An attempt to summarize my experience gaming in 2017. Next to the game is the amount of time I spent playing it in 2017.   Games I Played in 2017 Steal My SOUL Award: Hollow Knight (55 hours) Also wins: Most Hauntingly Bea...

  The Game It's a CCG. [Collectible Card Game, for the uninitiated.] The previous game in this series was a very unique take on single-player CCG. But this game is the epitome of traditional CCG. If you know of Magic: The Gatheri...

I think it's a rite of passage for any serious Dtoider to write about their tussle with the monster that is videogame backlog. This is my story. (side note: I wrote this on Monday but I kept chickening out on posting this because then ...

  I wanted to do this series weekly. And my previous entry was over six months ago. Life is a ... something. Anyway, I'm back now.   The Game For the second installment of Overlooked Gems, I want to bring up Card Hunter. Car...

  The new year marks the start of a new blog series. Yay! This series is about video games that flew a little under the radar. At least from my general impressions at Destructoid and a few other places. I will be talking abo...

 Alive? Dead? Rebirth? Afterbirth? Afterbirth+? Afterbirth+ with mods? ... what was I talking about, again?   The reveal and (later) presentation of Nintendo Switch has become an indicator of a time of change. With the Switc...

Hi everyone! I don't know how many years this has been in the making, but it's finally here. This is where I introduce myself to Dtoid. So many people have done this in so many creative ways, I'm a little bit at a loss here. I think t...

  Yesterday, I jumped back into my second playthrough of Dark Souls. And lo and behold! The world was populated again. Orange messages littered the ground, ranging from useful to “Try Fall.” There were bloodstains that...

I just finished the Invisible, Inc. campaign on Expert difficulty. The exhilaration was so intense that I just had to write about it. I've already written about it being a great game. And since it's on sale, I figured this was a good ...

  This is the last and final part of the “better criticism” series. It deals with the topic of violence in videogames. To recap: In Part 1, I introduced the reasons for changing our tools of criticism for videogames. I also...

Hi folks!I got distracted IRL, but I am back now. So let’s pick up where we left off. In part 1 and part 2, I talked about revising the existing tools of literary criticism for videogames. While the first two were a little bit contro...

 More than a punny title What's the fun in stealing when there is no chance of getting caught? The tension is what creates the delicious mix of fear and adrenaline. The payoff is pure exhilaration. If you are in love with this fe...

This is a follow-up post to my last post. In that post I got drunk and was whining about how Divinity OS hasn't been on Sale on GoG recently. Well, I'm here to tell all of you that if you pray long enough and hard enough, GoG will list...

Hello C-Blog lovers, Today morning I am feeling a little bit strange. Not bad, mind you, just strange. I've decided that I'm going to drink. Okay, I'm actually half a can of cider in already. Here's what I want from this morning: I wa...

As some of you may have heard, a surprise DLC for Dragon Age: Inquisition just came out today. Some of you may be wondering if DA:I is worth playing in its current state. Consider this to be a cumulative patch report in which I give yo...

Back by err... middling demand, here is the second part of my four-part series on improving videogame criticism. Part 1 can be found here.  Part 1 looked at analyzing small sections within a videogame and putting them in context....

Social criticism of gaming is still a relatively new phenomenon. One of the most prominent critical teams in this space is Feminist Frequency. When they started critiquing videogames, they brought with them a wealth of knowledge of gen...

It's time for an intervention.   The Problem A lot of the talk in 2014 was about the negative effect of hype. (And if you disagree with that statement, then you deserve a pat on the back for not being as obsessed with games news ...

For me, the year 2014 of our Lord (more your Lord, less mine, unless we are talking about the Facebook profile of God, who is all our lord), was a great year for gaming. I don't mean that in an objective “great games were release...

Why should you absolutely be playing Dragon Age: Inquisition?    The Art Direction It's a beautiful game! And I'm not talking about the graphics here (though I have been assured those are good as well). I played the game on l...

  OK. I'm back. And I've spent over a hundred hours and finished my first playthrough of Dragon Age: Inquisition. I could write about this game endlessly, but I've decided to restrict myself to two posts. This one will cover all m...

  [Zero spoilers for Inquisition] To say that I am excited for Dragon Age: Inquisition is to massively undersell my emotions. I am feverish with desire and sleepless with want. I am not even being hyperbolic here. I literally have...

    I have come across this question a few different times: Can videogames make you cry? On the surface, the question is simply asking if you have shed a tear during gaming. But the subtext cuts a little deeper. It is asking ...

[This post inspired by the TotalBiscuit/Jim Sterling debate on what qualifies as game.] “Purity” is one of those core concepts that we cling to as humans. Whether it is a theist's sanctity of religion, the social conservati...

*Spoilers for Transistor follow* , I talked about all the interesting things Transistor does with its narrative. In this post, I want to talk about the gameplay. To Turn() or not to Turn()? Combat in Transistor comes in two flavou...

*Full spoilers for Transistor follow*     Supergiant Game's 2014 offering keeps subverting my expectations with its narrative. Even now, on my third playthrough, I am still invested in the story because of how off-beat it is...

  Dragon Age Inquisition is coming out on November 18th. In preparation for this release, Bioware is trying to court fans of both Dragon Age: Origins (DA:O) and Dragon Age II (DA2). This is not an easy task for them because there ...