I'd never played a Grand Theft Auto before. I mean, I understood the draw, but ever since I'd played Mafia, I felt no beckon to follow The Sopranos through an open-world Manhattan de-make. Wise guy this, blip-blap that. The whole rigamarole sounded like a chore, really. On top of that, my new girrrrrrrrlfriend and I…
Last year saw the glimmer of a movement to get a video game based on Sons of Anarchy, FX's biker gang series and a vicarious lifestyle fantasy for many viewers, one of them me. The possibility seemed to go no further than series creator Kurt Sutter's own hopes.
In line for Nintendo's booth, Terence Polk checked his smartphone and chitchatted about what he'd come to review. "Super Mario 3D World," he said, because he was skeptical—not because he was thrilled by what he'd seen in Nintendo's presentation. It was the second day of E3. In Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
In DmC, the new reboot of Capcom's Devil May Cry series, hero character Dante is the offspring of an angel mother and demon father. He looks human but is of another breed altogether, a species of celestial rarity called nephilim who are incredibly powerful. They're wild cards, nephilim are, and their bloodlines gives…
A controller gets put down. A disc gets shelved next to dozens of others just like it. But, sometimes, the game lingers. It creeps into your sleep and live on in the backs of your eyelids, demanding ever more from you.
2K Games revealed the box art for BioShock Infinite this morning and the verdict on it was swift and disapproving.
With respect and admiration for, if not apologies to, the late Ernie Harwell, here's something adapted from his famous Induction Day speech at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Aug. 2, 1981, which itself was adapted from this 1955 essay.
Hurricane Sandy didn't have an effect on the video game scene the way it would have if it had hit in a city like Montreal or San Francisco, where many of the most popular video games are made. But New York City and the surrounding region does have a vibrant indie gaming scene, millions of passionate gamers, a lot of…
Editor's Note: In my sports column Sunday, I noted a rather significant change to the control system in NBA 2K13 and pondered why sports video games remake their controls more often than other genres, including series that are now releasing annually. Zack Hiwiller, himself a former designer of sports video games,…
On Friday, Madden NFL 13 revealed the ratings for every quarterback in the league, inviting the usual pointless discussion about who should be ranked ahead of whom and why.
I'm not proud of it, of course, but I've profiled others according to skin color. You see, glowing, primary color skin on a character in D.C. Universe Online is a sure sign of a free-to-play player, especially if they're low level. It indicates they really didn't give a shit what they looked like when they rolled,…
The Commodore 64 turns 30 today. Reams of copy have been written in tribute to this machine. It wasn't the first personal computer, but it truly was one that democratized them to millions of middle-class households. Releasing in August, 1982, it stepped into the breach a year later when console video gaming, as we…
Three days home, sick, with the complete understanding and sympathy of my employer. Fully conscious and ambulatory, with some grade-A camaro-drivin', country-music-songwritin', shirtless-guy-on-COPS prescription narcotics on the bathroom sink. Can't go outside and enjoy this nice day, cause I'm sick. Can't work, I'm…
A great dad makes sure his son is better than he was. If you measure fatherhood by the accomplishments of offspring, then I've got substantial evidence that I'm the world's best dad. Well, one of the best, at least. Outside of maybe George H.W. Bush or Archie Manning. My evidence: I coached my 5-year-old son, Luke,…
Brent Nielsen has a corner office catching 270 degrees of Florida sunshine, and his face lights up whenever you tell him a good golf story. Especially one that happened inside the game he makes, Tiger Woods PGA Tour.
This Saturday was about as throwing-things livid I've been over a sports contest in a decade. The last time I was this angry was in 2003, when Jorge Posada doubled off of Pedro Martinez to tie the seventh game of the American League Championship Series. I kicked a trashcan across the newsroom of the Rocky Mountain News…
All my friend wanted was a simple, get-rid-of-it-on-Craigslist estimate for an original Xbox, two controllers, and about a dozen games. He knew that what he had was too common in its time, too obsolete in the present, to qualify as some latter-day Antiques Roadshow jackpot. Still, I couldn't bring myself to appraise…
With respect and admiration for, if not apologies to, the late Ernie Harwell, here's something adapted from his famous Induction Day speech at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Aug. 2, 1981, which itself was adapted from this 1955 essay. Stick Jockey published this last year on Thanksgiving weekend. I've updated it…
I was adjusting my costume atop a skyscraper in Gotham City when a tour bus soared up into view and hovered there. There was a red diamond on my mini-map, meaning an enemy human player. Had I created Wile E. Coyote here in D.C. Universe Online, I would have cowered under a tiny umbrella, or a sign that said "Yipe!"
Roger Ebert did a brave thing today, a terrible thing today: He admitted that he was wrong and said he has no plans on rectifying that.
