It’s Wednesday, once again, and I’ve got the gaming news you crave. From ongoing conversations about difficulty to the morality of loot boxes, this has been a wild couple of weeks in the gaming community. It all gets exhausting sometimes, so I’ve been spending some time revisiting Stardew Valley on the Switch, which is the…
Mass Effect: Perfect Digital Romances
Given the impending release of Mass Effect: Andromeda and my longtime devotion to the original trilogy, I’ve been thinking a lot about my experience with the Mass Effect series lately. My two playthroughs differed wildly; I was all about the rookie mistakes the first time through (RIP, Wrex), and though my Shepard was a more…
Get Your Game On Wednesday: Giving Mass Effect Andromeda The Side-Eye
It’s Wednesday, the best day of the week if you’re a gaming news fan! Despite my inability to find any time to beat Night in the Woods (it’s been a busy couple of weeks), I’m still consuming all the news and regurgitating it in a helpful digest form just for you, like a supportive mama…
Get Your Game On Wednesday: Send Your Voice to the Stars
Happy Wednesday, all you dice rollers, thumbstick pushers, and mouse clickers of the world! While I’ve been living in an Overwatch bubble since the recent free weekend, it seems as though the gaming world has continued on without me. Let’s catch up on this week together.
Firewatch, Gone Home, and the Power of a Good Bad Ending
Spoiler Warning: This piece contains spoilers for Firewatch, Gone Home, and Dragon Age: Inquisition. Two of my favorite games of the past few years are also two of the games I most frequently see criticized for having bad endings–Gone Home and Firewatch. These are quiet, simple stories told in only a few hours at most….
Mass Effect Ride a Visually Impressive, Lackluster Franchise Entry
Any BioWare production requires a good story, and while California Great America’s Mass Effect: New Earth doesn’t have the depth of storytelling we’ve come to expect (nor the romance options), it’s a damn sight better than most.
Review: Dragon Age Magekiller #3-5
Dragon Age Magekiller is based on the Bioware game, Dragon Age: Inquisition. Never played it? Never fear, I’ve done it for you! Reviews for issues #1 and #2 of Magekiller can be found here and here, respectively.
Review: Dragon Age Magekiller #1
Dragon Age Magekiller #1 Greg Rucka (W), Carmen Carnero (A), Sachin Teng (Cover) Dark Horse Comics December 2015 This review is based on an advanced reader copy provided by Dark Horse Comics. “Tessa and Marius are mercenary partners, eliminating those who use blood magic to hurt others, but when a powerful patron employs them, they…
Love in the Age of Dragons: Unpacking the Romance Systems of Dragon Age
Gamers are an opinionated fan niche. Whether it’s your preferred system or whether you like a twist of romance in your stories, conversations about games can turn from mild disagreements to name-calling no matter the topic. Dreadfully serious folks sometimes find romance plots to be a distraction from “real gaming,” whatever that means, while other…
Dead But Not Forgotten: Our Favourite Moments of Death in Video Games
What does death mean when it’s not permanent? Can it still make you cry if your character regenerates? Can it be meaningful? Or is it necessarily just an annoyance, a product of “failing” at gaming? In games “The End” is hardly ever true. It’s just “The End” of that attempt, but your character will resurrect…
Critical Mission Failure: The Significance of Death in Video Games
When I played Final Fantasy XI, my first MMO, I kept a gallery of all my favourite death moments. The best was the time I went to introduce myself to Tiamat, the dragon that used to take about 36 players three hours to kill on a good day. I managed to survive three hits before adding another glorious death to my…
Inquisition Diaries #13: Descending into Disappointment
SPOILER WARNING: These diaries will contain spoilers for Dragon Age Inquisition (DAI) and its downloadable content (DLC), as well as its predecessors, Dragon Age: Origins (DAO) and Dragon Age II (DA2), and may also contain spoilers from the tie-in materials. If you’re new to this whole Dragon Age business and want to know what the hell…