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  • Softballchic10

    An Open Letter to Ellie and Joel

    By Softballchic10

    There are certain games that come along from time to time that really get your attention. It could be for the action, the graphics or game play. However, it is a rare occasion that a game grabs you for all of these, plus the amazing experience of becoming emotionally attached and involved in the actions of characters. It is to this that I write this open letter to Ellie and Joel. I met them in the “The Last of Us.” *(Please note that I've tried to write this to contain no spoilers.
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Dreams of the Red King

Book Review ? Black Blade

Cover of Black Blade This week I’m finally getting back to book reviews, with a look at the horrible novel by Eric Van Lustbader – Black Blade. Filed under: Books, Reviews, videos Tagged: Black Blade, book review, Eric Van Lustbader Source
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The Slowdown

Top Five Left 4 Dead 1/2 Custom Campaigns

In August 2010, Chet Faliszek announced Valve would begin to rotate biweekly custom-made campaigns on the official servers of Left 4 Dead 2: Every two weeks we are going to feature a new community campaign on our servers. We will feature one campaign at a time to make it is easier to find games. We?ll be keeping it featured for two weeks so people can familiarize themselves with the maps for competitive play. Though we wholeheartedly agreed with Valve on their choice to start their campaign
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Dreams of the Red King

About Pricing, Anime, Manga, & Video Games, and Privilege

This is a thing that’s been bugging me for quite some time. There’s this mindset that’s been bugging me for quite some time among people who, well, make their living criticizing anime – people like Justin and Zac of Anime News Network for instance. The idea is, that because the anime industry has demonstrated the market cannot support the levels of cost for mass production of Anime DVDs, and manga as books through regular channels, to levels that will cover the costs that the Japanese rights-hol
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The Slowdown

Prepare The Canons

Fear the Reaper Not much longer now before the Reapers arrive to wipe out galactic civilization. Mass Effect 3 is almost upon us, and I?m hardly ready. For anticipation is not just a case of checking the calendar and willing the days to advance quicker, there is work to be done before March 6th comes around. Few games in history have featured what is the Mass Effect series? main selling point: the ability to carry your save forward into the sequels in order to retain your character and the dec
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The Slowdown

Isaac and the ?Grotesque Body Horrors?

In his PopMatters article ?Fearing God, Fearing the Body: The Theology of ‘The Binding of Isaac’?, G. Christopher Williams discusses various aspects of Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl?s ingenious (and mildly blasphemous) Zelda/Roguelike hybrid, The Binding of Isaac. Although his reading of the game astutely homes in on the “meatier” parts of Isaac – that is, the implications of the game?s loathsome representation of the corporeal -, I do nevertheless want to point out some omissions in William
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The Slowdown

Rockstar Games and Genre

This brief discussion on Rockstar Games and their use of generic conventions originates from a very intriguing comment found on our favourite website in the whole wide wo…web, Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Over there, my half-assed ass-essment of the company as ?soulless? in my earlier post, On The Love Letter, was earnestly brought into question. The question is as good as any and the topic actually warrants a brief discussion. This time, I am not referring to Rockstar Games as ?faceless?, “insensitiv
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The Slowdown

On The Love Letter

I want to take the time to briefly celebrate the spectacular achievements of a minigame currently (and very, very deservedly) making the rounds in the video gaming blogosphere. The game in question is axcho and knivel?s Flixel game The Love Letter. (Go on, open the link and play the game right away. Do it! Just get back here once you’re done.) The Love Letter deserves to be played because it manages to grasp something of the Real ™, of the very nature of human interaction, in a way that is rarel
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The Slowdown

Dear Esther Review

2008?s Dear Esther, a Source modification developed by thechineseroom, originally a research project group at the University of Portsmouth, was perhaps the most singular game release of that year. In a sense, its arrival brought with it some degree of legitimacy to modifications with narrative and writing in mind. Encouraged by the game?s overwhelmingly positive reception and feedback, and the initiative of esteemed level designer Robert Briscoe, writer and designer Dan Pinchbeck set out to rem
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Dreams of the Red King

Editorial ? ?Mega Man? and a call to Occupy E3

Image via Wikipedia This week I’ve got an editorial for you all, thanks to the embarassment of news riches that were worth ranting about. First I have a discussion on the reveal that “Mega Man” would appear in Street Fighter X Tekken, and then I have a discussion about the Used Game Debate, and whether the Occupy movement should get involved. (Hint: The answer is yes.) Filed under: Video games, videos Tagged: editorial, Video games Source
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Retrochick Retroblog v1.0

SOPA, PIPA and Pushing Back

If you've been online at all in the last few months, no matter where you live, you've doubtless heard of SOPA and PIPA, the two bills that were set to become laws in the US and that were soundly defeated just a few days ago by the voice of opposition, ie: the massive public outcry that led to the bills' main sponsors pulling their support. That's good. We won. But we only won a very small battle, and there's no time to celebrate. We need to rethink how we, as Netizens, respond to attacks on
Areala

Areala

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Dreams of the Red King

Video Game Review ? Gears of War 3

Image via Wikipedia This week I have another review of a game in the Gears of War series, with my thoughts on Gears of War 3. Gameplay video recorded by TheRadBrad (http://youtube.com/TheRadBrad) Filed under: Video games, videos Tagged: Gears of War, Gears of War 3, video game Source
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Dreams of the Red King

Video Game Review ? Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Image via Wikipedia After taking a break for the holidays, I’ve got a video game review for you of . It’s not the best game in the history of gaming… but you can see it from here.Gameplay Footage by: J2JonJeremy Related articles Joystiq Top 10 of 2011: Deus Ex: Human Revolution (joystiq.com) Why Deus Ex: Human Revolution is My Game of the Year (forbes.com) All of the Best Video Game Music of 2011 [Game Music 2011] (kotaku.com) Filed under: Video games, videos Tagged: Deus Ex Huma
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Dreams of the Red King

Vlog ? 2011 Spike VGAs

The VGAs did this to my soul. This week I give my thoughts on this year’s Spike Video Game Awards – an awards show so bad, that my camera and the Gods Themselves conspired to save me from having to do a video about that steaming pile of crap. Related articles Spike VGAs 2011: ‘The Last of Us’ Finally Unveiled (gamerant.com) Spike VGAs 2011: ‘Hitman: Absolution’ Trailer (gamerant.com) Spike VGAs 2011: ‘BioShock: Infinite’ Trailer (gamerant.com) Spike VGAs 2011: ‘Metal Gear Rising: Rev
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Dreams of the Red King

Video Game Review ? James Bond 007: Blood Stone

This week I have another video game review – as I take a look at the last title to come out of Bizarre Creations, James Bond 007: Blood Stone. Gameplay footage by: Shockwave981 – http://youtube.com/shockwave981 TheMediaCows – http://youtube.com/TheMediaCows Featuring a guest appearance by Diamanda Hagan! http://diamandahagan.wordpress.com Related articles Preview: James Bond 007: Blood Stone (joystiq.com) Filed under: Reviews, Video games, videos Tagged: Activision, Bizarre Creations
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The Slowdown

Quote of the Day: Jim Rossignol

The message for the games industry is clear: you don?t have to have pretensions to art ? because here is a game that could not be more unpretentious in an artistic sense ? for your game to have a serious message. Even the manshooter can be about something, without having to carefully distance itself with irony or hyperbolic absurdity. But crucially there is also scope to do shooters differently on a mechanical level. They do not have to be linear rollercoasters, nor multiplayer menageries. They
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Dreams of the Red King

Vlog ? Thoughts on the International Red Cross & Video Games

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr This week I’m going off on another rant, as I discuss the opinion voiced by the International Red Cross about depictions of war crimes in video games, as well as giving a call to action on the Stop Online Piracy Act. Related articles Red Cross vs. Video Games of the Day (geeks.thedailywh.at) War Crimes in Video Games Draw Red Cross Scrutiny [Video] (kotaku.com) Filed under: Video games, videos Tagged: International Committee of the Red Cross, SOPA, vide
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The Slowdown

Quote of the Day: Rich Lawrence

Most of the key people involved in this publish, on the game team and our platform side, have been here very long days and every day leading up to this. I just had to tell some folks that had been here for 30+ hours to go get some sleep. If there was any way I thought we could be certain you’d be able to play with everything correct tonight, we would have done that. -Rich Lawrence, SOE CTO, on the EverQuest II F2P downtime </img> </img> </img> </img> </img> Source
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