I’ve been thoroughly enjoying Zelda: Breath of the Wild but its portrayal of women is really brutal. With few exceptions, women in Hyrule are presented as meek, giddy, fashion-obsessed idiots who can’t get over how attractive Link is. I’ve encountered three different characters, across three different species, that need time to psych themselves up before […]
I was introduced to playing Dungeons & Dragons in the early 90s – specifically the second edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. As fate would have it, I wouldn’t participate in an ongoing roleplaying game campaign with any sort of frequency for another twenty years. That didn’t stop me, however, from giving non-board-based tabletop games […]
*Full spoilers ahead* My very first play through of Cowardly Creations’ Uncanny Valley lasted about fifteen minutes. The game immediately warns you that every action will have consequences and that multiple play throughs are recommended in order to fully experience the game, so I was already on edge. When my hapless security guard character Tom awoke […]
Having completed my first run-through of Dishonored 2 (the sequel to the excellent 2012 original from Arkane Studios), I feel some sort of pride in my ‘sneak around and don’t kill anyone unless absolutely necessary’ approach. Sure, I probably didn’t have as much fun as I could have had if I had taken the ‘high […]
Click Here to read previous instalments of Skinner Box Storytelling. BioShock *Heads up: spoilers for all the Shock games inside but mostly for System Shock 2 and BioShock. System Shock 2 is a landmark moment in video game artistry that almost no one played when it first came out. I don’t know why I bought it. […]
Click Here to read previous instalments of Skinner Box Storytelling. Recently I’ve been playing Elite: Dangerous, a free-form space combat and trading simulator that is a modern update of a classic 80’s PC title. My dad’s enthusiasm for Elite and recent retirement from work has resulted in hour-long phone calls and emails full of screenshots […]
Click Here to read previous instalments of Skinner Box Storytelling. Everything I’m playing right now is an MMO in some form or another. From the one great success of the genre, World of Warcraft, to the only shooter hybrid to really work, Destiny, and the licensed mega properties of Star Trek and Star Wars. Star […]
I haven’t had much time to play this week, but I have been working my way through some Destiny content in a fireteam. It got me thinking about something I mentioned in last week’s article, about storytelling in multiplayer. Destiny While waiting for my friends to be ready, I came across the product page for […]
It’s the 50th anniversary of Star Trek and I celebrated by playing so much Star Trek: Online. Also, a bunch of Destiny. Star Trek: Online As someone who’s been playing video games since the early nineties, I’m used to turning games into what I want them to be. Most modern games are stuffed with fully […]
Further musings on Deus Ex and the different approaches to player choice. Also, I started playing World of Warcraft again because I guess I’m made of money and free time? Deus Ex: Mankind Divided I finished what I’ve been calling Act Two in DXMD this weekend and have some amendments to make to my points […]
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided came out this week and it’s a pretty good Deus Ex game…
The CW3PR “Gears, Green Screens & Gaming” panel at Comic-Con was co-moderated by gaming geek and games voice actor Scott Porter…
So much space in my life right now… No Man’s Sky Since I spent so much time last week discussing the hoopla around the release of No Man’s Sky, I thought I should actually take some time to discuss it as an experience separate from the discussion. I’ve now invested around 10 hours into the […]
A busy week and a major release means I’ve only got one game to talk about this time but it’s a big one: No Man’s Sky Every time I go to the States, I’m shocked at how prevalent their video game marketing is. In Canada, we get the odd billboard or massive title that warrants […]
The modern video game industry is a lot like Hollywood: big budget, ‘can’t fail’ titles that are nearly indistinguishable from one another pumped out year after year among a sea of quirky indie experiments that, when they hit, go off like a nuclear bomb. This new feature Skinner Box Storytelling will detail my weekly obsessions/distractions […]
CLICK HERE to read our full coverage of San Diego Comic-Con 2016. Rachael and I took a break from the press room madness and ventured onto the famous Convention Centre floor to get the full SDCC experience, including stopping by the Stern Pinball booth to talk with company rep Jody Dankberg about the latest machines […]
A newbie ventures into the world of murder and rage-quitting that is Dark Souls 3. Armed only with the advice of friends and a colourful arsenal of profanity, the author will face down one of the hardest games in recent memory. Part travelogue, part autopsy, part review… join us for part one of ‘Stranger in […]
You certainly can’t fault Remedy’s Quantum Break for trying out something a bit different. The whole idea of a hybrid video game/TV show should provide an interesting new take on the broadly defined action/adventure genre. The novel format suggests a new sense of immersion, with computer-rendered mo-cap performances interspersed with the genuine article in a […]
Tales from the Borderlands is a welcome return to form from the episodic player-influenced storyteller Telltale, providing a unique genre-twisting take on Gearbox’s Borderlands universe in a funny, enjoyable and thoroughly charming way. It is a fine example of what good writing can bring to a, by this point, already well-used format, surpassing many of […]
Sweet Bytes is a series of articles that highlights fun, unique video games that you can play through in an afternoon. Onemore Night is an interesting little morsel of a game. Its origins give it its character: it was built for GBJAM 4, a GameBoy-themed game jam where designers have only ten days to complete […]
Brutal, frustrating, challenging, heart-breaking and joyous are just some of the adjectives that best fit the follow-up to the acclaimed tactical turn-based sci-fi strategy game, XCOM Enemy Unknown – a game which I actually count as the best game of 2012 (Sorry Mass Effect 3). On the one hand, rarely have I uttered the phrase […]
One of the latest franchises to be given a shiny new reboot, Rise of the Tomb Raider is the sequel to its descriptively to-the-point predecessor, Tomb Raider. Obviously having not risen enough during her first outing, Rise of the Tomb Raider sees Lara Croft on yet another adventure, this time to restore her father’s tarnished […]
Minor spoilers from the TV series to follow, primarily up to the end of Season 3 (specifically, the ‘Red Wedding’ event). Following on from the success of the excellent The Walking Dead series, Game of Thrones is one of the latest franchises to be given the cell-shaded, decisions-based treatment from Telltale Games. Overall, the decisions […]
*Minor spoilers ahead, but only for the first hour or so. Playing any Fallout game is an unusually strange and charming experience. Set in a future post-apocalyptic Boston, but in an alternative timeline in which the world never really got over the 1950s, there are few games with such vaulting ambitions as Fallout 4. But […]
When I first heard that Star Wars: Battlefront II, possibly one of the most enjoyable and accomplished battlefield-games of the PS2/Xbox generation, was getting a reboot, I was both hugely excited and anxious at the same time. You see, when grappling with such a beloved franchise, every effort must be made to try and reach, […]
Sweet Bytes is a series of articles that highlights fun, unique video games that you can play through in an afternoon. Gunpoint is what you get when you throw smart puzzles, fast-paced action, and espionage in a blender—all with a tech-savvy noir twist. It starts by throwing you out of a building and only gets […]