This is where a lot of the magic happened this year. Writing this list each year is one of my favorite things to do at the end of the year. It forces some perspective on what I played and coheres my thoughts on the experiences this year. I spent less time with video games this year, to the tune of 19 fewer games played. 2013 heralded a shift toward portable games for me thanks to a rapidly maturing 3DS library and a nice, new phone. ...
My mom’s dog is so cool! I miss hanging out with her. After a long, tough week in Florida and a long, busy week in MD I’m looking forward to a little downtime… Movies Iron Man 3 - A new director means a brand new feel for the movie. Stark isn’t in the suit that much and it just all feels…different, but that’s not bad! I really loved the movie. Good times. ...
I couldn’t really think of a new, appropriate photo for today so here’s a picture of dogs in my family Nothing really big going on this week. Played a lot of Tomb Raider and edited a bunch of episodes to prep for some dry times ahead. Movies Not quite this week. Hopefully this one, but I’ll also be fairly busy. ...
If you’re thinking this movie looks to be overstuffed…it most definitely is. (Photo by Han Cinema) I actually had a really busy week considering how little media I consumed Mon-Wed. So much baseball too… Movies The Thieves - I enjoyed The Thieves, but it had a fundamental issue of elevating every single subplot to maximum import. It was just a little too overcrowded and it wanted to have its cake and eat it too. Still a pretty fun movie. I’m also a big fan of how Korean movies just blend in multiple languages seamlessly. There was Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and English all represented in the movie. ...
There’s such a thing as being too into a player, I think… Broke the seal on baseball season this week by attending my first game. Marlins at Nats. Of course Miami lost, but it’s the experience that makes it all feel right. Movies Looper - Best line: “I don’t want to talk about time travel shit. Because if we talk about it, then we’re gonna be here all day, drawing diagrams with straws.” What a brilliantly done movie. Just such a tightly constructed plot. Lots of fun. I really dug it. ...
http://youtu.be/FYTW0P9DerA It’s the mash-up nobody knew they wanted until today! I mean, this is pure insanity, but it’s also super awesome. Rock vs. Ryu?! BRILLIANT! Can’t wait for that free download. http://youtu.be/W01L70IGBgE Uncharted 3 may have been lacking that je ne sais quoi that its predecessors have, but that’s probably because the big guns were working on this sucker. What a fine looking game it is too. Can’t wait to see how this pans out because it looks astounding. ...
It’s clear that Eidos/Squeenix is taking a TON of inspiration from the Uncharted series, but this trailer does feature a distressing amount of violence toward women. It’s kind of grimy feeling to watch, but this game could be very interesting to play.
The trailer for the new Tomb Raider game, titled Tomb Raider (go figure), looks fantastic. It’s the first trailer for a Tomb Raider game to excite me since, well, ever. I’ve never raided a single tomb with Lara and I’ve never wanted to, but this trailer calls back to the great Uncharted 2 trailer of last year and just might be good? I guess it’s silly to get excited about mechanics from a trailer, but maybe Dude Raider (Uncharted) has a competitor in the original recipe explorer. ...
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. ...