Do You Prepare for Game Sequels?

With the release of Dragon Age: Inquisition on the horizon, I’ve been considering if I want to prepare for it or not. By “prepare” I mean play through Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II. I had a great time with DA:O, and less fun with DAII, but recently I’ve found myself wanting to play…

Looting the System

Image Captured by Hatm0nster Last week I wrote a piece talking about how much of an accomplishment it would be if Bungie/Activision were to show us that it’s possible to actually improve a console game with dlc rather than just expand it. I still think it would be a landmark achievement if they were to…

A Different Kind of Frustrating

This past weekend, I had the rare opportunity to spend a whopping three hours with video games! Not three hours broken into ten-minute segments. Not one hour in the morning, one hour in the afternoon, and one hour in the evening. But three consecutive hours, all in the stretch of a discretely lovely afternoon. It…

A Possible Destiny

Image captured by Hatmonster. The release of Destiny is important. It is. Whether you love the game or hate the game, our general reaction to its release has made it important. Many of us, while definitely enjoying the game, have found ourselves disappointed with everything surrounding the core gameplay: the story, the characters, the by-the-numbers…

Retro Bound?

As the beginning of 2014, you know how many games for which I was so incredibly excited I was counting down the minutes to the released dates? Exactly zero. That’s not to say I wasn’t looking forward to a few games (South Park: The Stick of Truth, Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze, and Fable Anniversary, for…

Me, Myself, and Video Games

Maybe it’s in response to the recent controversies in gaming revolving around journalism, sexism, and criticism, but lately I’ve noticed an uptick in articles around the blogosphere about why folks game and why video games are important to them. These articles aren’t meant to stir the angst-ridden pot any further, but rather serve as affirmations of…

Let Them Play

Image by Flickr User: Tom Newby Photography (cc) The major controversy may have faded, but we never really saw a resolution to the root cause to all of the Youtube troubles that cropped up last year due to some new content policies and overly-zealous video-claiming. As far as I know, Fair Use law didn’t get…

Why Haven’t We Moved On?

Image by Flickr User: Doug Kline (cc) There’s something different about this generation of home consoles. Not so much in the power or what they can do, but rather in our perception of them. Here we are, almost 10 months since the PS4/Xbox One launched, almost 2 years since the Wii U launched, and we’re…

Hopes For the Edge

Image By Flickr User: gray_um (cc) My opinion of Mirror’s Edge has been in a state of flux ever since I first played the game back in 2008. I loved it initially, eventually bought into the endless online criticism of the game and became a critic of the game myself for the last 5 years….

Hategame: The Adventures of Cookie & Cream

(This article was edited from the original, How Two Bunnies Nearly Ruined My Life, which appeared on Recollections of Play, 11/29/11.) Thinking back on the video games I’ve played, I realize that “hate” is a pretty rare and strong word in my gaming vocabulary.  I’ve played bad games, uninteresting games, and great games that just…