The Women That Make Resident Evil Great

At the recent 2011 Tokyo Game Show, Capcom showed off a new trailer for the upcoming Resident Evil Revelations for the 3DS. This trailer puzzled me, not only because this trailer mainly starred a new character, but because this new character, named Rachel, is incredibly incongruous with the way the Resident Evil (video game, not awful movie) series has portrayed women up to this point. I'm not sure if Capcom is aware of it, but up until this point the series has had a great track record of featuring strong, (mostly) non-sexualized female characters, and Rachel appears to be the antithesis of this.

MW3: MechWarrior 3 That Is

As far as deals on poverty games go, my local Goodwill has been a great source of old, cheap PC games, and not just those budget PC games that Target carries, but good, sometimes classic, stuff like Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders. At $1.99, I was hard pressed to find a reason to leave MechWarrrior 3 on the shelf. Granted, I've never gotten into the whole BattleTech thing, but I am a fan of various walking tanks and large death-dealing machinery, though the mech designs of the franchise aren't really my style. This 1999 title was developed by Zipper Interactive, the company that went to make Crimson Skies for Xbox and the majority of the SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs titles for various Sony platforms.

Alpha Protocol: Espionage and Beards

Just when I was wondering what game I should write about today, I found out that Steam is selling Alpha Protocol for all of two US dollars. Two bucks for a game that came out a little over a year ago. I recall hearing a lot of mixed opinions on the game when it came out. Not mixed as in there were some people that liked it and others that didn't, but mixed as in there are parts of the game that work and parts that don't. Still, I can't really say no to a two dollar game, even if it is flawed, broken, or terrible, so I consider the possibility of finding any redeeming qualities a plus. As it turns out, the descriptions of the game that I had heard were quite accurate, but the game is definitely worth the my money and time.

Gargoyle's Quest For Recognition

I don’t recall where I first heard about Gargoyle’s Quest, but it is the sort of game that frequently shows up on lists like:  “The 10 Best Game Boy Games You Never Played.”  First off, titles like that bother me because the author had no way of knowing what the readers have or have not played, so it should be called “The 10 Best Underappreciated Game Boy Games” or something like that.  Secondly, I shouldn’t really complain about the article title because it happens to be quite accurate, as it is a great game and I hadn’t played it until recently.  With the release on the 3DS Virtual Console, I figured it was worth four dollars to give it a try. 

The Disposable Nature of Video Games: An Analysis and a Manifesto

One thing that has always bothered me about the culture around games is the obsession with the new and the complete disregard for the old. I'm not stating this as some jaded “retro gamer” that hates how people play Call of Duty instead of Sonic the Hedgehog or whatever, I'm annoyed that anything more than a year old is not considered as important anymore. It just so out of sync with how people consume every other type of media. So, why is it that people see only the latest games as worth their time and everything else as disposable?

Robotek HD and webOS Gaming

After the complete clusterfuck of mistakes that HP made with the Touchpad, I got one at 99 dollars, which makes it one of the mospoverty tablets on the market. Sure, at that price point it is quite nice, and it does the standard smartphone/tablet stuff well, but this is a site about games, and in that department it is predictably lacking. Outside of Angry Birds, which comes pre-installed, there just isn't much available. One game that is available, and thankfully free, is Robotek HD by Hexage, a company that makes games for every major and minor OS.

Ancient Aliens: Mushroom Kingdom

As a part of the nostalgic memories of many people's lives, Super Mario Bros. is rarely looked at with a critical eye. The problem is, upon closer inspection, much of the game just does not add up. How did all these worlds get here? Who is Mario and what are his goals? There are a great deal of unanswered questions that Mario historians have not been able to answer. These historians have rejected the facts right in front of them because they are unable to accept these facts without compromising their established world view. I believe that many of the mysteries of Mario's worlds can be explained by the intervention of aliens in the past.