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Review – Zero Tolerance
Here’s a very specific fact about me that you didn’t want to know and probably don’t care about: I love 2.5D first-person shooters. We’re talking the raycasted oldies like Doom and Duke Nukem 3D. I don’t know why, I just love the aesthetic. The simple or abstract environments with their billboarded sprites. The invitingly humpable walls. That’s my scene. It…
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Review – Spelunker (NES)
Despite my, erm, established familiarity with terrible games, I’ve yet to touch on the subject of “kusoge,”(koo-soh-geh) a Japanese term that literally translates to “crap game.” Kusoge has been an institution in Japan for far longer than it has over here. While the masochistic interest in bad games seems to have sprung up with The Angry Video Game Nerd’s appearance…
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Review – Shadowrun (Genesis)
Beginning as a pen-and-paper RPG in 1989, Shadowrun was followed by a strange scattershot of games based on the license in the early ’90s. Its bizarre and tantalizing mix of fantasy magic and cyberpunk technology graced three (or, like, two and a half) consoles in the ’90s: the SNES in 1993, the Genesis in 1994, and the Sega CD in…
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Review – Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball
I remember when Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball landed on the Xbox, back in ’03. I was still in high school, but even amongst my more testosterone bloated friends, there wasn’t much interest. Ogling digital females was just considered kind of sad in the circles I ran with, it was equated to a guy admitting that he’s unable to…
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Review – Shadowrun (SNES)
As someone who identifies as a geek, the Shadowrun universe is undeniably tantalizing. The result of marrying Tolkien-esque fantasy with Bladerunner-esque cyberpunk is simultaneously tacky and irresistible. Massive trolls and monolithic corporations, mages and hackers, dragons and cybernetic enhancements; it’s the nerd singularity. It’s only lacking space travel, which I think it actually has a bit of. As far as…
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Review – The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Once upon a time, just before I set off to college, I got the itch to play an RPG. I had either The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind or Neverwinter Nights in mind, and I ended up choosing the former. It set off a love affair that I still won’t shut up about to this day. I still need to go…
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Review – Karate Kid (NES)
I’ve never seen Karate Kid, nor its sequel. I get a lot of references from the movies, but that’s about it. Don’t look at me like that, I’m just not a movie person. Maybe I’ll get around to it one day. So why am I playing Karate Kid on the NES? Same reason I play any game that’s on my…
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Review – The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall
It’s unfortunate that The Elder Scrolls: Arena didn’t exactly fill my gravy boat, but then, despite it being the first in a venerable series of games, I’ve never heard anyone refer to it as their favourite title in said series. Its sequel, The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, on the other hand, I’ve heard come up a few times. It’s rare.…
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Review – The Elder Scrolls: Arena
If you tell the wrong gamer that you’ve only played the Fallout games past Bethesda Softwork’s 3rd entry, you’ll elicit a scoff. That’s because they liked it before it was cool, and it was way better back before Bethesda came in and mucked everything up. To be fair to those jerks, both Fallout 1 and 2 have a lot to…
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Review – Army Men: Sarge’s War
I'm kind of proud of this one, as I recognized the artistic intent behind Army Men: Sarge's War. I felt that it acted as an intention to end the series as it was passed from the bankrupt 3DO to Global Star. I talked to creative director Michael Mendheim later who confirmed it.
