Warning: This post contains self-indulgent meanderings on the passage of time. If you young'uns can't handle that, skip this post and get off of my lawn. A few weeks ago I was in the lunch room of Nevis Labs. I was the oldest one there. The rest were summer students about 20 years old. The topic had…
When I switched Wordpress providers, many of the pictures did not import properly. You may want to view the old site's post instead. Portions of the following essay, the pictures in particular, have previously appeared in my Facebook feed. If you've read those status updates, the only reason to read this blog post is to immerse yourself…
I've played in World of Warcraft (WoW) since before its formal beginning; that is, I played in WoW beta test in 2004. When you start either a Human or a Dwarf character in WoW, you quickly learn about flying between the Human capital of Stormwind and the Dwarf capital of Ironforge. Your character flies on the back…
Sometimes you only have one chance to make a good first impression. Shroud of the Avatar makes a lousy one. After spending a few hours with the game, I feel no desire to continue playing it. I didn't even get out of the starting area. Shroud of the Avatar (SotA) is a MMORPG (massively multiplayer on-line role-playing…
It's probably unfair for me to review Shadow of the Tomb Raider so soon after Spider-Man. My viewpoint is skewed because Spider-Man is clearly the better game. It's also unfair because I'm not a professional videogame reviewer, though I feel compelled to write reviews; I feel that one game is better than the other, but I struggle…
I'll start by addressing the big problem with this game: On its easy difficulty setting (dubbed "Friendly"), the game is much too hard for casual players -- at first. The game starts in media res, with Spider-Man fighting the thugs of Wilson Fisk, aka the Kingpin. Since this videogame is frequently compared with Batman: Arkham Asylum, I'll…
Through a World of Warcraft discussion message board, I heard of a research study being conducted by West Virginia University on the relationships between videogame players and their avatars. In a "what the hell" mood, I responded to the survey with a story about one of my WoW characters. I thought the story was minor, but to…
About a year ago, I joked that from now on, all console games that I played must have a colon in their name, because the ones I played with a colon were more fun. Then I played God of War, which I enjoyed despite its lack of a colon. Now I come to NieR: Automata. I purchased…
I'm a fan of Mystic Vale. It's a deck-crafting game. Unlike a deck-building game, in which you add cards to a starting deck as you play the game, in a deck-crafting game you modify the cards themselves. In Mystic Vale this is done by inserting mostly-transparent cards into the plastic sleeves of the cards of your deck.…
I enjoyed the first game in this series, Batman: The Telltale Series. It had a different take on the standard tale of Bruce Wayne as he transitions into his role of the Batman. It also set the stakes for a different origin of the classic Batman villains, especially the Joker. Batman: The Enemy Within continues the story…