February 2012
2 posts
January 2012
9 posts
2012 games I'm looking forward to: Max Payne 3
From my Joystiq preview, back in October:
It all looks great, honestly. Max Payne 3 is even pushing presentation harder than any Rockstar game before it. There’s a sensibility to Rockstar’s advertising for its games that’s never quite carried over, a slickness and well-executed graphic design that games have a hard time touching, but Max Payne 3 is looking to change that. If...
Colin Campbell x: 25 Tips for the Young Games... →
colincampbellx:
Last year I became the proud recipient of a Games Media Legend Award. It was also my 25th year since I began working in games journalism. So I felt the weird urge to write 25 tips for the young games journalist, based almost entirely on the mistakes I’ve made over the last two and and a…
Vox Games: Challenge Us
Vox Gaming currently has seven extraordinarily talented writers (and me) chosen to help launch the site. All of those writers are men. If you looked at that fact and felt that something was amiss, I understand. I get it. If you are perturbed that there are no women on that list of contributors, I understand. You’re not just entitled to an opinion; you have every reason to be concerned. The...
Vox and the future.
At this point, I’m assuming you know, but in the event that you don’t: yes, my new home is Vox Media. On January 16th, I’ll be assuming the role of Reviews Editor for Vox Gaming. For the time being, I’ll be writing at The Verge, as I work with the rest of the Vox Gaming team to lay the foundation for the new venture and build it up.
Man, that’s...
2012 games I'm looking forward to: Aliens -...
From my IGN preview at E3:
Every Gearbox employee I’ve spoken to has used reverent tones in talking about how they feel about the Alien series. After all, as Gearbox Chief Creative Officer (and former director on the project) Brian Martel put it, “I’ve been ripping off Aliens for my entire career. Now, I get to do it for real.”
That love comes through in the little...
December 2011
9 posts
More goodbyes, of a sort.
This is also my last week at IGN.
Wait, shit. No, that was earlier this year. What I mean to say is, this is also my last week at Joystiq.
This is not an involuntary thing. I’m not being forced out or fired. AOL isn’t canning me, Huffington Post Media isn’t firing me, and Chris Grant isn’t taking me out behind a shed to put me down. This was a completely voluntary thing. This wasn’t really an...
Non-Christmas Christmas movies!
I’m trying to think of some kind of common rationale among these movies that let me group together. The best thing I can think of is this: their settings all heavily involve Christmas, but their situations and plot don’t hinge around Christmas. That conceit might require eliminating some of these – I’ll have to strike those through.
Lethal Weapon
Die Hard
Kiss Kiss, Bang...
This is the second volume of The Breaks 2011,...
When I produce an episode of Rebel FM, I select...
November 2011
5 posts
Tattoo part three: execution
After the design work was done, it was finally time to get started paying a ton of money to the very talented Tanya Wischerath at Modern Electric to start marking me for life. All told, it took 5 sessions to go from outline to finished color.
This was the stencil as applied by Tanya before the work started:
You can actually make out the edges of the transfer sheet outside the leaves and hand...
Tattoo part two: conception
Once I had figured out what I wanted, I started working with Tanya Wischerath at Modern Electric Tatttoo in San Francisco to nail something a little more solid down. The catalyst for the specifics came from a painting I was working on earlier this year (that I haven’t finished, sadly). So when I was introduced to Tanya, I sent this along to her as a basic concept of what I was thinking:
...
Tattoo part one: inspiration
I figure I’ll post something about the progress of my tattoo later in the week, but there are enough people asking about the inspiration behind my tattoo that I thought I’d get into that first.
At its most basic level, I wanted something Art Nouveau inspired. Alphonse Mucha has resonated with me at a very deep level since the first time I saw his work when I was about 14 or 15...
October 2011
12 posts
Quick thoughts about the Battlefield 3 review
So, I reviewed Battlefield 3.
The times where Battlefield 3 does its damnedest to go toe-to-toe with Call of Duty are the times it stumbles the hardest. But when DICE is doing what it’s always done best, Battlefield 3 is a uniquely mesmerizing multiplayer game with a seemingly endless number of ways to feel like a success.
Man, what a mess. Battlefield 3 might be the biggest game I’ve...
I'm glad everyone likes our poster campaign :)
saucy-sarah:
There’s more:
Students Teaching About Racism in Society is a Student Org at Ohio University. I’m the President, any questions… MESSAGE ME! :)
Pretty sure I’ve seen all of these costumes, though more often when I was in college. Not so much now that I live in the Bay Area.
A few words from a games writer who happens to be... →
agameofme:
If you’re ever in a position to make a young person who is struggling with the pain of gender dysphoria feel some hope for his or her future, please do so. If you’re ever in a position to make the place where you work more inclusive toward transgender people, or to support financial assistance for transgender employees, please do so. We have a long way to go, but we are making...
Musings on RAGE
So I reviewed RAGE. The short version?
The aspects of RAGE that seem interesting and different at first never grow or expand. The enemy reactions, the clutching, the begging for their lives, it’s repeated so often over the course of the game that it loses any impact or meaning. The town that initially holds the promise of a big, wide, asteroid-murdered world is a facade for a few fetch...
Ed Zitron: On Weight Loss and Being Fat. →
edzitron:
The world misinforms overweight and fat people. It lies to them about what will work, and then crushes them when it doesn’t. I wish there was a way to stop the vicious circle of the world of carb-lovers and stretch-makers. No, don’t stretch. No, don’t eat three lean cuisines a day. No, don’t run for an hour a day. Lift some weights, pay (meticulous) attention to what you consume (that...
September 2011
7 posts
Why list articles are successful, and what you're...
A complaint I hear all the fucking time from the greater games press at large pertains to lists. Complaints, more specifically, I guess. “They take no work,” I hear, “no thought.” “They’re easy,” you bitch. “They’re stupid click bait.”
After a year or so writing feature articles with IGN’s Brian Altano, I’m just going to spit...
1 tag
“Epic doesn’t feel like it’s desperate to prove anything this time –...”
– This was probably the most important, easiest to miss thing in my entire Gears of War 3 review.
You will (probably) not make it in the games...
The impetus for this post/rant/tirade is this well-meaning advice-oriented post on G4TV called (appropriately enough!) How To Become A Games Journalist. First, the good sir Scimeca gives some good, less obvious advice. Things like “learn to network” and “learn to pitch”? Both things I don’t see mentioned often enough. But I see a few of these kinds of posts a year...