MAKING OUT IS PUNK ROCK After a night of hard partying, Sean Diaz, ever the teenager, is late for work. His friends yell his name from the back of the flatbed that serves as their ride. The gruff driver, Big Joe, lays on the horn incessantly. Roused from his slumber, Sean jumps into action as the song “D.A.N.C.E.” by Justice electrifies the scene. Sean sprints … Continue reading Review – Life is Strange 2 Episode 3: Wastelands (PS4)
Since their acquisition in 2007, Monolith Soft has made a name for themselves as a key Nintendo developer. From helping out with large projects like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Pikmin 3, to creating intricate worlds of their own in the Xenoblade Chronicles series and elsewhere, their presence as a subsidiary has been extremely beneficial. The rewards for their work appear to be mighty … Continue reading Where is Monolith Soft in Super Smash Bros?
The recent release of FromSoftware’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice has refocused the discussion about difficulty and accessibility in games once again. Though this debate is not new (it tends to show up every time From releases a game), it grows louder each time. The questions seem simple enough. Should notoriously hard games include an easy mode? Are accessibility options necessary? Would they impact the gameplay … Continue reading On Sekiro, Difficulty, and Demon’s Souls
Cuphead. God Eater 3. Vampyr and Call of Cthulhu. Final Fantasy XII. Assassin’s Creed III. Several Resident Evil games. There are so many games being ported to Switch, it can be hard to keep track. In the two short years the console has been on the market, Nintendo and third parties have already built an impressive library of new games and ports alike and, over … Continue reading Five Long Shot Switch Ports That Should Totally Happen
ENDING AN ERA AGAINST ALL ODDS I don’t know whether it was a conscious choice on the part of the developers, or just the financial reality of the situation, but it’s now clear to me how small and personal the scale of The Walking Dead: The Final Season has been. Big set piece moments still exist, but they’re fewer and far between. Storytelling devices like … Continue reading Review – The Walking Dead: The Final Season Episode 4: Take Us Back (PS4)
DISPOSABLE FUN One of the most interesting things about Crackdown 3 is the way it changes the story of the series. In Crackdown, the big twist was that the all-powerful Agency used you, as the Agent, to eradicate crime from Pacific City and set the stage for a new police state. Crackdown 2 took this authoritarianism to an extreme, by pushing for the genocide of … Continue reading Review – Crackdown 3 (XB1)
EMBRACING THE BIG EASY The question “why aren’t some games just made easier?” has always been a testy one. Some gamers will be quick to point out that when Nintendo gave American audiences a re-skinned Doki Doki Panic as Super Mario Bros. 2, and Squaresoft reduced the difficulty when they localized Final Fantasy IV (then known as Final Fantasy II in the US), it was … Continue reading Review – Kirby’s Extra Epic Yarn (3DS)
THQ Nordic, publishers of the recent Darksiders III and the remaster of Titan Quest, recently had the idea to host an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session on the infamous image board 8chan, known for its issues with child pornographers and white supremacists. Before that, an investigative report from Lynzee Loveridge at Anime News Network uncovered a long history of sexual harassment and abuse of other … Continue reading The Difficulty With Separating the Art From the Artist (And the Company)
Dear Readers of A Gaming Life Pt. 2, Today is February 16, and as of now A Gaming Life Pt. 2 has been on Tilting Windmill Studios for a whole year. While this blog did not start here initially (I began posting on the now-defunct Game Informer Online Community Blogs), this blog and Tilting Windmill Studios have become incredibly entwined, and I kind of love … Continue reading A Letter to Celebrate One Year of A Gaming Life Pt. 2 on Tilting Windmill Studios
Yesterday, after months of speculation, which ramped up in the last week thanks to a report from Bloomberg, Activision Blizzard announced a massive staff layoff of about 800 people. Eight percent of their workforce – across the entire company, focused in part on divisions in Blizzard like esports, and a lot of Destiny support staff. Jason Schreier over at Kotaku has written a few articles before, during, … Continue reading In the Gaming Industry, “Success” Has Become Meaningless
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