Musings From the Dark Side

Well, another E3 has come and gone, and with it, the time-honored tradition of planting my ass in front of a screen (TV, phone, or tablet, I'm not picky) and watching a bunch of people talk to another bunch of people about said slices of interactive entertainment. Ah, yes, 'twas indeed the best of times, as Dickens may have said. But enough chatter and bad comedy, let's talk about games! Specifically, those which have lay claim to my imagination based on what I've seen and heard about them. I'm going to limit my choices to ten, unless you want this post to be an infinite one. Here goes... 10. Call of Cthulhu I'm not much of a horror gamer, to be honest. I find the generally slow pacing and sometimes irritating control schemes to be kind of dull. In the case of Focus Entertainment's upcoming fright-fest, however, that may change. Featuring a creepy atmosphere replete with demonic pictures that seem to come alive as your character passes by them and,...

The first official day of E3 2017 began with a 25-minute presentation by Nintendo, who announced a slew of titles including Metroid Prime 4, Fire Emblem Warriors, new Zelda: Breath of the Wild DLC, the next installments in the Yoshi and Kirby franchises, a new Metroid game for the 3DS (which is actually a remake of Metroid 2), and a new core Pokemon RPG for the Switch. In addition, Rocket League will be releasing this holiday season for Nintendo's latest system, and will feature platform-specific content and cross-platform play, which is always a plus. They also provided us with trailers for Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Arms, Splatoon 2, Pokken Tournament DX, and Super Mario Odyssey, which releases on Oct. 27, and features a variety of interesting environments for Mario to explore. Xenoblade 2 looked very interesting, and a bit impenetrable to anyone who hasn't played the first game in the series. Still, it's got good visuals, tried and true JRPG gameplay, nice music, and a...

Sony's media showcase began with an interesting musical performance, some game footage, an appearance by Shawn Layden, more game footage, another appearance, then more game footage. It was mercifully short on developer banter or cringeworthy moments. On the flipside, it was also short on surprises. There was no presentation of the Last of Us 2, which was something I was hoping to see. No mention or tease of a new Bloodborne game. No shocking resurrection of a long-dormant first-party title like SOCOM or even something like Syphon Filter (remember those games?). Instead, we saw an expansion for Horizon: Zero Dawn called the Frozen Wilds, an expansion for Uncharted 4 called the Lost Legacy (revealed at PlayStation Experience last fall), and, finally, a full remake of Shadow of the Colossus. Wait, what? Okay, that's interesting, and the other two expansion trailers held their own, don't get me wrong. But SotC was closer to what I wanted out of Sony's presser. It ...

Ah, Ubisoft. An oasis of games in the ancient Egyptian desert. A font of joy and dance in a sea of pirates and talking, anthropomorphic primates. A place where one marketing team says, "Hey, let's combine our most annoying characters with a competing publisher's most popular characters and steal the gameplay mechanics from another competitor's franchise! That'll do the trick!" while the other one laughs and whispers, "Suckers!" Heh. Oh, Ubi. You guys crack me up. To the recap, Robin! Why did I just use a Batman reference? I don't know, but let's roll with it. So, Ubisoft started off the festivities by bringing out our old friend, yours and mine, Mr. Shigeru Miyamoto. As it turns out, Miyamoto-san and the good folks at Nintendo decided to collaborate with Ubi to create a Mario and Rabbids-focused experience that we've never seen before. The result is Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. Yep, it's a colorful, family-friendly ver...

Once upon a time, there was a video. It told a strange story of a strange land populated by strange characters... Characters like Bethesda Softworks' Executive VP, Pete Hines, who appeared for about five minutes split between the start and the end of the conference. Oh, and there was disembodied voice man, who narrated our tour through "Bethesdaland," a bizarre theme park obviously designed by the same people who made the old Blockbuster Video customer service training courses. There were tales of VR game expansions and card games that are ironically played without an actual deck of cards. There was talk of a paid modding kit called the Creator's Club, which enables players to purchase user-created content for games like Skyrim. There was Fallout 4 in VR, which is cool, and Doom in VFR, because Doom should be released on every platform known to man, and rightfully so. Oh, and there was a guy dressed like Link from the Legend of Zelda on a horse in Skyrim, be...

Kicking off the second day of E3 press conferences were our old pals at Microsoft, who probably had their best showcase in quite a few years. After a short sizzle reel that teased some of their upcoming announcements and featured an obligatory Master Chief appearance, Xbox division head Phil Spencer took to the stage to introduce Project Scorpio and give it an official name: the somewhat underwhelming Xbox One X. Still, it is interesting that the acronym the new name forms is XBOX, it does make me miss the days of more creative console names, like Dreamcast or Genesis. When did console names become so damn practical and bland, anyway? Even Nintendo 64 sounds better than this pedestrian crap. But I digress. Spencer and lead engineer Kareem Choudhry detailed the technical specifications of the Xbone X, and I have to say, I'm impressed. It truly is a beast of a console, and if I were a rich person, I'd run out and buy an 80" 4K TV, a Dolby Atmos sound system, and thro...

Well, here we are at the start of gaming's annual excursion into madness, E3. This year, Electronic Arts started us off, with a press conference I can only describe as dull as a doornail. Here's just a taste of how awful it was: it started with a  Madden NFL 2018  drumline. And trust me, it all went downhill from there. They look like they had a lot of fun. Anyway, as we all know, EA makes the trek out to LA each year with one thing in mind: making money. Wait, that isn't it (except that it is). How about, to bring "new ways" to play "massively innovative" titles, like the latest version of FIFA and Star Wars: Battlefront 2 ! Nothing says "massive innovation" like the sequel to a divisive online multiplayer-focused shooter set in a licensed universe and the latest iteration in a long-running sports series. Now, before you call me a flat-out hater, let's look at the good stuff EA showed off. Well, there was a new IP called Ant...

The live-action ones, anyway. Alright, friends, here's how it is: t he astonishing, record-breaking big-screen release of director Patty Jenkins’ entry into the DCEU, Wonder Woman , as well as the success of its small-screen counterpart, Supergirl , has led me to ruminate on a topic that's near and dear to my heart: namely, my favorite TV show heroines! In the future, we'll talk about female movie heroines and discuss my favorite male television show characters, but for now, I want to focus on the ladies, because there ain't a thing I love more than a badass woman. Keep in mind that this entire list is based on the shows I've watched at least most of the way through (hence, no sign of Veronica Mars, though I desperately wanted her to be on this list). I also tried to keep my choices down to one character per series, with one notable exception. In fact, this top ten is entirely based upon my personal preference as a fan of the shows in question. Your mileage w...