This article originally appeared on Kombo, through whom I was able to attend THQ’s Metro 2033 event in San Franisco.
It’s about 2 o’clock in the afternoon, Pacific Standard Time, and I’m in downtown San Francisco standing beneath Route 80. I’m exhausted, and the Starbucks vanilla latte I called “breakfast” is not doing its job. Hours earlier, midnight, when I touched down in the City by the Bay after being flown out of Philadelphia, PA, I climbed into a limousine and drove in style to my hotel, the St. Regis, succumbing to jetlag-induced sleep. All of this – the flight, the limousine, the five-star hotel – was orchestrated and paid for by THQ. I’m here to cover a press event for Metro 2033, their upcoming post-apocalyptic shooter set in the ruins of Moscow, Russia. Under different circumstances I would not allow THQ to curry favor by footing the bill – integrity, journalistic ethics, that whole thing – but I’m a destitute student, one who does not get paid to be a journalist. One who has never been to San Francisco, video game journalism’s Mecca. How could I turn down this opportunity? More >>
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is a fucking amazing video game, and everybody knows it. On September 19, 2009, Chris Roper, Editor-in-Chief of the IGN PlayStation Team, published one of the first reviews of Uncharted 2. “There came a point when I was early in the game, and I couldn’t wipe the smile off of my face as I took cover, shot bad guys, and did all the stuff I remember making the first game great. This was like putting on an old pair of jeans or picking up one of your favorite books again – it just felt right.” Other reviewers would echo Roper’s sentiments. At 1UP.com, executive editor Thierry Nguyen awarded the game an A-plus. At EuroGamer, editor Tom Bramwell gave Uncharted 2 10/10, and called the game “an action-adventure masterpiece whose minor flaws are washed away on a tide of rhythm and spectacle – one that would still be an essential experience even without the option to pull your friends off cliffs and play capture-the-heirloom.”
There are 101 more reviews of Uncharted 2 documented on Metacritic, and a great deal of them must say the same thing. The game has a metascore of 96 right now. This is, of course, completely understandable. There are a lot of great video games out there, but none offer such a rich, seamless, cinematic experience. Uncharted 2 is simultaneously Naughty Dog’s homage to Indiana Jones and its very own Raiders of the Lost Ark. In his 1981 review for the Chicago-Sun Times, Roger Ebert wrote, “Two things, however, make Raiders of the Lost Ark more than just a technological triumph: its sense of humor and the droll style of its characters […] We find ourselves laughing in surprise, in relief, in incredulity at the movie’s ability to pile one incident upon another in an inexhaustible series of inventions.” These exact same sentiments have been used to describe Among Thieves. In essence, it is a playable incarnation of Raiders of the Lost Ark – a technological achievement wrapped in pure perfectly paced fun, packaged up and delivered for mass consumption. More >>
This past Saturday I visited the Second Circle of Hell – Lust. Actually, I visited Phoenixville, PA, but let’s be honest, there’s a bit of an overlap. While Phoenixville may lack all the scenic phallic and vaginal architecture that the Second Circle of Hell boasts, it certainly is just as desolate and detached from the world, and, like Hell, lacks any tourist appeal. So, not unlike the Inferno, I spent Saturday in something of a hellish concentric circle – physically, I was located in the rapidly flooding town of Phoenixville attending this year’s Game Expo, a yearly video game “summit.” But I was also in Lust, where I navigated a digital Dante through a series of oddly familiar puzzles.
As I traipsed about the Second Circle, pulling levers and moving statues, I also encountered misshapen female demons, which is to be expected when one is in Hell. What I didn’t expect, however, was when the first of these demons moaned erotically and pulled back her labia, revealing what I can best describe as a “vulvapenis.” I mean, there’s no escaping the obviousness of its female anatomy, but female genitalia don’t usually stick out several feet and writhe like a monstrous tongue. And they definitely aren’t used as a whip-like weapon.
At least, not on any of the women I’ve been with.
More >>
This article originally appeared on The Wiire. It was the third installment of my then biweekly column.
A new Zelda is coming. It’s official. So now seems as good a time as any to discuss what direction Shigeru Miyamoto needs to take the franchise in. I emphasize needs since Miyamoto recently told Nintendo Power that the next Zelda wouldn’t be “radically different.”
This is a problem.
Change is a necessary component of growth. Unfortunately, change is one thing Nintendo’s not very good at. Sure, they changed how we play games with Wii, but we’re still playing the same games. It’s been over 10 years since Mario and Link made the jump from 2-D to 3-D, yet whenever I play their Wii counterparts I feel like I’m back in 1998. All that’s missing is Fred Durst’s inability to rap choking the radio airwaves.
Zelda needs to change. More >>
This article originally appeared on Philly2Philly.
It’s been two years since Sam Witwicky (LaBeouf) overloaded Megatron in Mission City, sacrificing the Allspark in the process. Now Sam is hoping to restore some normalcy to his life by shipping off to college on the other side of the country. Bumblebee has taken up residence in Sam’s garage, doing little more than collecting dust. Meanwhile, his Autobot pals have formed a joint task force led by Major Lennox (Duhamel) sanctioned to combat lingering Decepticon threats. Their latest mission brings the team to Shanghai, China, where they face down an enormous hydraulic mining excavator that is, naturally, a Decepticon in disguise. Optimus Prime flexes some robotic heroics and single-handedly dismantles the monstrosity, but not before receiving an ominous threat: the Fallen’s return is imminent.
So begins 147 minutes of madness, mayhem, destruction, and death. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a frenetic mess that hits the ground running and never stops – relentlessly pummeling through brick wall after brick wall while dragging the audience wincing along for the ride. More >>
When Capcom unveiled the teaser trailer for Resident Evil 5 at last year’s E3, it was immediately put under a microscope to study the game’s supposed racial imagery. Many members within the video game community – white and black alike – voiced discomfort experienced while viewing the trailer, most notably game journalists Bonnie Ruberg and N’Gai Croal.
It’s a breath of fresh air that relative experts on video games are lobbying these complaints as opposed to lawyers or politicians who are unfamiliar with the media. Newsweek editor N’Gai Croal has run Newsweek’s video game blog “Level Up” since 2006 and has been the guest on countless podcasts, including 1UP Yours. Bonnie Ruberg blogs about video games for The Village Voice, and has written for Joystiq, Wired, and The Escapist. However, one should expect more from these experts on gaming than knee-jerk reactions over a teaser trailer. More >>
For my first freelance assignment with 1UP.com, Matt Leone asked me to write an article based off a Q&A with Propaganda Games’ Josh Holmes. Ultimately, the full article I submitted was trimmed down to accommodate the Q&A as well. I didn’t want the original piece to go to waste, however, so I have posted it in full here. The published version can still be found at 1UP.
As the Leipzig Games Convention draws nearer, companies have turned up the drip on their information IVs in an effort to amp up gamer interest. Among those companies is Propaganda Games, whose re-imagining of Turok has garnered even measures of positive and negative reception. Although a great deal of information pertaining to the change the franchise has undergone with this retcon has surfaced, there is still much about Turok that remains locked behind closely guarded doors.
After promising a few rounds of German beer at Leipzig (OK, not really), 1UP managed to coerce Josh Holmes, general manager and vice-president of Propaganda Games, to answer a few questions regarding what lies in store for Turok and its showing at Leipzig. More >>
This article originally appeared as the cover story in Volume 2, Issue 38 of Philly Edge. The images below link to full-size scans of the magazine cover and article page.
iPhone, meet the world. World, iPhone.
What makes the iPhone unique is how it delivers its multiple functions: Say goodbye to a mess of buttons; all of the iPhone’s offerings are handled on a 3.5 inch touch-screen display, which can be personalized with Widgets, a playful name for optional on-screen accessories added to deliver information like the weather, stock reports, and more – all received on a mobile device in real-time. More >>
