Author Archives: Tom Auxier

Role playing games' puzzle paradox

Modern Japanese RPGs have moved to handheld consoles for a simple reason: the genre, as created, requires both major time commitment and a dedication to the relatively mindless. While big budget JRPG’s have become cinematic experiences, games like Etrian Odyssey

/ 3 Comments

Role playing games' puzzle paradox

Modern Japanese RPGs have moved to handheld consoles for a simple reason: the genre, as created, requires both major time commitment and a dedication to the relatively mindless. While big budget JRPG’s have become cinematic experiences, games like Etrian Odyssey

/ 3 Comments

After pressing start: Unraveling Chrono Cross' chronological mysteries

Chrono Cross is the Led Zeppelin of video games. When it first arrived on scene, it was one of the highest rated games ever: I remember reading countless perfect score reviews, psyching myself up for launch. Of course, the hype

/ One Comment

After pressing start: Unraveling Chrono Cross' chronological mysteries

Chrono Cross is the Led Zeppelin of video games. When it first arrived on scene, it was one of the highest rated games ever: I remember reading countless perfect score reviews, psyching myself up for launch. Of course, the hype

/ One Comment

Ticket to Ride shows the future of board games may be digital

When people talk about entry-level board games, the kind designed to get your buddies over the hobby’s notoriously high barrier for entry, a few games are mentioned. Settlers of Catan gets first billing as a classic. Then you have modern

/ Comments Off on Ticket to Ride shows the future of board games may be digital

Ticket to Ride shows the future of board games may be digital

When people talk about entry-level board games, the kind designed to get your buddies over the hobby’s notoriously high barrier for entry, a few games are mentioned. Settlers of Catan gets first billing as a classic. Then you have modern

/ Comments Off on Ticket to Ride shows the future of board games may be digital

Tower defense evolved: The White Laboratory

Tower defense has faced every possible slander you can imagine. It’s “casual” strategy, a rich game like Warcraft 3 boiled down into enemies attacking, you defending. The genre as a whole leans on its tropes harder than anything besides perhaps

/ One Comment

Tower defense evolved: The White Laboratory

Tower defense has faced every possible slander you can imagine. It’s “casual” strategy, a rich game like Warcraft 3 boiled down into enemies attacking, you defending. The genre as a whole leans on its tropes harder than anything besides perhaps

/ One Comment

Why Blizzard's surrogate ruins Diablo 3

Video games, at heart, are about us. We may be someone else, but we’ll always be ourselves, too. Whether that someone is Gordon Freeman, physicist and monster-killer, or Kratos, menacing god of punching dudes with chains, or Lara Croft, we’re

/ 12 Comments

Why Blizzard's surrogate ruins Diablo 3

Video games, at heart, are about us. We may be someone else, but we’ll always be ourselves, too. Whether that someone is Gordon Freeman, physicist and monster-killer, or Kratos, menacing god of punching dudes with chains, or Lara Croft, we’re

/ 12 Comments

That joke isn't funny anymore

Video games aren’t good at making you laugh. They aren’t because, in a video game, you’re supposed to make yourself laugh. Sure, they can have lines that make you chuckle. They can employ absurd sight gags. But the games that

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That joke isn't funny anymore

Video games aren’t good at making you laugh. They aren’t because, in a video game, you’re supposed to make yourself laugh. Sure, they can have lines that make you chuckle. They can employ absurd sight gags. But the games that

/ Comments Off on That joke isn't funny anymore

How Video Games arrived

Some may say a lot of gamers are like me: a varyingly unemployed twenty-five year old who grew up on X-Men cartoons, Super Nintendo video games, and fruit roll-ups. As a generation we saw movies like Clerks and we envied

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How Video Games arrived

Some may say a lot of gamers are like me: a varyingly unemployed twenty-five year old who grew up on X-Men cartoons, Super Nintendo video games, and fruit roll-ups. As a generation we saw movies like Clerks and we envied

/ 2 Comments

Dark Scavenger is the carrion crow of video games

The best indie games do one thing well. They have one mechanic, and they build everything around this central idea. Braid’s mechanical core—time traveling platforming—informed every element of its presentation, and it didn’t try to do anything else; it never

/ Comments Off on Dark Scavenger is the carrion crow of video games

Dark Scavenger is the carrion crow of video games

The best indie games do one thing well. They have one mechanic, and they build everything around this central idea. Braid’s mechanical core—time traveling platforming—informed every element of its presentation, and it didn’t try to do anything else; it never

/ Comments Off on Dark Scavenger is the carrion crow of video games

Put Mario back on the slippery slope

We recognize theme with all our senses: the sights, the sounds, the heavy rumble in our hands, the font used to display text. Forgotten in this equation are the game’s mechanics. What the buttons you press do determines how the

/ 2 Comments

Put Mario back on the slippery slope

We recognize theme with all our senses: the sights, the sounds, the heavy rumble in our hands, the font used to display text. Forgotten in this equation are the game’s mechanics. What the buttons you press do determines how the

/ 2 Comments

The Campfire: Cardboard politics in Ancient Greece

The best tabletop games make you feel like some scheming politician in a smokey backroom surrounded by your friends and prospective enemies. Everything feels real because everything is: the armies you command aren’t lines of code and pictures but instead

/ Comments Off on The Campfire: Cardboard politics in Ancient Greece

The Campfire: Cardboard politics in Ancient Greece

The best tabletop games make you feel like some scheming politician in a smokey backroom surrounded by your friends and prospective enemies. Everything feels real because everything is: the armies you command aren’t lines of code and pictures but instead

/ Comments Off on The Campfire: Cardboard politics in Ancient Greece