Sometimes, It’s All About the Soundtrack

I recently completed Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, or, I should say, saw it through to an end, and of all its excellent qualities, I remain summarily in awe of its soundtrack. Every song created for it just works, from its gorgeously epic main theme to some wildly jazzy tunes (Monoco’s theme is my new jam)…

It’s Not a Bug, It’s a Feature

Glitches and bugs are as old as computers are and thus have been a constant companion to games too. No matter how simple or complicated a game may be, there’s almost no making it ironclad in terms of programming. I’m no code jockey, but it just looks to me that code segments often interact in…

Overwatch 2 is Dead! Long Live Overwatch (I Guess)

Okay, so this isn’t exactly breaking news, but I wanted to talk about it a little bit anyway. In case you haven’t heard, Activision-Blizzard recently rebranded Overwatch 2. It’s new name? Overwatch. Yep, four years after forcing Overwatch 2 onto fans and taking down the original, the publisher has decided that that “2” in the…

How Much Value is Actually in Gaming Subscriptions?

In the past, I’ve talked about Xbox Game Pass and how I don’t think it offers subscribers as much as it seems to. It’s not just Game Pass, though. It’s all of these monthly subscriptions: Game Pass, PlayStation Plus and Nintendo Switch Online. They all offer access to lots of games, but I wonder how…

What Gives a Game ‘Heart’?

For a long time, I thought that good games, games with “heart” or “soul” were those that were made painstakingly from the ground up. They needed original gameplay, original music, original characters and artwork custom made to fit the developer’s vision. Whether it was an indie project or AAA giant didn’t matter, only that it…

Silent Hill f Wasn’t Quite What I Expected

One of the games I was really looking forward to last year was Silent Hill f, the long-awaited continuation of Konami’s landmark horror series. True, we’d gotten the Silent Hill 2 remake just a year earlier, but Silent Hill f is the first new full installment in the series since Silent Hill: Downpour in 2012….

Hat’s GotY 2025: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Yup, Sandfall Interactive’s Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 continues to collect Game of the Year picks, even from small time bloggers like myself. I guess this was always going to be the outcome too, now that I think about it. This wasn’t exactly a super stacked year in terms of game releases, you know? I think…

Atari’s Redemption Arc

It’s been a very long time since the name Atari has carried any real weight. Yes, a company called Atari was once the the king of the home console market in America, but that was a very long time ago, and the actual company that existed at the time has long since ceased to exist….

What’s in a Name…that You Cannot Have?

Several years ago, I posted some musings on the importance I place on naming characters. This has mostly (but not always) applied to modern-ish RPGs and MMOs that I’ve dipped into over the years; the ones where you create a character of your own design who has nothing, and then you build them into something….

So, Summer Game Fest Happened, I Guess

For a very, very long time, the biggest event of the year was E3. Even after other events like Gamescom, TGS and things like Nintendo Directs emerged, E3 was pretty much still THE event of the year. E3 and the weeks leading up to it were absolutely packed with excitement, buzz and optimism as to…