Back in 2012, I took the first step and admitted I had a problem. I couldn’t be in denial any longer: My video game backlog had grown out of control. Thanks to Steam sales and Craigslist thrifting, I had amassed more games than I’d ever be able to finish. Rather than feel a sense of…
Since my legs are broken and I’ll be spending my foreseeable future indoors, getting swept up in a good RPG sounded appealing. I dabbled with the top-down apocalyptic RPG Wasteland 2 but ultimately found that the game’s isometric perspective limited my enjoyment. Staring down at my characters like ants through a magnifying glass as they…
Above: Heavenly-forged Kyrian armour probably weighs thousands of pounds, so this out-of-place hyena mount ain’t having it. Roughly five months ago, Blizzard delayed the latest World of Warcraft expansion, Shadowlands, by about a month. That delay was one of the reasons I decided to cancel my pre-order and miss the game’s launch entirely. But old…
Every so often, a work of art comes along that shatters preconceptions, shifts the realm of possibility, and reinvigorates its medium. And every so often, that work is shepherded by a madman. Unfortunately, the twisted but beloved 90s cartoon Ren & Stimpy falls into that category. It was the result of burgeoning TV network Nickelodeon funding the…
Thanks to COVID, I’ve been living a very stripped-down, monotonous life for nearly a year now. I rarely leave the house for non-essential excursions, day-to-day novelty is sparse, and my sense of community is dwindling. In response, my subconscious is yearning for a new place to call home — but not in the real world.…
Now that I’ve finished most of Cyberpunk 2077’s main story content, I’ve been spending my time in Night City a little differently: namely, by roaming its streets as a sort of deranged, cybernetically-enhanced kleptomaniacal Batman. I check my in-game map for the next set of side mission coordinates. Arrive on the scene and murder some…
At first, I found Cyberpunk 2077 massively disappointing. It emphasizes player choice but offers little. Its open-world is pretty but mostly populated with filler content. And it frequently sidelines role-playing efforts so it can tell its own story. But fifty hours later, and having surrendered my expectations, I’m enjoying the game for what it is:…
Reading is a pastime I’ve come to enjoy more as I’ve grown older. And with my renewed appreciation of the medium came a goal to read more in 2020. For me, digital mediums like film and video games are often more stimulating than books (my blog archive is proof of that). But my entire working…
After seven years, CD Projekt Red’s highly-anticipated action RPG Cyberpunk 2077 is here, and it’s a cybermess. And I’m not just talking about the apparent lack of polish or abundance of bugs. Cyberpunk 2077 is foundationally flawed: a bizarre Frankenstein monster cobbled together from elements of other, better, games. Many of its gameplay systems are…
Digging through the James Bond catalogue has been one of my go-to film pleasures over the years. To my knowledge, few other film series can match the continued output and relevance of Bond. There are a whopping 25 films in this franchise (including the soon-to-be-released No Time to Die), and 27 if you count the non-Eon…
