Colonialism under the guise of the dungeon crawl: Etrian Odyssey and the invasion

If the dungeon crawl can be likened to anything, it’s colonialism. Remember how Britain used to own the world? They did so through power, education, and money, supplanting the cultural practices of indigenous people with their own ideologies. The Romans

Steamroll 8/7/12: Exceed Death Valley's Virus Machine

Games covered this week: The Political Machine 2012, A Virus Named Tom, Awesomenauts, eXceed – Gun Bullet Children, eXceed 2nd – Vampire REX, eXceed 3rd – Jade Penetrate Black Package, Death Rally, A Valley Without Wind, The Void Shoot-em-ups (shmups)

After Pressing Start: Psychonauts’ Mental Dentist's Office

The human mind . . . six hundred miles of synaptic fiber . . . five and a half ounces of cranial fluid . . . 1500 grams of complex neural matter . . . a three-pound pile of dreams.

Psychonauts doesn’t even give you a chance to press start. Instead it says, “You don’t need to set up a profile or configure the look sensitivity and you already saw our logo when you looked at the box! Let’s get this show on the road!” I reserve a certain amount of praise for a game that just starts the moment you pop it in (or boot it up, since I played the Mac port from the Humble Indie Bundle V).

Welcome to the Big Leagues: 10 Tips for Expert League of Legends Play

After several dozen matches, you’ve finally hit the level cap in League of Legends. You’ve grown up, and now you face rivals with hundreds of wins under their belt. The old tips (split into novice and intermediate articles here; be

Steamroll: Multi Kung Fu Resonance

Now that the Steam Summer Sale has finally ended, the steady trickle of indie games has resumed. We’ve got games covering every corner this week: a Horde FPS, a kung-fu brawler, an old-school adventure game, and a co-op adventure RPG

For there shall be no rip-offs: talking with Rocksmith's Paul Cross

  We kind of love Rocksmith. Like, love love. It’s the second game ever to give me hand calluses (love hurts) and the first one that does so without wrecking my controller. So I was kind ecstatic to find the game on

JETPACK JOYRIDE and the essence of bullshit

I hate the coins from the Super Mario games.

Even when they were born they are merely a vestige from the arcade days of endless gameplay. When Super Mario Bros. introduced the idea of a game with an ending, the coins were merely mending the gap from the concept of playing a something to beat the score. Now, despite the fact games have fully embraced the idea of chasing an end goal, those coins have never disappeared. As we talk about the benefits of applying game mechanics to our real lives, we started to recognize these coins as the most basic achievement unit. Coins are the atoms that form achievements.

The reason why I hate coins is that they are too easy to use. In both games and real life, coins can trivialize the concept of gamification. They blurry the line and, instead of enhancing your experience, game mechanics become an end in itself. That’s the exact point gamification starts being bullshit.

Jetpack Joyride is a bullshit game. There is no better way to put it. Basically, it’s Canabalt without the elegant simplicity, without the context and meaning, without the balanced gameplay that encouraged the player to gain momentum… but with many things Canabalt did not need. Coins and ranks and purchasable items and crap.

Roots over Reboots: Talking Double Dragon Neon with WayForward's Sean Velasco

Double Dragon Neon’s beating up people this September in a world where brawlers aren’t the mainstay. We get the occasional one that breaks the mold of not only being just a brawler, but also offering deep combat like Castle Crashers

Beating up God in Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth

In a laborious 45 minute cutscene (you have been warned), Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth reiterates that we have no control in our lives. Circumstance and directives rule this universe and you better get used to it, otherwise you’ll be spending an awful

The Fate of Final Fantasy Versus XIII

The only interesting games to come out of Square Enix in the last ten years have come from Tetsuya Nomura. Kingdom Hearts, The World Ends With You, and Dissidia Final Fantasy respectively gave us crazy cross overs, Atlus-esque insanity and epic aerial combat to relieve fans from a stagnant slew of turn-based RPG’s. And now we’re being told that Final Fantasy XIII, a game that would promised the incredibly fun combat of Kingdom Hearts in a mature* setting with characters that don’t look like they just escaped a zipper factory, is cancelled.