Wow, A LOT Has Happened [Wednesday Morning Quarterback]

I’m pretty sure that I haven’t mentioned anything about the NFL this year, which I find hilarious, considering that I use a modified football saying as my sports category. Now’s as good a time as any to talk about it, I guess, since the regular season is over. As far as the playoffs go, I’d like to see the Ravens advance to the Super Bowl, but that’s just because they’re the local team. If we’re lucky, we’ll also get to see Brett Favre face-off against the Green Bay Packers (and hopefully knock them out) too in this postseason. Beyond that, I haven’t paid enough attention to the NFL this year to really care one way or another. ...

January 6, 2010 · 3 min · el33tcapitan

Uncharted 2 Review [Sony]

In my office there hangs a picture of Marilyn Monroe, a woman synonymous with beauty and sex appeal, but when you get closer to that picture the outline of Albert Einstein replaces the blonde bombshell. Uncharted 2 is a exactly like that. It’s hilarious to me that in a world where I want people to stop comparing video games to movies, I find myself so enthralled by what is actually the best action movie of last year. I’m pretty sure that I said that about the first game too, but that’s how consistently the folks at Naughty Dog deliver top-notch, high-quality games. Nathan Drake is the Indiana Jones of the modern age, especially after George Lucas betrayed us all with that abomination of a movie in 2008. I’d even go so far as to say that the success of the series almost exclusively lies with the dude himself. ...

January 5, 2010 · 6 min · el33tcapitan

Top 25 of 2009 Mash-Up [Embedded Reporter]

Deep from the trenches… Sorry to bore you Kai, but you already post every awesome video before I get a chance to put it up on my site too. Thanks for the find, this is fantastic. It would be cool if they did this for multiple categories too, like the less mainstream stuff.

January 4, 2010 · 1 min · el33tcapitan

The Portrayal of Women in Gaming [Game Overview]

Despite the growing number of female gamers and older gamers, the larger audience in gaming does lie within the 18-35 (or whatever the range is supposed to be), male demographic, which means that games are made primarily for that audience (fortunately (for publishers), most 14-17 year-olds respond to the same marketing techniques). It follows that what comes out of the industry revolves around heavy action and sex appeal. For every indie game that attempts to take a mature look at female sexuality like The Path, there are at least five games where women are two-dimensional characters wearing ridiculous apparel meant to emphasize their unnaturally oversized assets. ...

January 1, 2010 · 7 min · el33tcapitan

2009 Comes to a Close [Uncat]

Another year closes on IBNttT and while this blog is still less than two years old, I feel like it’s been steadily improving since its inception. When I first started it up, I wanted to keep an editorial voice and keep my personal life out of the mix. I strove to develop a unique, editorial voice, but I stopped short of personal anecdotes and opinions beyond critical expression. I can’t say that this blog has morphed into a forum for me to talk about my feelings or anything, but I do know that a combination of reading a lot of tim rogers and coming across Gamers With Jobs and attempting to get a writing gig with them opened me up to a more personal writing style that integrated my life experiences into my work. It’s a style I’m still experimenting with, but it’s nice to see that it’s generally well-received among my readers. ...

December 31, 2009 · 2 min · el33tcapitan

Getting to Know Your Friends [Game Overview]

New Super Mario Brothers Wii is marriage poison. -Gabe (AKA Jerry Holkins). " The Fullness of Time" In the past two months I’ve learned one very important truth about my friends: they’re complete jerks. Not in any friendship kind of way, but in the if-it-came-down-to-it-would-they-have-my-back kind of way. It all started with New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Nintendo made an important design choice with the game by giving each character physical impenetrability with each other and allowing (almost) the entire moveset to work on fellow players. In a nutshell, you can push, run into, and jump off of your buddies and you can pick them up and throw them around, but fireballs pass through other players. The result can be total (accidental) chaos or it can devolve into actual, sincerely evil behavior toward your fellow players. ...

December 31, 2009 · 5 min · el33tcapitan

Best Video Games of the Decade [Game Overview]

You may notice some games that are missing from this list and are on every other list. Well, I didn’t play everything because I didn’t have the time or the money, so that accounts for some of the big misses like Pyschonauts or Resident Evil 4. Other games are deliberately omitted :cough: HALO :cough: This list is also way long, but I didn’t want to limit myself to an arbitrary number like 10 or 20, so here it is: ...

December 30, 2009 · 13 min · el33tcapitan

Every Movie in 2009 [Filmmakers Bleed]

This is it, every movie that came out in 2009 (sometimes repeated more than once) to make a pretty sweet seven minute montage. Lord knows I’m a sucker for montages. Enjoy

December 29, 2009 · 1 min · el33tcapitan

"I'll Be Gone" by Mario Basinov and VIDIS [Feedback]

Neat video concept. I’m a fan. I’ll be gone from KORB on Vimeo.

December 29, 2009 · 1 min · el33tcapitan

The Best Movies of the Decade [Filmmakers Bleed]

In no particular order… Memento (2000) Guess what readers, this post is more or less one giant love letter to Christopher Nolan. With the exception of Insomnia, this list contains every movie the man’s directed since Memento(NOTE: Insomnia is not bad, it’s just not best of the decade caliber). Memento does what Christopher Nolan is known for doing very well. It shifts time and perspective (since each time episode is essentially a different Leonard with no memories of the previous events) just as well here as in future Nolan movies like Batman Begins and The Prestige. If you’ve never seen this crazy exercise in perception and memory, you’re doing yourself a major disservice. Go rent it. ...

December 29, 2009 · 10 min · el33tcapitan