Resident Evil 4 Remake
I’m sure I’ve ranted about my love for various Resident Evil games before, but I like to start my posts with a bit of personal history. From some of my earliest memories, I was a Nintendo fanboy who also loved horror. I loved my NES, the SNES was the console that made me realize how…
Big Ol’ Early 2023 Catch-up
*blows dust off imaginary typewriter* Hello again, old friend. Friends? I don’t know who I write these to, in reality. I maintain that this blog is a way for me to chronicle my history with video games mostly for myself, but I am aware that an occasional stranger or friend might pop in and read…
Elden Ring
My history with FromSoftware games is virtually non-existent. I own a copy of Bloodborne that a friend gave to me, and I bought the Demon’s Souls remake for PS5, but I have yet to play either. My exposure to their games comes in the form of the persistent discussion about their difficulty and accessibility with…
Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition
I’m sure I’ve brought up Chrono Trigger before. It is my favorite game of all time, after all. It’s an objectively great game, but it’s also very important to me on a personal level. I played it at a turning point in my life. I got it for my 15th birthday – my first after…
Diving Into 2022
The weather here in sleepy Sycamore, Illinois, is cold and dreary. It’s a grey and snowy day… and it’s April. You know what’s not cold and grey, though? My love of video games. That was the absolute worst segue anyone’s ever written but I am tired, and I’d like to get back to playing the…
Closing Out 2021
Wow, it has been a while, has it not? 2021 was a light blogging year for me, mostly because recording/editing the Pretty Pixels Podcast takes up the time that I would have been normally dedicating to writing about games. I haven’t given up on it, though. I love writing about games and, with some luck,…
A Summer of Reflection
Welp, between finishing up a summer semester, spinning up two fall courses, keeping up with the podcast, and, well, life, I haven’t had as much time to write here. That little voice has been nagging at me, though. “Why haven’t you posted?” “If you wait too long, there will be too much to catch up…
Video Game Crushes: Mitsuru Kirijo
If a game has a dating system, you can be pretty sure that I have a “crush” from that game. How could I not? I love romance systems in games, and I’ve gushed about how much I enjoyed those systems in the Persona series, which famously includes a dating sim-like feature. I’d already played Persona…
E3 2021 Hype-rule Warrior (it me)
E3 is back, baby! Well, almost. Kind of. Sort of. Not really, but there are a bunch of exciting videos and streams from most of the big industry publishers coming up, so that’s good enough for me. It’s been a while since I’ve written out a wish list, but I just published the latest podcast…
Hello, New Friend
Near the end of 2019, I wrote a post about saying farewell to my beloved custom pink DualShock 4 controller. As I mention in that post, I have a history with pink controllers and systems, as it’s been my favorite color for most of my adult life. Ever since Nintendo began offering multiple color choices…
Itchy. Thirsty. My Time with Resident Evil Village
It’s absolutely clear to me that the people behind Resident Evil Village were beyond thirsty when making this game. Maybe the term “thirsty” will lose its colloquial meaning at some point in the future, so let me be clear for future readers: these developers were horny as hell. Sure, the Resident Evil series has had…
Spring Cleaning 2021
I just wrapped up the spring semester last week, and as usual, it was a bit hectic. I’d planned on keeping up with these posts, especially because I’ve recently played some games that I had lots of thoughts about, but ‘twas not to be. So, given that two of my most anticipated games of the…
Persona 5 Strikers Steals… My… Heart (okay it doesn’t quite work this time around)
Oh, Persona 5. What is left to say about you? I’ve confessed my love for that game before, and I will probably continue to do so until my mind begins to slip and I forget the people and things that mean the most to me. Actually, I doubt I’ll stop even then. Someone like my…
Video Game Crushes: Ann Takamaki
I am fairly deep into Persona 5 Strikers right now, and although I’ll probably dedicate a separate post to my thoughts about the game overall, I will say now that I am loving my time with it. I doubt I’m the only Persona 5 fan that was expecting this game to be a simple, shallow…
Pretty Pixels Podcast
In 2006, podcasts weren’t exactly popular. I probably don’t know enough about the history of podcasts to claim that they were still “niche” at that point in time, but they certainly weren’t nearly as popular as they’ve become in the last five or so years (and even more so since the beginning of the pandemic).…
Revisiting Resident Evil 7, Thirsting After Lady Dimitrescu, and Getting Hyped for Village
One thing I’ve learned in my many years as an avid gamer is how to manage my hype levels. When I was a kid, I would tear through every page of Nintendo Power or EGM, eagerly consuming every bit of available information, speculation, and rumor about the games I was excited to play. My hyperbolic…
Comfort Food Games (and Coffee. And Killing)
In the final months of 2020, I found myself keeping up with new games unlike most other times in my life. While I would love to play all new games as they’re released, I usually can’t for various reasons. One is that I am definitely the type to finish games. I don’t like bouncing between…
Gaming Memories: Fleeting Fantasies (My Life in Rentals)
I stood there, fidgeting but transfixed, staring at the black plastic case. It was not your typical Super Nintendo case, which traditionally are made of thin cardboard. It was a thick, hard, black plastic, molded to look like some sort of industrial, heavy duty crate. The title of the game, Robocop Versus The Terminator, was…
2020
I have to be honest: I kept putting off writing my 2020 wrap-up post. As early as late November I thought about collecting my thoughts on last year’s games. It’s not that I didn’t want to write about all of the wonderful games I played in 2020. I love writing about video games more than…
Mostly Miles (Morales) and a Little (Telling) Lies
As I wrote in my last post, before I reflect on my year in gaming, I want to get some thoughts down about two 2020 games I’ve played recently, and the second of those games is Spider-Man: Miles Morales. I am also going to sneak in some thoughts about another 2020 game (for console, anyway)…
Working on My Night Moves: Cyberpunk 2077
Before I write my 2020 year-in-review, I wanted to put proverbial pen to equally proverbial paper about my time with the last two games I played in 2020, starting with one of the most avidly discussed games of the year: Cyberpunk 2077. The discourse around the release of Cyberpunk is fascinating in its own right,…
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
When I pre-ordered my PlayStation 4, I took advantage of an offer from Sony where you got three launch games for the price of two. Like most launch lineups, it was slim pickings, but I went with Killzone Shadow Fall (because it was one of the only made-for-next-gen choices), Call of Duty: Ghosts, and Assassin’s…
PS5 and the Majesty of a New Generation
Welp. It’s finally here. After all of the hype and anticipation, I received my pre-ordered PlayStation 5 on release day, luckily enough. I have to say, one of the things I failed to mention in my post about previous console launches is the insidious worry that the coveted console that you have been waiting months…
That New Console Smell
The next generation of PlayStation and Xbox consoles is arriving in just over a week, and I am finally allowing myself to feel the excitement. They’re really almost here. Wow. I was not able to secure an Xbox Series X preorder but I was lucky enough to snag one for the PlayStation 5, and I…
Phasmophobia and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Ghosts
It’s spooooooky season! I hope you heard that in a sufficiently spooky voice in your head. I’d say you can imagine my voice but you probably don’t know what I sound like, unless you know me (hi, Amy!). Just trust me: I sound very spooky. Okay, no, I don’t, but you don’t have to know…
Of X-Wings and Zombie Things
With new consoles and big games on the horizon, I’m feeling an urge to write about the games I’m playing before I end up with a big, multi-game post again. I want to chronicle my PS5 launch experience, and so many big games like Cyberpunk 2077, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla are claiming…
Paper Mario (and More-io)
The dawn of the next generation of consoles is upon us. Last week, the PlayStation 5 preorders went up, this week it was the Xbox Series X/S. I was lucky enough to secure a PS5, but I haven’t had any luck getting a Series X. I was late in trying for that one, though. For…
End of Summer Snippets
Well, the nights are getting cooler, the days are getting shorter, and I can already smell the scent of pumpkin spice on the veritable breeze that is social media bandwagoning. I love summer and will be sad to see it go, but I am trying to look forward to the nice things about fall. The…
Diss Bits: Punch Line and Trans Representation
I said recently that I wanted to start using these posts as a way to work out some thoughts as part of my dissertation work, and I just finished reading a chapter that contributes something to my previous thoughts on the game Punch Line. In those thoughts, I stopped short of calling the game a…
Regret
This is not a video game post. So, no, I won’t be talking about my regret for ever having played Myst or not placing higher in the 1994 Blockbuster World Video Game Championship regional finals. No, this is a post about plain ol’ regret. More specifically, I wanted to write about my own relationship with…
Gaming Memories: Faxanadu and the Filthy Sword
“Daggers and wingboots, mantras and monsters await you,” the cover to Hudson Soft’s 1989 NES game Faxanadu claims. Since it’s Father’s Day here in the US, I figured I would share a dad-related gaming memory. I haven’t spoken with my father in about 18 years. I’m not upset about it and this blog is not…
Whispers from a Forgotten Past: Final Fantasy VII Remake
There probably isn’t much that hasn’t been said about Final Fantasy VII Remake, but that’s okay. I’m not here to make some grand, unique contribution to the conversation. I have a lot of thoughts, though (and even more screenshots), and I want to start sharing as I often do – with a bit of personal…
Save Point: Discussing My Dissertation
When I started this site, one of my intentions was to use it as a place to write notes and short blurbs about my dissertation as I researched and worked on it. I did post a thing or two about some book notes, but I haven’t really done much else. There are a couple of…
I Digress
I woke up sad today. The memories and musings this blog are supposed to capture are of the video game variety, but I wanted to write something a little more personal and revealing today. For purely selfish reasons. I keep a journal but something about sharing this, regardless of how few people see it, makes…
Gaming Memories: Mortal Monday (II)
Summer, 1994. I was eleven years old and just starting sixth grade. I, like many kids at the time, was obsessed with fighting games. Well, the two fighting games that really mattered: Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat. The former was such a massive hit in both arcades and on consoles that if you pick…
Thievie Wonders: My New Phantom Thieves Mask Collection
I am a little over 200 hours into Persona 5 Royal at the moment and I’ve detailed my love of the core game and the series in previous posts. I have yet to play the new post-original-endgame content yet, so maybe I’ll cover that in the future, but I just made a purchase that is…
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Alright, I said I would blog more regularly now that I’m at home slightly more than I was before the shelter-in-place order was given, but, well, it’s been a month since my last post. Hey! Don’t look at me like that, hypothetical reader! I want to make a joke about how I have been “busy,”…
Video Game Crushes: Jill Valentine
Oh, Jill Valentine. Won’t you be my valentine? No, wait, that’s cheesy. And it’s April, not February. Ahem. Please be my Jill sandwich – no, wait, weird and gross. You truly are the master of unlocking… my heart. *cool sunglass guy emoji* The original Resident Evil was a huge reason I betrayed my pulpy Nintendo…
Quarantine Catch-up
It has been a time, hasn’t it? This quarantine business seems to make for a great time to catch up on blogging and *gasp* maybe even start posting more regularly again. Up to this point, however, I have had to transition the course I’m teaching to online, play Animal Crossing: New Horizons and… well… I…
31 Games I Loved from the Last Decade
I see lots of people on Twitter posting their top ten games of the last decade, so I wanted to do something here, where I have more room to say a little something about each game. So I made a list of games I loved from the last ten years, then when I thought about…
Video Game Crushes: Delores Edmund
I just finished Thimbleweed Park, so while this blog will mostly be dedicated to the woman named in its title, I would like to open with some general thoughts on the game. Since its release in 2017 I’ve continually heard/read that if I liked Maniac Mansion, I’d like Thimbleweed. They were, after all, created by…
Birth of a Backlog
I’ve felt pretty fortunate lately. For the last handful of years I’ve always been behind on new releases, still catching up on games that came out months ago while reading about the latest, most exciting releases. I was able to catch up at some point, so I’ve actually been playing new games as they release…
Late Fall Video Game Medley
I don’t love doing long blogs that cover multiple games, but I’ve had the fortune of playing several games over the last couple of months, and the misfortune of not having as much time to write about them. So, here we are. Because this is in large part my way of tracking my own thoughts…
Farewell, Old Friend
Just about five years ago, in November of 2014, a beautiful, custom, pink DualShock 4 was bestowed upon me for my birthday, by my ex. Pink has been my favorite color for most of my adult life. I didn’t care much for it as a kid, but that changed in my teens. There was a…
Late Summer/Early Fall Reflections
Between writing a syllabus and assignments for a new class this semester and reading for my dissertation prospectus, I haven’t had much time to blog about what I’ve playing these last couple of months. I want to, but there’s nothing like “writing for fun” to trigger anxiety about the fact that I should be writing…
My Gaming Tattoos
I’ve been meaning for a fair while to write a blog about my gaming tattoos, but my problem is that, uh… I can’t stop getting them. So every time I sit down and think “time to write that blog,” I remember that I have a new design in mind for a few months from now.…
Video Game Crushes: Momiji
In my discussion of Dead or Alive Xtreme 3: Fortune, I called Momiji a new video game crush, and having recently played the newly released Dead or Alive Xtreme 3: Scarlet, I figured now would be as good a time as any to write an official entry about her. Momiji is not an original Dead…
Video Games Shouldn’t Have to be Fun
I attended my first Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCCs) this past April. As the largest conference in a crowded field, it is a pretty big event. It’s basically the E3 of composition conferences. Part of what makes it so big is that there is a lot of overlap with other fields, like rhetoric…
Gone Home (in the Classroom)
Yesterday was my last day teaching an English course for high school students, part of a college prep program, and I wanted to write a blog about my experience using Gone Home as a text in the classroom. This is mostly just a collection of thoughts, so there’s not too much in the way of…
Dragon Quest XI Performs its Best Puff-Puff: Joey has an Enormous Grin on His Face
Dragon Quest VIII is high on my list of favorite games of all time. I bought it on a whim while on vacation, and I spent two solid weeks playing it for hours and hours. I hunted down and crafted all the best gear, I beat all of the post-game quests, and I took down…
Persona 3 Extravaganza
Apparently I’ve made a habit of playing a new Persona game every summer. In 2017, it was Persona 5, 2018 saw Persona 4: Golden, and this summer I finally got around to playing Persona 3 Portable. Part of this newly formed annual tradition is practical. Persona games are not short, and I really don’t like…
Spring 2019 in Review
I let the semester overwhelm me again, so I ended up not writing about the games I was playing between grading, lesson plans, and research. I made time to continue playing games, but that didn’t leave time for much else. So this will be a catch-up blog, where I share just a few thoughts about…
Video Game Crushes: Quistis Trepe
Final Fantasy VIII was the first RPG I played that had an explicit love story at the center of its plot. Others had hints of romance, but you mostly had to create your own romantic relationships in your mind if you wanted that to be a part of your story. Having said that, FFVIII was…
Resident Evil 2 Infects My Heart
So the semester is well under way, and although this is my first semester with no coursework, between lesson planning, grading, and reading/prepping for my prospectus (not to mention making time for games/relaxing), I’ve once again fallen behind on posting blogs. I really want to write out my thoughts about Resident Evil 2 before they…
Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown is a Perfect Flashback
Oh, Ace Combat. Where do I even begin with you? I played Ace Combat 2 and 3 around the time of their release, but I wasn’t all that enamored with them. I mean, they were (like many 3D games from the mid-late 90s) pretty ugly. But the PlayStation 2 was the first console I bought…
Brief Thoughts on SoulCalibur VI and Street Fighter: 30th Anniversary Collection
If you looked at my game collection, you might say “wow, you sure like fighting games!” And I would say “uh, excuse me, I don’t know you, how did you get into my house?” But after you explain that you are madly in love with me and broke into my house to steal a lock…
![“Welcome… to Jurassic [World Evolution]”](https://startanewgameplus.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/3a-3.jpg?w=800&h=600&crop=1)
“Welcome… to Jurassic [World Evolution]”
I was one of the many, many kids who saw Jurassic Park in theaters back in 1993. I loved it so much, in fact, that I saw it seven times in theaters. I was obsessed. I had the toys, I wanted to be a paleontologist, and anytime my family went on a long car ride…
So Much Funky Persona Goodness
I’ve shared my love for Persona 4 and Persona 5 in previous blogs, so it probably comes as little surprise that as soon as Atlus announced that Persona 3 and Persona 5 dancing games were not only coming out late in 2018, but would be offered in a limited edition bundle that included a digital version…
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
When Super Smash Bros. came out on the N64, I thought it looked like a lot of fun and I loved the concept of Nintendo characters like Link and Princess Peach fighting each other. Pair this with the TV spots Nintendo released for it, which seemed out of character for Nintendo at the time, and…
Red Dead Redemption 2
Sometimes I have to remind myself that I started this blog for myself, as a way to leave reminders and reflections to look back on in the future. I finished Red Dead Redemption 2 recently, and when I considered taking a break from exam studying to write a blog about it, I thought “but what…
A Little Selfish Self-care
I see a lot of discussion about self-care now, which is great, so I wanted to write about a self-care tradition I started last year without exactly realizing it. 2017 was a bit of a rough year for me. I won’t go into details, but my girlfriend of seven years and I split, I was…
Odds and Ends before Year’s End
I really wanted to use this site to document my thoughts on games as I played them, but I kind of knew that that would fall apart when the semester picked up, and it has. A blizzard is currently raging outside, though, so I’m going to take a break from grading to catch up a…
Mafia III – Important and Flawed
Oh, Mafia III. I would have loved to love you. I haven’t played the first two Mafia games, but I heard that Mafia III was pretty decent and did some interesting things with social issues, so I decided to give it a shot. It wasn’t a bad game, but it could have been so much…
Summer South Park RPG Binge
When South Park first aired in 1997, it was kind of a sensation. It was one of those cultural bombshells that seem to come out of nowhere. After the first few episodes, I remember sharing jokes with kids at school, classmates I’d never even talked to, because the show’s humor was so new and shocking…
Paper Mario: Color Splash
I have a bit of a history of playing Paper Mario games late, going all the way back to the origin of the series, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. My excuse for that game was a youthful lack of funds, and for the first official game in the series, Paper Mario, it…
Video Game Crushes: Chun-Li
Chun-Li is probably my very first video game crush. True, my love for Princess Peach originated earlier, with Super Mario Bros. 2, but I didn’t exactly think of her as a crush. I just liked playing as her. With Chun-Li, though, I was smitten. Like many, many kids in the early 90s, I was obsessed…
Making Memories with Persona 4 Golden
As I wrote previously, I absolutely loved Persona 5. I’d been interested in the series for a long time, so I was happy to be rewarded by such an excellent entry into the franchise. It was the kind of game that I just didn’t want to be done with, so I ended up beating it…
Doki Doki Literature Club!
[Doki Doki Literature Club! is a game that deserves to not be spoiled. This blog will have lots of spoilers, so please don’t read it if you haven’t yet played the game. It’s free on Steam, so why not give it a try?] The only things I knew about Doki Doki Literature Club! before playing…
Catching Up/Recently Played
One of the main reasons I started this blog was to track some of my thoughts about games I play, for my own benefit. Writing about games helps me retain memories of them, and I value having a record of my gaming experiences. I realized this back when I had a blog on the now…
How My Students Define “Gamer”
One my favorite activities to do with my students has been having them build profiles of people as a class. I ask them to close their eyes and picture a specific kind of person, and then they tell me the attributes they pictured. Because I use video games to teach many of my classes, I…
Guilt-Gaming and State of Decay 2
It’s summer once again, and once again I feel that strange mix of emotions that comes with being between semesters of work. It’s summer: my favorite season when I was a kid. It meant playing baseball or basketball or football every day, swimming, sleeping as late as I wanted and, of course, no school. That…
E3 2018 Wishlist
When I look back at my wishlist for 2017, I’m surprised by how many items were eventually announced (after E3, but still). Some of them were givens, sure, but I was surprised that Soulcalibur VI actually became a thing, and with Geralt in the mix, no less. Anyway, as I said in that blog, I love to…
My Favorite Games of 2017
It’s not much of a stretch to say that 2017 was among the best in history for video game releases. Hell, if it weren’t for Chrono Trigger and EarthBound both releasing in 1995, this year might have been the (personal) best year in my nearly thirty years of gaming. I love revisiting the memories I’ve…
If Video Games are Art, We Should Discuss Them as Such – Reviews vs Criticism
As a teacher (and student) of rhetoric and composition, I’m frequently thinking about how art and different kinds of media are presented to various audiences, and how those audiences react in turn. Given that I am also an avid gamer and have taught my first-year college students about rhetoric using video games, the subject of…
Gaming Memories: Saving Up for Super Mario RPG
It’s the beginning of fall, 1995. I’m twelve. My lifelong love of video games will increase exponentially in a couple of months, when I receive Chrono Trigger for my thirteenth birthday, but before then I am quietly becoming obsessed with a game called Super Mario RPG, for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. It didn’t yet have it’s subtitle, Legend…
Persona 5
Way back in 2001, I was walking around an Electronics Boutique and I came across a used copy of Persona 2: Eternal Punishment. I was always on the lookout for new RPG experiences, and the cover art for this particular game looked dark and somewhat sexual, which was even more rare during the PlayStation era…
Video Game Crushes: Princess Zelda
I’ve probably played around half of the ‘core’ Legend of Zelda games, but I never really had much of a thing for Princess Zelda. I mean, she was an elusive and rarely-seen damsel in distress in The Legend of Zelda, a slumbering pile of pixels that I never managed to wake up in Zelda II:…
Book Notes: Rise of the Videogame Zinesters (Anna Anthropy)
This series, Book Notes, is just my thoughts on some of the books I’ve been reading about video games. I don’t have a thesis for my dissertation yet so I’m casting a wide net, and these are loose and unfocused because I’m not sure what I might end up using them for. I may or…
Gaming Memories: One, Two, Freddy’s Coming for Me
Drive-in movie theaters were not completely extinct by 1984, but they were scarce. Like any cliché 80s family unit, mine would occasionally pile in our station wagon and drive an hour from our home in Chicago to watch newly released movies on the big screen from our backseat. The original A Nightmare on Elm Street…
E3 2017 Wishlist
I’ve been thinking about E3 for a few months now, particularly with Nintendo’s anemic release schedule for an otherwise successful Switch launch. E3 is not quite the spectacle it once was, but it certainly seems to have gotten some of its mojo back in recent years. So much so, in fact, that I continually find…
Dear Nintendo: Where is Dr. Peach?
I find myself thinking a lot about games I’d like to see made, especially when a new console or technology is released. I don’t mean “I want Nintendo to make another Mario Kart,” because that’s inevitable. I mean the sort of far-fetched, pipe dream type of games that seem unlikely candidates for development – actually,…
Just What I Needed: A Grand Start for Games in 2017
Wow, what is happening with 2017? I don’t remember a year as busy with big, great games before E3 even hit. Developers usually save their big hitters for the holiday season (or rush them out the door for the same season), and sometimes there’s the odd game or two that couldn’t quite make the holiday…
Pedagogy, Please: Using Papers, Please in the Classroom
I am teaching a first year English class titled Rhetoric and Composition – essentially, it’s what many people would call English 101. As teachers, we’re required to stick to the course objectives, but otherwise we have the freedom to design our own course and syllabus, and I like to get creative with my classes. I’ve…
Phoenix Down: Video Games and (My) Mental Health
I love video games. I probably don’t need to say that. I created a website to spew poorly organized, mediocre writing about the things, knowing that virtually no one will read it. That’s probably not something you do for a hobby you don’t care about. I don’t allow this love to identify me as a…
Don’t Speak: Silent Protagonists
I’m using video games as illustrative texts in the first year composition course I’m teaching this semester, and we’re focusing a lot of our attention on identity. It’s a topic I think about a lot, particularly when I’m playing narrative-heavy games or games that are meant to be especially immersive. I wouldn’t say I actively…
Final Fantasy XV Forever
I spent the last two weeks of my winter break playing as much Final Fantasy XV as I could. I’d hoped to beat it before the semester started and things got busy, but of course that didn’t happen. I’ve since completed the story, using every scrap of free time I had, but it still wasn’t…
My Gaming Radar: 2017
First, I should say that this is not necessarily just a list of unreleased games that I’m excited about playing in 2017. The stack of games I’ve bought but haven’t played yet is bigger than my bank account, so my immediate gaming future will be spent catching up on some of those, and I begin my…
My Year in Gaming: 2016
I am on winter break for the next few weeks, so I’m determined to squeeze a few blogs out before the madness that is spring semester consumes me once again. I’m starting with the obvious: a look back at my experiences with video games in 2016. This outgoing year has been pretty terrible for me,…
Gaming Memories: Death Peak
One of the reasons I started this site was to archive some of my personal memories with video games. Memory is a fleeting thing, so it brings me pleasure to not only relive choice gaming experiences, but also to record them in some way. This, my first entry, will be about my favorite game of…
Finally, (Real) Virtual Reality
As we’re entering the time of year where lots of games are released, big and small, there is much to be excited about. I just received my copy of Paper Mario: Color Splash, which is definitely cause for celebration for this Paper Mario fan. The Dragon Quest VII remake was recently released, too, so I’m excited about picking that up. The Last…
Gaming and Grad School
The fall semester started for me a few weeks ago, and while I have plenty of feelings about it (for better or worse), I wanted to write a little about gaming and grad school, from my own personal experience and perspective. Well, it’s not grad school as much as it is just college, really. I…
Adventure Awaits
My copy of No Man’s Sky will be delivered to my doorstep in less than a week, and I am finally allowing myself to get excited. I’ve been looking forward to it for many months now, but when I feel the tendrils of hype planting themselves too deeply over something, I tend to pull back and avoid…
War Never Changes
I just finished reading Blake J. Harris’s Console Wars, about Sega’s war with Nintendo for dominance in the home console market during the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis era, and my mind is tingling with nostalgia. Like many videogame-loving kids during that time period, my parents were only willing to buy me one console (and only…
Farewell, Xbox (Petty Squabbles with a Giant)
This has the distinct possibility of running away with me, but I really will do my best to keep it short. Ish. Short-ish, because there’s a lot to tell. Essentially, I bought a song bundle for Rock Band 2 in 2009 and was unable to download it on my Xbox One to play it in my newly…
This Magic Moment
When I was writing my top 20 list for this site, I was constantly wavering between games that I thought were objectively great and games that I had a special, personal experience with. I struggle with that every time I make a list or share my favorite video game/movie/book with people, and I’ve been thinking about…
The Little Things
I’m not quite as old as dirt, but sometimes it feels like it. In my thirty or so years of playing games, I’ve built up a cache of experiences that I draw from every time I play a new game. It’s not a conscious or purposeful thing. I don’t play games to snidely compare them…
Welcome! Kinda…
Let me start by saying that I am transferring over my blogs from another site, so this first wave of posts will have their original publication dates on them. Like this one, my welcome blog (kinda) from my other site: (May 29th, 2016) Okay, here’s the deal: I set this site up for selfish reasons.…
A New Game Plus 