"Malaise" is associated with what 39th President of the United States Jimmy Carter's speech entailed, calling on the blanket of dissonance and disharmony that was plaguing the country in the post-Vietnam years of the late-'70s. The fun...

We all love The Legend of Zelda, right? What kind of card-carrying narc of a gamer do you have to be to not find even the slightest tingle of joy in the adventures of the elven Link, haranged by the the preconceptions of...

Sunday, October 18th, 2020, Fumito Ueda's Shadow of the Colossus turned 15 years old, having released to Japanese and American gamers (sorry, Brits, ya hadda wait!) back in 2005 on Sony's hotcake-sales-defying PlayStation 2. ...

Truly, it was with a boyish sense of eagerness that I embarked upon Doom 3; hope for the often-maligned “reboot” of the iconic Hell-stomping, trailblazing franchise. I was ready for the naysayers, those invested in the fast...

On June 9th, 2005, the world changed. Sure, a few months previously Capcom had dropped Resident Evil 4 on the world. A member of the "Capcom Five," sure, that game reinvented its iconic franchise and pioneered game mechanics ...

It was late, but I sat there, Switch in hand, as the opening moments of Arrest of a stone Buddha played out drearily, bleakly before me. Cold-blooded execution in a church, and there I was taking control of the exec...

Dark Sector, released nearly 12 years ago in March of 2008, is a game I think about a lot. Which is to say, given the minimal thinking I'm able to do in a day, I think about Dark Sector most of the time. For a few reason...

What starts on four legs, changes to two, and ends up laying in bed in the middle of the night playing Vita? This guy! 2019 started with me making a conscious effort to play "series." That is, continue to be way too strict about playin...

For me, there's a fine line between an endearing act of self-awareness and an annoying one. What can be very clever commentary on a work's place in the world through direct breaking of the fourth wall, or an aura of detachment that can...

I have a strong affinity for small towns. I was born in Manhattan, about as not small as a town can get, but a few years later we up and moved outside the city. I value my identity as a New Yawker, and am often around th...

A tumbleweed rolls across the plain, a man and woman walk into a dusty western town. The man falls to his knees, “Water!” The woman chimes in, “Gene… this place reeks.” “I know… Wait, you don...

It was maybe last September, when I finally beat EarthBound, that I thought "Yeah, I sort of can name my favorite games of all-time!" That was a special moment, beating EarthBound (more on that later!), because...