*Note – I will be on vacation until the second of January. Updates will resume then. Happy New Year, Internet. Since Mario picked up that first magic mushroom, developers have been having to deal with characters that don’t die in a single hit. Over generations, and genres, the measure of health or relative safety has…
This is an interesting holiday season. The next generation has technically started with the Wii U, but there is no sign, other than vague and inaccurate rumours, of the other two console developer’s next systems. As such, there is a very big question of whether or not it is a good idea to buy a…
Having just watched The Hobbit, I was in the mood for something a little fantasyish so I popped in Skyrim to have another bout with Bethesda’s most current open world RPG. My primary system is the Playstation 3, so I didn’t hesitate to pick it up for it way back. After all, I’ve only rarely…
Hi there, internet. Music is the cornerstone of any good game. Even if it is just the generic lets get pumped music that permeates most shooters. Without music, you’d be limited to nothing but vocals and sound effects and games that do this always seem so bland (To me at least). Music can change a fairly…
Hey there, people. This is Alana, writing because Nick is in the midst of a punishing law school exam schedule, and I guess he’s being a baby about it or whatever. Sorry for the late update – this was supposed to be posted yesterday, but for some reason the post I wrote was eaten up…
I was making my rounds through GameFAQs’ forums today, and I happened upon a post that was accusing all western RPGs (“WRPG”) of being nothing but shooters. The original poster continued the fight saying that the word RPG has been interpreted too broadly and that it should only apply, more or less, to turnbased games,…
I suppose the first question that should be asked with today’s post title is why does the Spike Video Game Awards matter at all? The truth is that they don’t, but as far as award shows go for video games, the VGAs are at the top of the list. As such, the VGAs are more…
Ni No Kuni, a game, which probably should have just been called Wrath of the White Witch in the west, is one of the first releases for the PS3 next year along with DMC. The game is hugely anticipated among the starved JRPG crowd, and not so much otherwise. The game is developed by Level-5,…
Yesterday was this blog’s first year anniversary so hurray for us. As part of that, I thought that, since I started with Mario a year ago, I should write about Mario today. As such, we are going to be looking at a serious issue that has started plaguing Mario games of late: stagnation. Even the…
The Shin Megami Tensei meta series is about as hardcore as it can possibly get. While many JRPG developers tried to follow the path of Final Fantasy and make their games increasingly accessible, Atlus more or less stuck to their guns in delivering hardcore experiences. This has given them Valve level fan support and has…
Mistranslations for the Modern Gamer 