A short news announcement that I wrote for American Cowboy magazine: When Rockstar Games, developer of the highly acclaimed—and highly controversial—Grand Theft Auto series of video games, announced in 2005 that they planned to release a similar free-roaming game set in the Old West, critics and gamers were initially skeptical. Old West-themed video games are…
Subway thugs, watch out! Last month (April 23, in fact) while I was hacking my way through my God of War three-game marathon, I suddenly realized that Kratos’ Blades of Exile/Athena/Chaos would make an awesome keychain. I mean, think about it–a famous gamer blade and it has a chain on it, to boot! Since I’m…
Once upon a time on a prairie far, far away, I was a cowboy. I don’t mean that I simply bought a Stetson and some tight jeans and hung around the back of school with country music blaring from my truck; I mean that I rode a stubborn bay gelding that no one else could…
The box art for Borderlands kept me away from the game for a long time. I would pass it in my local Blockbuster or GameStop, strangely attracted by its strong yellows and reds but repulsed by the Jason-Voorhees-meets-Tyler-Durden maniac on the cover, losing myself for minutes at a time while I wondered just what he…
My Borderlands review is now up, so please give it a read when you have some time. I was strongly tempted to make it a blog post with some images and captions, but since it seems kind of taboo to do so, I put it in its proper place. Heavy Rain: First Impressions The evil…
My lovely wife forwarded me this Wondermark comic to me this morning. I thought you all would get a kick out of it. Be sure to visit the original page for the mouseover text. I kept trying to come up with a game that this might actually describe, but I’m coming up a little blank.…
I came across this on Zack Hiwiller’s blog the other day after jumping from Kottke.org and I think it’s worth a mention here, especially since haven’t seen it on Gamespot. Hiwiller, a game designer from Pennsylvania, gives us his perspecive on what Super Mario Bros. would be like if it had been designed today (be…
My most vivid experience as a Boy Scout/Cub Scout is a weekend somewhere in Brazoria County, Texas sometime in the late ’80s. It was one of the most awful weekends of my childhood, and it was made all the worse by a scorchingly hot sun and bouts of heavy rain and killer mosquitoes and treks…
A couple of days ago I walked into the GameStop over in Elmwood Park within five minutes of closing, wanting to trade in Assassin’s Creed for something without an annoying buzzer every time I enter combat . I first looked at Dirt 2–which I’ve heard many good things about–and then over at Ninja Gaiden Sigma…
When Chicago’s Meigs Field was destroyed in the middle of the night by King Daley in March of 2003, there were a surprising amount of protesters from around the country who condemned the incident—not because they had personally used the tiny downtown airstrip for travel, but because they had fond memories of beginning every version…
Leif Johnson 