play and finish Jade Empire. After a few hours with the game's horrendous combat system I gave up. There is still a chance I might finish it, being that I liked the direction the story was going and I am a st...

Hello all. Having played many an RPG, both for my own benefit and for my semi-regular blog thing I have noticed an obnoxious trend that can occur in any Western RPG (as well as the occasional super-customizable J-RPG such as Final Fantasy V). In this case, I am talking about the tendency, especially among RPGs with open character customization or choice as opposed to a more rigid (perhaps class...

Everyone has posted a provocative blog at some point in their life. I figure I should do mine now. Please remember not to take any of this personally. Happy reading! I will never understand why people like these games For the most part, my tastes in Video Games spread to all genres, with the possible exception of puzzle and driving, but there are exceptions even to both of those. However, there...

Ok. I lied . I said I was going to play Jade Empire in order to be democratic, but y'know... the combat's not so good... and the graphics aren't so good.... and the combat is Allow me to emphasize: The combat in this game is bad terrible... you get the point. Rest assured that I will get back to JE at some point. The setting and story seem interesting enough. However, the point I am making is t...

Hello all. Instead of randomly reviewing whatever old (or old-ish) game comes in my path, I have decided to use the power of Democracy to choose my next game (this is secretly also to get more views). Sadly I can't make a poll in a blog, so you will have to telegraph your answer by actually posting. Because I am a bit of a tightwad, most of these games are available on the virtual console, or I...

Alright, so you all know about all the old games I have played and written about (at least, I hope you do). However, much like my second look blog (Daggerfall is still super old and infuriatingly generic. Thanks for asking) this isn't about any specific game, but instead about stuff that I played, but didn't feel comfortable blogging about. Please consider take these impressions with a grain of...

It's finally time for us to reach the long, arduous, and drawn out conclusion to my Metal Gear Solid 1-3 review blog thingies. Obviously today we are going to look at Metal Gear Solid 1 (released in 1998 for the PS1), because that one was the hardest to play and therefore the last one I finished despite being the first in the series. Here are my MGS2 and MGS3 Reviews for those who missed them,...

That's right! I'm back with a vengeance as I once again tell you kids stuff about games you have probably already played, enjoyed, and stopped playing years ago. However, for me they are all new experiences. As I said before, I received the MGS essentials collection for Christmas from a friend and have previously blogged about MGS 2 (Short Answer: I liked the story. The gameplay not so much). C...

It's been a while, but I am back once again to tell you kids about old games that I have decided to play. This time however, I'm going to talk about a game that is actually popular and not totally niche like all the other post-goldeneye stuff I have looked at. That's right. MGS2, which I got as part of the MGS Essentials collection that a friend gave me for Christmas. This is the one I finished...

Thought you had seen the last of me until after the holidays, eh? Nope. Unfortunately, I finished Dragon Age in a measly 36 hours and need to take a break from MW2 multiplayer, so instead I will tell you kids about yet another old game that none of you care about! This time it's Eternal Darkness, which was developed by Silicon Knights and initially announced for the N64, but actually came out f...

I gave my friend Sneak King for his birthday as a gag gift, which I bought for a dollar. It is easily the worst game I have played all year. There's nothing specifically... broken about it, but the entire experience as a whole is overwhelmingly mediocre, from the graphics to the clunky, robotic steath that makes Metal Gear Solid look fluid by comparison. However, it was only a dollar, so I can'...

Despite deciding to take a little break from the forums to catch up on homework and such, I still find time to play old games that the majority of you haven't given a shit about in a long time. This time it's the last main-series Resident Evil game I needed to play: Code Veronica. I have played RE1 on the DS, RE2 on the N64, RE3 on the Gamecube, and now this on the PS2, which I find kind of fun...

As a person who would like to pretend that he has real friends and a real life, I really don't give a shit about "social networking", which is pretty much all that this update does. Therefore, Facebook (bleh), Twitter (super bleh), HD streaming (that's why I have Netflix), and Last.FM (meh) all epitomize stuff that I will never , ever, ever, use, and even if I did the general consensus is that...

It is time once again after a long break for me to review old... games? Actually no. Unfortunately, Disgaea is a long game, as is Baldur's Gate, and with the release season almost upon us, I will probably only be able to finish one before Dragon Age comes out. So instead of bothering to review something new, I will take a look at some of the games I have reviewed previously and see how they hav...

Holiday Spending Priority This list represents my intended priories for obtaining games as of this holiday. Unlike last year, where I actually didn't find any games that interested me, this year is chock full with stuff I would really like to have. Unfortunately, I am not made out of money, and so some sacrifices will have to be made... unless I get a job or something. But oh well, if not now t...

Assuming that I am both able to muster enough Dollares Americano and fall into the good graces of Santa this year, I plan on obtaining these games this holiday season: For Sure Modern Warfare 2 Assassin's Creed II Perhaps Dragon Age: Origins Borderlands Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 Alpha Protocol Scribblenauts

In the current hubub revolving around the 10th anniversary of everyone's favorite failed console, I find it time to talk about old games. However, unlike everyone and their dog I am not talking about the Sega Dreamcast but instead am talking about Sid Meier's Colonization, which was released for DOS in the early 1990s after the original Civilization. But, how could I acquire such a game if it i...

Once again, it's time for my pseudo impressions/reviews of old games that I never played when they were popular or important, now with a new title, mostly due to the lack of actual offending. I was originally going to do Heroes of A Post-Nuclear Role Playing Game eh? I played one of those once. Might and Magic, but that would kind of be like cheating since I did play those games when they were...

NEVER (sorry). However, I will watch the super bowl for the advertisements.

Let's see. I am not actively excited about Splinter Cell Conviction, Red Steel 2, Bioshock 2, Dark Void, or Bayonetta. In fact, I am less than excited about some of those. As long as Modern Warfare 2, Assassin's Creed 2, and Dragon Age (and maybe Alpha Protocol) come out this year I will be set, and since any of those games probably won't get pushed back, I think my prospects are looking good.

Alrighty. I have sent off my Xbox for repair, and have wired myself with a delicious Mtn Dew Game Fuel (TM). It's time once again for me to give my vaguely uninformed impressions of an old game that some people fondly remember. Today we are doing Thief 1, which I purchased for about $2+S&H. I didn't get the gold version (which has 3 more levels.) because then I would have had to shell out aroun...

Recently, I was in a local Target store with my friend to get some Xbox points cards for Marvel vs Capcom 2 and some Mtn. Dew Game Fuel (Because we like the taste.) Now normally, the PC section of a store like target is usually sad and pathetic, and it was in this case. Looking past the 5 year old Star Wars games and the Blizzard Battle Chests, I found myself in the budget section. You know wha...

Yep. Even though nobody actually posted on my previous blog , I'm at it again. This time with a game people care about at a time people are awake. Also, to avoid the TL;DR nightmare of my Jagged Alliance review, I'm going to keep this short and include videos for those who lack patience! Huzzah. Today I am doing Daggerfall, which has recently become free to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the...

Hey guys, here I am once again for another installment of my "sort of review old games but not entirely" blog segment! Today we are looking at the 1994 DOS classic, Jagged Alliance, although I am playing the DS version which is just a straight port so it still works. Today we are going to cut the lame initial exposition and go straight into the psuedo-review (which is longer than the other two...

I could care less about Cell Phone games. Most of them range from mediocre to crap, and the ones that don't are rare enough breeds that they barely matter (Doom RPG). I don't think anyone who posts on this site cares at all about cell phone games (not iPhone games) at all.

Hai Guyz! This is the second of perhaps many semi-reviews of old games. Sure, I did start with the big guns (Goldeneye is kind of an important and popular game), but please bear with me as I talk about games that fall within my rather limited fanboy sphere, namely Resident Evil (and Fire Emblem). Sure, there will be little to no offending going on, at least until I find an old game that is actu...

Despite being an N64 owner for most of my life (Wow, what a scary thought), I never actually got around to seriously playing what many consider to be one of the greatest games of all time. No, I have played (and beaten on multiple occasions) Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time, and if the title didn't give it away, I am talking about Goldeneye. Why did I never get it? Maybe because I was about 5 when...

Yes, I did pay $30 extra for the Resident Evil 5 collector's edition. Thankfully I did it so you wouldn't have to. Let's go through all the swag, shall we? Tricell Messenger Bag The bag itself is smaller than I expected. It is brown and has the logo of Tricell, which is the evil corporation in the game. I will probably use it, but it feels kind of thin, like it couldn't support much weight. May...

Since RE5 is coming out in less than two weeks (and less than one week before everything is leaked on the internet courtesy of Japan) I have been needing to find an adequate distraction to fill my free time. What is it called? Warcraft III . I hadn't played it in about 2 years, but with both my newfound knowledge of networking (thanks to school) and Blizzard's patches that allow you to play wit...

In my opinion Capcom has covered all the Street Fighter characters I want with the console exclusive characters. Who else does that leave? Sure, they could put T.Hawk and Dee Jay and whatever other character from Alpha you want, but I think that the roster is large and diverse enough that it really doesn't need any additions.

I can't download it. Unfortunately, being a minor means that I can't download M rated demos because they will corrupt me or something like that, even though I happen to have Bionic Commando Rearmed, which I'm pretty sure is rated M for Exploding Hitler Heads. So instead of talking about the demo that everyone seems to hate I will talk about Street Fighter instead. I suck at SSF2T:HDR, but I con...

This is the best video ever. Man, Piracy must have been a big problem back then. All those bootleg copies of The Oregon Trail really must have hurt the thriving early 90s PC game market..