The recent harsh winters in the US might have left some of us shivering at the thought of them, but some of the most memorable video game moments are the ones where we have to go spelunking through shiny, cold ice caves. Since the Super Famicom launched in 1983, games of all genres have been using ice levels…
It’s not quite as ancient as Pong, but Nintendo 64 is the hallmark of old-school gaming. Its release, its graphics, and game play wowed both young and old audiences. Many of us can remember long hours training our thumb coordination, all in a desperate effort to best your siblings in Super Smash Brothers. While we…
Many comic book fans are familiar with the age old debate of Marvel vs DC, but I thought it would be fun to stretch this debate out and compare what the two largest media companies in existence have over each other and what it says about both the companies and what it means about you,…
Ahh subscription fees. They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, and get delivered in different ways. Some subscription fees are small and you are aware what you are signing up for. Others appear small and then the fine print locks you into three months of payment, unbeknownst to you. You look at your bank…
We’re all familiar with tributes to our favorite heroes or villains, soundtracks or storylines, tragedies or comedies, etc. From games to films (yes, this is another gaming article, deal with it), we gravitate toward those who like and revel in despising those we don’t. And these games and their aspects leave lasting impressions. People today still…
“This guy keeps trying to kill me, and I don’t have a weapon.” – Britt Clifford, 23. Well, talk about a first world problem. No, it’s a not a 13-year old raging at his killstreak being cut off right before he could call in an airstrike in Call of Duty. Clifford’s avatar, the Debuante, was…
Even though the pilot failed miserably in 2007, NBC has decided once again to attempt bringing The IT Crowd to the US. As one of Britain’s most popular comedies, The IT Crowd brought us 4 seasons of laughter through the antics of two socially awkward IT guys and their oblivious, computer illiterate manager, working from the…
It’s time for that holiday that baffles non-Americans everywhere! The day cross-dressers celebrate more than most anime cons and little kids celebrate more than Christmas (because let’s face it, a man climbing down your chimney and eating your cookies doesn’t beat getting a pillowcase full of candy while dressed as Batman) has finally arrived! On…
An episode of FOX’s The Mindy Project that aired earlier this month has brought the show under fire by feminist bloggers the world around. In the episode, the sit-com featured a conversation between the titular Mindy Lahiri (played by series creator Mindy Kaling) and her boyfriend Danny following a sexual encounter in which he, without…
The success of the movie adaptation of John Le Carré‘s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Gary Oldman has led to a new TV series based on his other works. The Night Manager The TV series will be based around Le Carré’s ’93 spy thriller The Night Manager, which follows Jonathan Pine, a…
Trying to dissect immersion in a video gaming can be like writing an analysis of a comedian’s humor. By identifying and picking apart the little magic threads that turn disparate parts into a unified, (hopefully) enjoyable whole, you risk losing some of the finished product’s charm. Of course, these aren’t entirely accurate comparisons, since analyzing…
Whatever happened to art that just looks pretty? No offense to postmodernism (and, to its credit, it can be visually striking), but it’s hardly the Hudson River School (look it up) or the Michelangelo (if you need to look him up, go back to school) of the art world. Though, to be fair, Michelangelo wasn’t…
Gaming has long been thought of as a world with a primarily male demographic. Whether or not that that remains true if we exclude the preteens with microphones is unknown as I, unfortunately, am not a statistician, though I did once take a statistics course because calculus was big and scary. Seriously, it’s like the…
We’ve seen before how popular watching other people play video games can be. I’ve written before about the Let’s Play phenomenon and, after all, if the number 1 channel on YouTube is a gaming one, then there must be something behind the process. Clearly I’m in the wrong line of work and need to start…
With series 8 of Doctor Who having aired recently (and so far, it’s off to a decent start), I decided it was high time to take a look at this classic show – well, renewed, really – and see what makes it arguably the saddest show on television. And I don’t mean saddest as in…