I told you people I'd do this again. I even begged you to keep me away from keyboards, word processors, and Google Images. I simply cannot be contained. I cannot be stopped. It's a compulsion beyond all reason, and I refuse to even entertain the
Man, this has been a year. Anyone who's still sane enough to twiddle their thumbs has been desperate for both quarantine-friendly activities and simple, raw distraction from the state of things. It is no surprise, then, that a great many of us have leaned into
It has been making the rounds recently that Wizards of the Coast will be reviving “the classic campaign settings.” Best guesses have been: Spelljammer; Planescape; Dark Sun. Let's talk about Dark Sun for a minute. I've been waiting for an excuse. Why not now? Athas, the world
We've all had to adapt lately. We've had to live more isolated, stay-at-home lives. I know this has meant a higher video game consumption for most of us. It has for me too. Because of my own preferences (read: obsessions), this has meant playing a
WAD. To the uninitiated, this sounds like something to be discarded. Something to be disregarded. Maybe even something gross. A wad of what? Snot? Toilet paper? To those of us with some culture, WAD stands for “Where is All the Data?” It's the file extension and format
“Hey, do you still play D&D?” I've heard this more often lately. A lot of my friends and acquaintances suddenly have a much more open-minded opinion about my hobby now that everyone's been forced into bored desperation. But one thing I've never been is a gatekeeper.
Earlier in the month of May I paid some due respect to the platformer, that ubiquitous and well-loved game format that has seen countless iterations since its inception in the early 80s. Platformers are possibly the most well-recognized type of video game worldwide, even by
I have ranted and raved about Dungeons & Dragons constantly, here and elsewhere, since 1996 when a classmate sold me on the concept during a middle school science class when we should have been paying attention to a lecture on the Periodic Table. While I
While action has always been the point of video games (unless you really, really like Battle Chess or Anticipation), the means of representing the action have often changed to suit the technology. Before the pixels got all smoothed-out and the whole world shifted to 3rd-person
A long time ago, when I first started writing about video games for NRW, I did an article about the amazing music written for the Genesis/Mega Drive and talked about how much I like sounds of the YM2616 chip that system uses. I still listen
The rank and file “bad guys” we see in a typical video game have become ubiquitous. One could even say that without them, you wouldn't have a game at all. We undervalue them. We dismiss them as filler. I maintain that these workaday villains are
The core of almost every decent video game's story is conflict. Whether it's the fierce hand-to-hand hoops of NBA Jam, the brutal martial arts murder of Mortal Kombat, or DOOM's epic battle against Hell