thatpinguino's Articles

ThatPinguino is back again to put the fun in fundraising!

The Final Fantasy/MTG crossover set pre-releases this weekend! The full spoilers are up and we now know every card that is available in the new set. Do you know what that means? We now have a DEFINITIVE and OBJECTIVE way to figure out which Final Fantasy character is the strongest! We can finally put all forum debates to rest! The good folks at Wizards of the Coast have settled things once and...

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? It’s been years since I’ve blogged, but with the renaissance of GB and some new topics that have inspired me, I’ve decided to come out of retirement! What has inspired me, you may ask? Why, those bastards at Wizard of the Coast have managed to make a Magic the Gathering/Final Fantasy crossover set. They managed to make a set that scratches my particular itches to s...

Howdy all, it’s been a while since I blogged on GB and after watching @zombiepie , @mento , @arbitrarywater , and @jeffrud keep up their prolific outputs for so many years, I just had to get back in the game. I’m not sure how frequently I’ll be able to put out a full blog. My life has changed a great deal from the years I was putting out a blog a week. However, the last two days of radical chan...

Hey all, @rorie hopped on a Magic: The Gathering set review podcast with me and a former Pro Tour regular friend of mine to discuss the latest set. If you've been liking his MTG streams, some of which I'm the second chair on, you might want to check it out! We start with a rundown of the set's mechanics and some lore. Then we cover the best card as well as an underrated and overrated card for e...

Hey all, @voidburger was gracious enough to guest host on the podcast I run with @zombiepie , @arbitrarywater , @jeffrud , and a few of my friends. We did a full on spoilercast of the "excellent" film Silent Hill Revelation 3D. We basically walk through the movie discussing the places the films diverge from the games, how impeccable the acting is, and how inexplicable some of the film's major p...

10: Loop Hero Loop Hero was a fun second screen game to have running when I was watching a stream or a video. Its mix of active decision making with passive gameplay makes it perfect for that specific gaming niche. If you share my need to have every waking moment filled with some sort of activity that implies progression, Loop Hero might be for you! The game definitely loses some luster if it i...

After a year of preparation, it’s finally time to talk about what I’m doing for this year’s Community Endurance Run! This is definitely my most action-packed year yet and I’m excited to share the couch with a bunch of my friends this time. My schedule will have all of the events that will be on my stream, but I will not be driving for all of them, though I will always be on the couch. Donate he...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino, Pete, and Em discuss the upcoming 9th G...

This frickin' guy Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino, Chris " @zombiepie "...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! We made things hard this year. In this episode Gino, Pete, Bi...

He's remarkably swole for being in prison for so long. Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In thi...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! Who is this boy and why should we care? In this episode Gino,...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In part three Gino and Chris "ZombiePie" -REDACTED- discuss c...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In part one Gino and Chris " @zombiepie " -REDACTED- discuss...

The Quina Card is actually really good in the FF TCG Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino, Billy, and Pete discuss Saints Row: the...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino, Billy, and Pete discuss the nutzo-wutzo...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode, Gino, Chris " @zombiepie " -REDACTED-, and @...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino, Billy, and Pete discuss Brothers: A Tal...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino, Chris " @zombiepie " -REDACTED-, and sp...

Hey all! I've finally gotten around to putting together a list for this year! Here we go: 10. Slime Rancher – I went into Slime Rancher hoping for a fun, low-impact experience and it definitely met those expectations. Unfortunately, it did not exceed those expectations. Balancing ranching with exploring was an interesting tension; but, I ultimately found my farm to be a tether that prevented me...

A new day has dawned Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino and Chris "ZombiePi...

Let the sunshine in. Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode, co-conductors Gino and...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino and Pete are joined by Deep Listens supe...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino, Pete, Billy, and Devin discuss the even...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! There's so much of these guys in Chapter 2 In this episode Gi...

Like this, but in a bath tub Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino and Pete fo...

All aboard! Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In our inaugural FFX-2 podcast Gino and Chris "Zo...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino, Billy, and Pete discuss Dead Cells. The...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino, Billy, Pete, and Devin answer listener...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Billy and Pete carry the show while Gino is a...

I'mma take you for a ride! Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino, Billy, and D...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino, Billy, and Pete discuss Magic Pengel: T...

Dream on. Dream on. Dream on. Dream until yo' dream come true. Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out...

They make you rip this thing's legs off and it's so sad about that turn of events. Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every epi...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino, Billy, and Pete discuss Always Sometime...

I can feel it coming in the air tonight. Hold on. Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this epi...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Billy, Gino, Pete, and Chris "Zombiepie" -RED...

Hello everyone, I’m back with a brand new invention and this time I decided to investigate one of the most overlooked cards of Amonkhet: Gideon. No no no, not Gideon of the Trials. People are already all over that card. I’m talking about Gideon, Martial Paragon. You know, the one from the planeswalker starter deck. I figured with Amonkhet Gameday testing us this weekend and plenty of Standard F...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino and Chris " @zombiepie " -REDACTED- answ...

Hello readers old and new! After a long hiatus away from writing about Magic: The Gathering, I’ve been drawn back in by the siren song of the Egyptian Nile… um I mean the Amonkhet Luxa. That’s right, after months and months away, the mummies have dragged me back in. I’ve never been a huge fan of ancient Egypt, I was more of a classical Greece person. However, the mechanics of Amonkhet have real...

I've been a bit behind on posting the podcast to my GB blog, but that changes today! Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every e...

Hello everyone, As you've no doubt seen, the seventh Giantbomb Community Endurance Run is a scant two weeks away and our events and prizes are being announced fairly regularly. With that in mind, I thought I'd put up a quick blog post to let people know what I'm up to for the event and since @zombiepie 's announcement went so well. On Friday after UPF I'm going to be competing with my friend Bi...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino, Billy, Pete and Noelle discuss episodes...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino, Billy, and Pete are joined by Gino's si...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode of Deep Listens, Pete and Gino sit down with...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino, Billy, and Pete discuss Hyper Light Dri...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino, Billy, and Pete discuss Wuppo, a whimsi...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode we are joined by Devin to discuss the latest...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Chris "ZombiePie" -REDACTED- finally has his...

The only game nominated in every category. Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode we...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino, Billy, and Pete discuss Tony Hawk's Pro...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino, Pete, Billy, and Chris "ZombiePie" -RED...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In our third episode of our continuing series of podcasts on...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Billy, Pete, and Gino discuss Thumper and the...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode, the Deep Listens crew discuss their experien...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Gino made a terrible decision about what game...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In our first episode, Billy and Gino discuss the indie puzzle...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In our second episode of our continuing series of podcasts on...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! Billy and Pete carry on without Gino to discuss Ori and the B...

An artist's rendition of Billy's DS character Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In the first of...

AHHHHHH! AHHHHHHH! *breathe* AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this week's e...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In our flagship FFIX episode Chris @zombiepie -REDACTED- and...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode we are joined once again by John Krisch to di...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! What the fuck even is that? In the grand Final-e of our Final...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode of Deep Listens we discuss Inside and it's pot...

Wait, if Sephiroth is here, who the fuck were all of those other Sephiroths? Is Sephiroth a name or a title? Like if you're a really good Jenova baby, do you get promoted to Sephiroth? Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kin...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! I mean, just look at this frickin' guy! This week we locked Bi...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode of Deep Listens, we are joined by video game c...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode of Deep Listens we are joined by special guest...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode we recount some of the events of Gino's nerdy...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! PARCOUR IS A MARTIAL ART! In part one of our discussion of Mir...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! What a beautiful mind. In this episode, we finally take a prop...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode the crew delves into the madness of Barkley,...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! WARNING! Long term exposure to FFVII may cause head tentacles...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode we discuss Jotun and it's Norse mythological...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! We begin yet another Final Fantasy Odyssey courtesy of Chris...

The Midnight Thunder Boi himself Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode we discuss V...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode Pete steers the show as Gino and Billy recoun...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for video games. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode of Deep Listens, Gino geeks out about FFIX co...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode of Deep Listens Billy flies solo to interview...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode we talk to Giantbomb.com's own Matt " @rorie "...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode we are joined by Luis " @meatsofevil " Martine...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode we talk to Chris " @zombiepie " -REDACTED- abo...

This one loves this podcast! Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! After a week of horrible technica...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode of Deep Listens we're joined by @nickieroonie...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode of Deep Listens we're joined by Jeff " @jeffru...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this part 1 we discuss the gameplay of Final Fantasy: Cryst...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this interview we speak with Steve " @vash10 " Krasinski an...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this part 1 we are once again joined by game design student...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this interview we're joined by guests Steve "Nyx" -REDACTED...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In part 1 we are joined once again by friend of the show Chris...

Recently @zombiepie and I wrote a lengthy series of blogs about our experiences playing FFVIII and 90s adventure games. For months we both slowly went mad as we played our respective games and wrote up our experiences with them. @zombiepie may have gone a little bit madder than me considering he made FFVIII his game of the year, but who can really measure madness? After our blog series complete...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In our first interview episode we speak with competitive Super...

I know this is really late, but I finally got around to writing this list up after a very busy few months. So although I missed the GOTY zeitgeist, I feel like this is a case of better late than never. I need to set the record straight on my personal feelings after the debacle that was my podcast's GOTY awards . Without further adieu, here's the list: 7. Yoshi’s Woolly World - I just started pl...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In Part 1 we are joined by special guest @dankempster to talk...

This week the rest of the Deep Listens crew and I recorded two crossover podcasts with the cast of Worst Friends Forever. We spent the two podcasts discussing Her Story from top to bottom. The first episode is currently up on the Worst Friends Forever podcast feed. In this episode we are joined by the cast of the Worst Friends Forever podcast to discuss the story of Her Story. We discuss how th...

This week the rest of the Deep Listens crew and I recorded two crossover podcasts with the cast of Worst Friends Forever. We spent the two podcasts discussing Her Story from top to bottom. The first episode is currently up on the Worst Friends Forever podcast feed. The second half of our crossover will be up on our feed on Monday. In this episode we start out by providing some background on our...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! We're trying a slightly different structure for the podcast th...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this podcast we have our first annual Game of Our Year disc...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode of Deep Listens we are joined by a special gue...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this much awaited episode @zombiepie and I discuss his end...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode of Deep Listens a special guest joins us to di...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this bonus episode I'm joined by @zombiepie to discuss a st...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode we discuss Tomb Raider and the ways the 2013 g...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode of Deep Listens we discuss Child of Light and...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode of Deep Listens we discuss the award-winning,...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode of Deep Listens we discuss the Kickstarter dar...

Hey everyone, since the full Battle for Zendikar spoiler is out and the prerelease is a few short days away, I figured I would go over the set’s unique mechanics. I’ll explain what each mechanic does, how it fits into limited, and how it could fit into constructed. Hopefully I’ll point out some synergies that could help at the prerelease and beyond. So let’s get to the mechanics! Awaken- Awaken...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode the Deep crew are joined by Elise "Hyasiance"...

Battle for Zendikar is nearly upon us and with it comes a bunch of powerful and potentially unintuitive lands that will define the format for the next year. If you’ve never played with man-lands or you’ve never seen dual-lands like the slow-lands, you might not fully understand why they’re so good. That’s why I’m here to help you out. Here’s why man-lands are so good: 1. They generate two color...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode of Deep Listens we discuss the first Kingdom H...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode we discuss the deep, deep philosophies of The...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode we discuss the deep, deep philosophies of The...

Hey everybody, I finished Pajama Sam: Thunder and Lightning aren’t so Frightening and since the last listacle went so well I’m going to run that format back again. So here are the top 7 things about Pajama Sam 2! 1. You can select which puzzles you play! One of the big surprises I found in Pajama Sam 1 was that the game has some randomized elements. Each of the core three items you need to beat...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! We discuss the Halo series's crazy plot, how headshots change...

I beat Pajama Sam ya’ll! I beat a game designed for 6 year olds! Hurray! Considering that the puzzles were all super simple and walking through them would be super boring, I decided to mix things up and listacle this shit. So here are my top eight takeaways from Pajama Sam. 1. Piggybacking totally works despite the world being a fantastical hellscape! All of the puzzles in Pajama Sam are quite...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Baby Deep Look! My usual Deep Look videos focus in on a cool gameplay mechanic or story element from a game I have played the heck out of, in the hopes that I can share what makes that mechanic so cool. This Baby Deep Look is just as deep as a normal video, but I focus on a mechanic or ability that is so small that the video is much shorter than usual. I aim to ke...

I did it. I finally escaped the Myst. I crossed the Riven. I’ve earned a rest. It’s time to calm down, slip on some pajamas, and unwind. That's right! We're getting scumm-y! That’s right. I’m playing the Pajama Sam games. I bought the Pajama Sam pack on steam and now I’m going to play all of the main-line games in the series. I played the first two games as a kid, and I have vague, yet fond mem...

When I left off my last blog post I had every intention of continuing the blow by blow of my playthrough of Riven. I thought I would continue narrating my revelations and frustrations with the game; however, in the intervening days I beat the game. I really wanted to see the ending so I powered through and I’m afraid some of the intermediate steps were lost in the shuffle. Also some of the inte...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode of Deep Listens we talk about To The Moon and...

Hey Duders, Here is a Deepish Look! My usual Deep Look videos focus in on a cool gameplay mechanic or story element from a game I have played the heck out of, in the hopes that I can share what makes that mechanic so cool. This Deepish Look is a bit less critical and a bit more review-y or Quick Look-y. I still try to give some good insight into the game I'm playing, but this video is geared a...

When we last left off I had hope. I thought that simply exploring and finding clues would be enough to progress in Riven . I thought that some major revelation was around the corner. I thought I would keep stumbling upon puzzles by following the beaten path. There were no pixel hunts in Myst so I thought the same would be true of Riven . I was wrong… so very wrong. Learn about numbers via grues...

If you’ve been following the ridiculous contest that @zombiepie and I have been having, you’ll note that I beat Myst last week. My part of the original bargain is done. However, in the spirit of fairness I agreed to add more games from the Myst series to my burden. And so here I am playing Riven: The Sequel to Myst . This should be fun and informative…funformative. Riven picks up immediately af...

Who killed the world? That is the knowingly unanswered question that the women of Mad Max: Fury Road ask the violent, patriarchal despot who enslaved them for years. No one answers that question explicitly; however, given the state of the world in Mad Max: Fury Road , I’d venture to guess that it was men with bombs who turned the land to ash and the water sour. It certainly seems to be men with...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode of Deep Listens we discuss how platonic relati...

Today is the day I beat Myst ! After completing the piano puzzle for the first time during a short play session, I decided that I would try to play the piano as few times as possible. To make that dream a reality I would need to beat the game in one try. With that goal in mind I quickly retraced my steps and cleared the Mechanical and “I guess I’ll park my boat in this boulder” Ages. All told t...

I really wish I could save. I really wish I could save. I really wish I could save. Although most of Myst ’s puzzles are “solved” via inputting a single answer that you can take down in a notebook and immediately reenter once you start the game, the process of reentering those solutions is growing tiresome. I think I’ve “solved” the clock tower puzzle about ten times now. I know that I wouldn’t...

This week I started playing Myst to uphold my end of the FFVIII vs Myst bargain I struck with @zombiepie (I regret nothing). Just so you know, I’ve never played Myst before and I’ve never finished any adventure game (other than Pajama Sam and Putt-Putt) without a guide. I tend to get frustrated with adventure game logic pretty quickly when I play adventure games that have strong narratives. I’m...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I examine Psychonauts o...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode of Deep Listens we discuss Fallout 3 and wheth...

Hey Duders, Here is a Deepish Look! My usual Deep Look videos focus in on a cool gameplay mechanic or story element from a game I have played the heck out of, in the hopes that I can share what makes that mechanic so cool. This Deepish Look is a bit less critical and a bit more review-y or Quick Look-y. I still try to give some good insight into the game I'm playing, but this video is geared a...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In this episode of Deep Listens we take an email about Shadow...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Baby Deep Look! My usual Deep Look videos focus in on a cool gameplay mechanic or story element from a game I have played the heck out of, in the hopes that I can share what makes that mechanic so cool. This Baby Deep Look is just as deep as a normal video, but I focus on a mechanic or ability that is so small that the video is much shorter than usual. I aim to ke...

Deep Listens is a gaming podcast series I'm recording with a few of my friends. Every two weeks we pick and play a new game and then discuss it from a literary, philosophical, and game design perspective. Its kind of like a book club for videogames. We try to dig as deep as we can on an individual game every episode so check it out! In the flagship episode of Deep Listens a few friends and I di...

Up until this week I’d never played a game with a playable male and female lead where romance wasn’t involved. I’ve certainly played games where an intrepid hero has to go out and rescue his lady love. Or perhaps two star-crossed lovers come to find each other after hours of “will they or won’t they”. At the very least there is some amount of flirtation and sexual tension. And yet after hours o...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I examine the early mom...

I’m smart, right? My parents and their friends keep telling me how handsome I am, they aren’t lying to me, right? I’m on the damn football and baseball teams, that should earn me some respect, right? Why the hell don’t I feel popular then? Why don’t I feel respected? What more do I have to do? What makes me different from the popular crowd? Could it be that I love video games and other nerdy st...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. This is my last FFIX speed run tip video...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I continue my preparati...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I continue my preparati...

During my last written blog post I discussed how MTG builds characters and settings through card art, mechanics, and flavor text . I tried to break down how MTG tells its stories through subtle shifts in mechanics, names, and art over time. However, in that post I largely avoided one of the most fundamental tools that MTG uses to construct its characters and its worlds: color. The cards of MTG...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I continue my preparati...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I continue my preparati...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I continue my preparati...

Magic the Gathering’s designers and writers face some fairly unique narrative challenges every set they release. They have to tell a story almost entirely through the art, flavor text, names, and mechanics of trading cards. They have no guarantee that the average player is going to look at any supplementary writing and they have little control over which cards any given player is going to see....

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Baby Deep Look! My usual Deep Look videos focus in on a cool gameplay mechanic or story element from a game I have played the heck out of, in the hopes that I can share what makes that mechanic so cool. This Baby Deep Look is just as deep as a normal video, but I focus on a mechanic or ability that is so small that the video is much shorter than usual. I aim to ke...

In order to prepare for the Giantbomb Community Endurance Run I’ve been playing a lot of Final Fantasy IX recently and that has got me thinking about the PS1 Final Fantasy games again (not that it takes a lot of outside prompting). The Final Fantasy series is famous for its almost complete shift of setting and tone from game to game and there is no greater shift in the series than the shift fro...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Baby Deep Look I continue my prep...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Baby Deep Look! My usual Deep Look videos focus in on a cool gameplay mechanic or story element from a game I have played the heck out of, in the hopes that I can share what makes that mechanic so cool. This Baby Deep Look is just as deep as a normal video, but I focus on a mechanic or ability that is so small that the video is much shorter than usual. I aim to ke...

Hey everybody I figured that this week I would switch things up by writing about my favorite sport from a gaming perspective. You see basketball is in the midst of a statistical revolution that is changing the way the NBA functions at every level. Increased statistical analysis is impacting the way teams are built, the way teams play offense and defense, and even how many minutes players play....

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I check out how Grim Fa...

Intellectually I dislike art that panders to nostalgia. My intellect thinks creating a work who’s whole purpose is to reference and celebrate some other, greater work seems masturbatory and frivolous. Rehashes and references seem like a waste of effort that could have gone to something new and original, so says my intellect. Why would someone create something like Final Fantasy VII for PS4 when...

Though I have longed to play Grim Fandango ever since I played Psychonauts and fell in love with the Double Fine (and by extension the Lucas Arts ) style of world building, the game has been nearly impossible to play legally for over a decade. Thankfully the re-release of Grim Fandango last week exposed thousands of new players, myself included, to the noir charms of the Land of the Dead for th...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Baby Deep Look! My usual Deep Look videos focus in on a cool gameplay mechanic or story element from a game I have played the heck out of, in the hopes that I can share what makes that mechanic so cool. This Baby Deep Look is just as deep as a normal video, but I focus on a mechanic or ability that is so small that the video is much shorter than usual. I aim to ke...

Hey everybody I’m back with another Magic lesson and this time I want to talk about tweaking an existing deck. I’m going to take the deck I made last week and make some changes to it based on my experiences during playtesting. Like before, I’ll be commenting on each of the changes along the way. Sneaky Temur 2.0: Whisperwood Elemental x 4 Icefeather Aven x 4 Rattleclaw Mystic x 4 Ashcloud Phoen...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I show off my rather un...

Hey Duders! I just noticed that this week marks a year since I dedicated myself to creating weekly content here on Giantbomb. I’ve been putting out either a written blog or a video or both every week for the last year and I just can’t believe it. That’s 80 blog posts in total (though it’s probably closer to 77 due to some accidental double posts). In this last year I’ve learned a ton about game...

I’m back again with another look at Manifest and this time I have a deck list! I’m going to break down some of my card choices and go over some of the core synergies that make the decks go. This is my first foray into deck breakdowns so if I don’t cover anything that you would like to know, just ask me in the comments. Whisperwood Elemental x 4 Icefeather Aven x 4 Ka-Kaw! Rattleclaw Mystic x 4...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I show off the many way...

Edit: I managed to get a more fleshed out version of this piece published on an academic site! If you want to read a more in-depth version of this essay then you can do so here http://www.firstpersonscholar.com/the-game-design-holy-grail/ . I hit on a lot of the same points, but the essay is much more polished and quote-filled than my original version. Two of my favorite pastimes are videogames...

This card has me super exited. After a bit of a hiatus and much demand I am getting back onboard the MTG writing train. I figured that with Fate Reforged launching this weekend I would look at my favorite card from the new set: Whisperwood Elemental . Now that isn’t to say that Whisperwood Elemental is the best card in the set. I’m fairly certain that Monastery Mentor , Soulfire Grandmaster , U...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I drive around the incr...

It has been a while since I wrote one of these computer security related posts, but in light of Sony’s troubles during the holidays and the seeming ubiquity of this manner of attack on the modern web I figured I would put together a little primer on what a DDoS, or distributed denial of service, attack is and how it actually functions. If you play games online at all you are likely familiar wit...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I show off the cool dua...

This is the first part of an essay I've been working on. I decided to split it in half to make it a little more readable. I'll try to have the next half up later this week or early next week. Let me know what you think! It's not hard for a new player to understand what this card does, but an experienced player will make much better use of it Two of my favorite pastimes are videogames and Magic...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I examine some of the s...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Baby Deep Look! My usual Deep Look videos focus in on a cool gameplay mechanic or story element from a game I have played the heck out of, in the hopes that I can share what makes that mechanic so cool. This Baby Deep Look is just as deep as a normal video, but I focus on a mechanic or ability that is so small that the video is much shorter than usual. I aim to ke...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I show off the deeply m...

Hey peoples! Last month I took part in the awesome GB Community Endurance run and during the event I ran through FF8 as quickly as I could. The experience has gotten me thinking about FF8 in some new ways and it has led me to think about playing games a little differently as well. So I figured I would write a little bit about my experience. This blog post isn’t going to be about the tips and mi...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I show off the wacky wo...

Hey Duders, Here is a Deepish Look! My usual Deep Look videos focus in on a cool gameplay mechanic or story element from a game I have played the heck out of, in the hopes that I can share what makes that mechanic so cool. This Deepish Look is a bit less critical and a bit more review-y or Quick Look-y. I still try to give some good insight into the game I'm playing, but this video is geared a...

Hey Duders, I put up the archive of the FFVIII speed run I did during the Giantbomb Community Endurance Run on my Hitbox channel and all but one segment on my youtube channel (thanks hitbox for messing up the dimensions of one video and rendering the video un-exportable! I didn't want those 2 hours anyway!). If you missed out on the fun last weekend then feel free to check that out. I finished...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I continue my FF8 speed...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I continue my preparati...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I continue my preparati...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I begin my preparation...

Two weeks ago I gave out a few tips on how to evaluate build-around-me cards so I figured it would be fun to actually build around a card this week! I chose to ignore my own advice and invest valuable life energy into building around Hardened Scales . This card is almost certainly a trap when it comes to competitive play… but it just seems so darned fun if it all works and I love +1/+1 counters...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Baby Deep Look! My usual Deep Look videos focus in on a cool gameplay mechanic or story element from a game I have played the heck out of, in the hopes that I can share what makes that mechanic so cool. This Baby Deep Look is just as deep as a normal video, but I focus on a mechanic or ability that is so small that the video is much shorter than usual. I aim to ke...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I SPOIL the final gamep...

The past couple of weeks have been about as rough as I can remember when it comes to personal privacy violations on the Internet. First there were multiple reported cases of doxing, personal site hacking, and email/Skype account infiltration surrounding the gamergate kerfuffle. Meanwhile, the whole celebrity hacking fiasco was unfolding as well. We tend to think of both of these events as singu...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I show off the fun and...

Some cards just scream out to you, “Play me! Just think of all of the fun stuff we could do together. Infinite mana. Infinite turns. Infinite wins! All of this could be yours and more if you just play 4 of me!” Those cards promise you the world if you’re just clever and open-minded enough to unlock their secrets. They are the sirens of MTG and everyone wants to be the genius who broke the card...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I examine Mass Effect 1...

Delve is likely the most powerful mechanic in the entirety of Khan’s of Tarkir. Unfortunately, delve is also the least intuitive of any of the mechanics in Khans from a deck building perspective. Raid, outlast, prowess, morph, and ferocious all benefit from being in decks with laser like focuses on one central theme: attacking, +1/+1 counters, morph, and big creatures. At first glance, delve ca...

Hey Duders, Here is a Deepish Look! My usual Deep Look videos focus in on a cool gameplay mechanic or story element from a game I have played the heck out of, in the hopes that I can share what makes that mechanic so cool. This Deepish Look is a bit less critical and a bit more review-y or Quick Look-y. I still try to give some good insight into the game I'm playing, but this video is geared a...

Hey Duders, Here is a Deepish Look! My usual Deep Look videos focus in on a cool gameplay mechanic or story element from a game I have played the heck out of, in the hopes that I can share what makes that mechanic so cool. This Deepish Look is a bit less critical and a bit more review-y or Quick Look-y. I still try to give some good insight into the game I'm playing, but this video is geared a...

Last week I took a look at the Standard and Modern altering fetch-lands of Khans of Tarkir so this week I thought I would pivot to a mechanic that is going to define Khans’ limited format: morph. Every creature with morph presents its owner with a host of gameplay options and its opponent with a bunch of tough decisions. Do you play a card face down on turn 3 with no way to protect it? Do you a...

Hey Duders, Here is a Baby Deep Look! My usual Deep Look videos focus in on a cool gameplay mechanic or story element from a game I have played the heck out of, in the hopes that I can share what makes that mechanic so cool. This Baby Deep Look is just as deep as a normal video, but I focus on a mechanic or ability that is so small that the video is much shorter than usual. I aim to keep Baby D...

Hey Duders, Today is the beginning of prerelease weekend for Khans of Tarkir and I thought that a good topic to cover for my first Magic: The Gathering specific blog post would be what makes the “fetch-lands” of Khans so good. The fetch-lands are some of the most powerful lands ever printed, but the things that make them so valuable are subtle and as such they are often overlooked by newer play...

Spoiler warning for the end of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII! I'm going to explore Crisis Core's ending in extreme depth so if you don't want the game spoiled do not read this! Ending a game is hard. Even some of the most engaging games fall flat at the end or simply decide not to end at all. Often the final encounters will feel anti-climactic or the conclusion won’t feel definitive, something...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. Join me as I reminisce over Vivi, the bes...

“Sports are supposed to be an escape, not a reminder of everything that’s unfair and hypocritical everywhere else.” If you interchange the world “sports” with the word “games” in that sentence, doesn’t it sound a lot like a complaint about socially conscious game coverage? Although the original sentence came from an excellent article on Roger Goodell and his continued mismanagement of the NFL ,...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. Come join me in checking out one of the m...

He'll cross you up with no regard for your health There are countless people on the internet who love to tell you how to spend your gaming time. They love to tell you about their favorite videogames and board games and card games. What’s more, they have monopolized the perfect formula for evaluating just about any experience: raw, objective evaluation based on a game’s intrinsic merits and tech...

Hey Duders, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I show off the world ma...

That is a lenticular bunny I’m an avid Magic the Gathering player and I’ve been thinking recently about what lessons game designers could take away from the world’s number one TCG. The free-to-play community seems to be earning a doctorate studying MTG's lessons about habit formation, the benefits of random boosters, micro-transactions, and pay to win. However, there are lessons in MTG beyond i...

Hey Duderati, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. Tons of Spoilers warning! In this Deep...

How many years ago was it when dating-sims were believed to be the realm of body-pillow hugging Otaku ? 5? 10? It wasn’t too long ago that the dating-sim genre carried a pretty nasty stigma and very few companies outside of Japan would even produce a game that focused on interpersonal relationships. Fast-forward to today, where few RPGs don’t have some type of dating-sim-esque relationship mech...

Hey Duderus, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I turn over the contro...

Hey Duderati, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found particularly worthy of highlighting and exploring. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look, Rothgar and I take a...

Hey Duders, Here is a Baby Deep Look! My usual Deep Look videos focus in on a cool gameplay mechanic or story element from a game I have played the heck out of, in the hopes that I can share what makes that mechanic so cool. This Baby Deep Look is just as deep as a normal video, but I focus on a mechanic or ability that is so small that the video is much shorter than usual. I aim to keep Baby D...

There goes 20 years of editorial experience The recent layoffs at Gamespot got me thinking about game criticism and the precarious position current and aspiring game critics find themselves in. In case you didn’t know, last week 7 of Gamespot’s longest-tenured, writing-focused editors were let go by the company. The longest-toothed members of the staff, Ryan Mac Donald and Justin Calvert, had b...

Hey Duderinos, Here is a Deepish Look! My usual Deep Look videos focus in on a cool gameplay mechanic or story element from a game I have played the heck out of, in the hopes that I can share what makes that mechanic so cool. This Deepish Look is a bit less critical and a bit more review-y or Quick Look-y. I still try to give some good insight into the game I'm playing, but this video is geared...

After reading Mento ’s blog about some of his favorite game mechanics I thought I would write a blog highlighting some of my own. These are not in any particular order of favor-ocity. You can use Dolphin Blow at any time, even though you "learn" it on disc 2. 1. Using Fighting Game Style Combos for RPG Input- One of the most pressing problems facing jrpgs today is the fact that a lot of people...

Hey Bomblings, Here is a Deepish Look! My usual Deep Look videos focus in on a cool gameplay mechanic or story element from a game I have played the heck out of, in the hopes that I can share what makes that mechanic so cool. This Deepish Look is a bit less critical and a bit more review-y or Quick Look-y. I still try to give some good insight into the game I'm playing, but this video is geared...

Hey Bombogachi, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found interesting. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. This Deep Look is a bit of a companion piece to my blog on Randomness in Ro...

Look he fits right in! I posted a short summation of my issues with the Kingdom Hearts series earlier this week and in that post I argued that I don’t like the way that the original Square-meets-Disney conceit has been sidelined in many of the games for Square’s original KH storyline (which I don’t particularly like). Now saying what I don’t like about the series doesn’t necessarily give an ide...

This leather and zipper aesthetic is really bad as well I’m a fan of Square-Enix . I’m a fan of Disney . That should make me a fan of Kingdom Hearts right? I mean the series was pitched as a chocolate and peanut butter combination of Square’s RPG design and aesthetic with Disney’s treasure trove of IP, along with some connective story tissue to tie everything together. Unfortunately, that game...

I JUST BEAT FTL ON NORMAL yesterday and that (heart-pounding, jazz-handing) experience got me thinking about rogue-likes. The devaluing of the term rogue-like is in full effect. If a game has perma-death: it’s probably a rogue-like. If a game has randomly generated levels: it’s probably a rogue-like. If a game is punishingly difficult: it’s probably a rogue-like. Though these basic game design...

Hey Bombinites Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found interesting. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I examine how the key philosophies of the city of Rapture...

Hey everybody, this essay is the final part of my look at the Final Fantasy series's use of broken homes and estrangement. Please take a look at my earlier work on FFVIII and FFIX if you want some other looks at how the series has handled these themes. I'm going to go into extreme depth in discussing FFX, so spoilers abound. I hope you enjoy my analysis! ----------------------------------------...

Hey Bomb-niciates! Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found interesting. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I show off some of the small architectural details tha...

Spoiler warning for the end of FFX! Spoiler warning for the end of FFX! Proceed at your own risk! For the last few days I’ve had Final Fantasy X and Ryan Davis on the brain. Tomorrow will be the one year anniversary of Ryan’s passing and I have been working on a long essay on FFX, so the two topics have been ping-ponging around in my head. The scene from FFX that keeps coming back to me is the...

Hey Bombstacios! Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found interesting. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes. In this Deep Look I take a look at the many hidden secrets of the world of...

Hey Bomberinos! Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found interesting. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes (maybe I should have called them actual quick looks). In this Deep Look I sh...

Hey Bombadeers, Here is the latest Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found interesting. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes (maybe I should have called them actual quick looks). In this Deep Look I ex...

I was impressed by this latest series of E3 press conferences and announcements. I saw a ton of cool looking games that make me excited to jump in to the next generation of consoles. I was astounded by technical showpieces like Sunset Overdrive and Destiny , as well as indie triumphs like No Man’s Sky and Cuphead . Going in to the conferences I wasn’t sure which games would grab me, but there w...

Hey peoples, I'm back with my second Deep Look! Deep Looks are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found interesting. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes (maybe I should have called them actual quick looks). This time I'm lookin...

There are countless people on the internet who love to tell you how to spend your gaming time. They love to tell you about their favorite videogames and board games and card games. What’s more they have monopolized the perfect formula for evaluating just about any experience: raw, objective evaluation based on a game’s intrinsic merits and technical proficiency. But why does the ideal review fo...

Hey All, this is my first foray into the motion pictures! I'm starting a video series ya'll! I call me series deep looks. The videos are largely gameplay and commentary like a Giantbomb quicklook; however, I try to cover games that have been out for a while and I intend to use the videos to highlight moments and mechanics that I found interesting. Also I aim to keep the videos under 20 minutes...

A few weeks ago I wrote a short blog titled “ What we can Learn from how we Play Games .” In it I tried to explain how the act of playing games, and specifically how you play games, is a form of self-expression. Unfortunately, I failed at that goal. Rather than explaining my larger idea I just explained how I have been expressing myself and my perspectives through games. So today I would like t...

The faces of the voices of NY sports radio for over a decade I am a New Yorker and my father is a sports fan. Growing up, that meant that every car ride was accompanied by WFAN and the ubiquitous talk radio team of Mike and the Mad Dog. The calm, deep, and authoritative voice of Mike Francesa mixed perfectly with the shrill and frantic energy of Chris “Mad Dog” Russo. These two hosts’ bickering...

The faces voices of NY sports radio for over a decade I am a New Yorker and my father is a sports fan. Growing up, that meant that every car ride was accompanied by WFAN and the ubiquitous talk radio team of Mike and the Mad Dog. The calm, deep, and authoritative voice of Mike Francesa mixed perfectly with the shrill and frantic energy of Chris “Mad Dog” Russo. These two hosts’ bickering about...

The immortals of Lost Odyssey are effectively human in every way, save their inhuman lifespan. They fall in love. They feel pain. They feel sadness. They feel remorse. They commit and witness every folly that humanity is capable of, and they are forced to accumulate the painful weight of all of that experience with no hope of an end. These immortals are not so much gifted with immortality as cu...

My first entry in my Lost Odyssey analyses is taking a bit longer than I anticipated (those Thousand Years of Dreams stories are denser than I anticipated and I want to do this right) so I thought I would point out one of the cooler little design decisions I have seen recently for my post this week. I am talking about the most selfless and noble of the Rogue Legacy classes, the Miner. The centr...

Lost Odyssey came and went on the Xbox 360 in what felt like a flash. Somehow a game designed by Hironobu Sakaguchi and orchestrated by Nobuo Uematsu , two of the driving forces behind Final Fantasy ’s heyday, has been largely left to the annuls of history and the minds of JRPG superfans. Perhaps the problem was the game’s JRPG-ness on a largely western console. Perhaps the problem was the Mist...

This week I completed an almost entirely naked run through Dragleic and I have emerged from my vision quest with a new-found respect for the Souls games and no desire to play any other games in this franchise. I figured I would document some of my feelings on this improbably popular game, and perhaps give some tips to help future naked runners. First things first, my run was 99% naked because I...

Last week I wrote about one of my favorite lost gems, Legend of Legaia , and that got me to peruse my game shelf to see if there were any other relics worth exhuming for a closer look. In my PS1 section I happened upon one of the most unfairly forgotten games that I have played: Threads of Fate (aka Dewprism in Japan). Threads of Fate was produced by Squaresoft, and its gameplay is similar to B...

When I was little I did not own many games for my Playstation . I had some sports games from relatives that did not know me well, some THQ-made licensed games from grandparents with the best of intentions, and some RPGs that I bought for myself - those were my favorites. The vast majority of the RPGs I enjoyed were from Squaresoft ’s late-90s hit-factory; however, there was one game that I love...

Clunky, difficult, obtuse, slow, and glitchy: these terms have doomed many a game to the bargain bin and not-top-10 lists across the world. These exact terms also describe the Souls franchise , from Demon’s Souls to Dark Souls to Dark Souls II . Now many of us who have played and enjoyed the games in this franchise have come to terms with these… disagreeable portions of the game, but they certa...

Hey ya’ll, while I was thinking of blog topics for this week I was a bit stumped. I have a bunch of half ideas that I don’t feel exceptionally strongly about so I got to thinking of a possible topic, and one game and one idea kept coming back to me. The game is Final Fantasy V and the topic is party construction and customization. You see, FFV was the first game in the series that I played that...

Spoiler Warning!! I am going to discuss the end of Bioshock Infinite in this post so steer clear if you don't want it spoiled. A man is trapped in an endless cycle, running through seemingly infinite dimensions-- all the same yet different, all variations on the same unifying theme—without a clear end in sight… now am I talking about the protagonist of Bioshock Infinite or its creator? Ken Levi...

SPOILER WARNING!!! I am going to discuss Persona 4 in depth and I will spoil some of the events that occur at the midpoint of the game. If you haven't played the game or watched the endurance run I advise you do so, but perhaps don't read this post until you finish. If you have been on Giantbomb for any length of time you have almost certainly been exposed to Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 . Thi...

Earlier this week I discussed how Double Fine is taking a play out of Da Vinci’s playbook by utilizing a commission model of game development and financing . However, I did not mention how Double Fine came to be in the unique position they are in now. You see, Double Fine is far from the only company that has tried new and interesting economic models to finance their games, so it is worth looki...

The model for how games are financed and how games are developed are, by and large, inextricably intertwined. For a while now we have been working on a game-as-product model of game creation; whether it was paying a quarter to play an arcade game, or whether it was paying 60$ to buy a console game. In either case the game was a product that was financed by a game publisher or development studio...

First of all, Spoiler Warning: I am going to spoil the end of Brothers and Frozen throughout this post, so look away now if you don’t want that to happen to you. Most of the game is a touching tale of the growing bonds between two brothers Do you have a person in your life, a friend or a cousin or an uncle, that is just a ton of fun to be around? Someone who is both capable of holding an entire...

First of all, Spoiler Warning: I am going to spoil the end of Brothers and Frozen throughout this post, so look away now if you don’t want that to happen to you. Most of the game is a touching tale of the growing bonds between two brothers Do you have a person in your life, a friend or a cousin or an uncle, that is just a ton of fun to be around? Someone who is both capable of holding an entire...

Hey fellow bomba-deers, I have spent inordinate amount of time writing about Final Fantasy 8 and 9. I have written at least 5 blogs on Giantbomb on both games and I have played through each game at least 4 times each. At this point I think I am Giantbomb's resident expert on these two games in particular and I would like to provide you with the DEFINITIVE HOT TAKE on which game is the best. But...

You can find my followup essay on FFX here ! Amnesia is a gameplay trope with which I am sure we are all familiar. It is a condition which seems to prey largely upon RPG protagonists and supporting characters, and whose cure is lengthy exposition at the game’s climax. The team at Extra Credits has done an excellent job explaining why this story telling cliché seems to infest game narratives lik...

I'm back for part two people. They said I couldn't do it, but I'm back to show them what's what. In case you missed it, here is part 1 of my fantasy football blog series . Today I'm going to be discussing player archetypes at the qb position that I look out for when I play fantasy football. I find that breaking up players according to archetypes helps me with my decision making as I can think m...

I'm back for part two people. They said I couldn't do it, but I'm back to show them what's what. In case you missed it, here is part 1 of my fantasy football blog series . Today I'm going to be discussing player archetypes at the qb position that I look out for when I play fantasy football. I find that breaking up players according to archetypes helps me with my decision making as I can think m...

Hey Ya'll, its 2013 and it is fantasy football season again. I don't know how many people on this site follow American football or how many of that subset play fantasy football, but hey I didn't closely follow football or care about fantasy until I got roped in to a fantasy league with my college roommate. I found that, once I got into fantasy football, a healthy appreciation for game systems a...

Hey Ya'll, its 2013 and it is fantasy football season again. I don't know how many people on this site follow American football or how many of that subset play fantasy football, but hey I didn't closely follow football or care about fantasy until I got roped in to a fantasy league with my college roommate. I found that, once I got into fantasy football, a healthy appreciation for game systems a...

Hey Ya'll, its 2013 and it is fantasy football season again. I don't know how many people on this site follow American football or how many of that subset play fantasy football, but hey I didn't closely follow football or care about fantasy until I got roped in to a fantasy league with my college roommate. I found that, once I got into fantasy football, a healthy appreciation for game systems a...

Today I am faced with a dilemma the likes of which I have never known. My life has been made demonstrably worse because of the passing of a man I never knew. I have followed Ryan Davis and the rest of the Giantbomb crew for the last seven years of my life. Every week I listen to the podcasts, and I watch the videos. Yet, now the host who’s whose charm and wit entertained me endlessly, whose sim...

Yo yo GB, this is the second entry in a series of blog posts that I am doing on the topic of amnesia and broken homes in the final fantasy series. You can read the entry on FFVIII . I am splitting this into three parts: one for FFVIII, one for FFIX and one for FFX. This post will cover FFIX. When I'm done I'll combine the three posts into one gigantopost so that it will be possible to read the...

Howdy GB people, this begins a series of blog posts that I plan to do on the topic of amnesia and broken homes in the final fantasy series. I am planning on splitting this into three parts: one for FFVIII, one for FFIX and one for FFX. This post will cover FFVIII (yay chronological order). When I'm done I'll combine the three posts into one gigantopost so that it will be possible to read the wh...

The response to my FFVIII post got me thinking a little further about the FFVIII combat system. It occurred to me that the system itself is not necessarily broken, but there sure are some character decisions that the development team made that unbalances the game. For example, the decision to give Squall 255 hit percentage by default makes him the un-dodge-able assassin. He is able to hit every...

Thanks to the recent Brutal Legend TNT I found myself with a hankering, a strong hankering to return to the metal fields of yore and tear through some daemons with an ax and a guitar. So I riffled through a box of old games and found my copy, with the intent to play through it in a week or so, but the metal got to me and sunk its molten teeth deep. Two days later I was done with the game and fi...

I thought that I would take a stab at defining what it is that I love about my favorite combat system of all time, the battle system in Final Fantasy VIII , with the hopes that I can convince some people to look back on this classic game (available on PS1 Classics!) and perhaps hear some of your favorite combat systems. What I think makes this game so unique is its redefinition of the role of e...

For the past few months I have been attempting to write critical and mostly formal essays about games, hopefully to some success . I have been treating games as any other medium and I have tried to analyze them as I would any other work. However, the more essays I write and the more I attempt to use standard writing practices, the more I have bumped into a number of problems that I feel must be...

For the past few months I have been attempting to write critical and mostly formal essays about games, hopefully to some success . I have been treating games as any other medium and I have tried to analyze them as I would any other work. However, the more essays I write and the more I attempt to use standard writing practices, the more I have bumped into a number of problems that I feel must be...

For the past few months I have been attempting to write critical and mostly formal essays about games, hopefully to some success . I have been treating games as any other medium and I have tried to analyze them as I would any other work. However, the more essays I write and the more I attempt to use standard writing practices like quotations and citations, the more I have bumped into a number o...

For the past few months I have been attempting to write critical and mostly formal essays about games, hopefully to some success . I have been treating games as any other medium and I have tried to analyze them as I would any other work. However, the more essays I write and the more I attempt to use standard writing practices like quotations and citations, the more I have bumped into a number o...

This essay is an examination of Kuja , the main villain of Final Fantasy IX , in it I outline the aspects of this character that I think make him both a compelling character and, in my opinion, the best villain in the numbered Final Fantasy games. I tried not to structure it as a simple argument about why I like him (because I personally found him quite annoying for much of a 40 hour game). Ins...

As cut scenes become more prevalent in modern gaming and scripted sequence become more and more elaborate, I fear that an important story telling tool may fall away. I speak of the old text box style of dialog, the concept that many rpgs have used to convey dialog and narration in the past. The old text box method is far from gone from gaming; however, I fear that it is looked upon as a tool of...

Welcome to Knowledge Bomb, where we highlight the articles that introduced us to new games we’d never found, allowed us to rediscover in new light ones we’d forgotten and inspired us to look differently at the medium, the industry and the world around us. You Do Not Enjoy Playing Pokemon by mrburger Though the Pokemon series holds a special place in the hearts of many players there are countles...

Random encounter s used to be king in JRPG s. For years a player could hardly walk on a world map or in a dungeon before being whisked away to a battle area to fight a horde of monsters. Then the fight would end and the player would find themselves transported back to the world map or the dungeon as if nothing had even happened, and continue on their journey. However, it seems like fewer and fe...

The first-person perspective is how all human beings with the power of sight view the world. We see the world through our own eyes, and then combine the images we see with our other senses and with our memories to create an image of the world around us. This perspective seems entirely natural to us and, as such, in games the game world is often displayed from this perspective. It is so often th...

Final Fantasy 8 is the first game that I ever bought with my own money. At 8 years old (way too young to play that game by the way) I was exposed to one of the most open, complex, and unintuitive combat systems that I have ever seen in a main stream rpg… and I have been toying with it ever since. It seems to me that Final Fantasy 8 ’s combat and character development systems are pretty fundamen...

Interesting social links with well written characters keep the player as focused on friends as dungeons Persona 4 , published by Atlus , is a role-playing game with an odd pedigree; it draws inspiration from two distinct game genres: the traditional Japanese role-playing game and the Japanese dating simulation. Although, this combination of genres may appear at first to be some sort of unholy u...

My favorite game when I was growing up was Final Fantasy IX. I loved every character in that game, especially the more “colorful” characters like Freya the rat-woman dragoon and Quina gender-ambiguous, blue-mage chef. My favorite of all of them was Amarant, the rogue with a heart. He is the classic, archetypal, "he is your enemy at first but then joins you because he really is a good guy deep d...

I am new to fighting games with street fighter IV being the first fighting game I've ever seriously played. I went into street fighter assuming that the community would be the same ass holes and scumbags that seem to blight halo and gears of war. Those people who never seem to shut up, talking trash at every opportunity. However I was amazed at the sportsmanship and friendliness of the street f...