Greetings! If you’re reading this, you’re probably interested in reading more of my work, and that means I think you’re awesome. There’s also a good chance that you’ve noticed that I haven’t updated this in a while. Truth is, I’m no longer posting my work on here since all the formatting and yadda was a…
How do you follow an act like the galaxy’s most high-stakes game of three-card monte? Apparently by completely starting over. BioWare has long insisted that Mass Effect 3 marked the definitive end of Commander Shepard’s story arc, regardless of whether you picked the green pill, the red pill, or the blue pill. The good news,…
Huntsman: The Orphanage prompts many questions. Who is the huntsman? How did 12 orphans vanish without a trace from a rural Illinois orphanage in 1897? For that matter, where can I pick up that sweet smartphone that talks to the dead and never loses a charge? Huntsman doesn’t answer all of these questions, but some…
Farming Simulator 2013 claims it’s about farming, but in practice it’s more concerned with the business of cultivation — and it’s a child’s vision of agricultural life at that. Its greatest strengths lie in its depiction of the process of groovin’ up rows of dirt while planting seeds, and a welcome assortment of speed sliders…
Romancing socially awkward elves might be on the outs in this free-to-play spinoff, but Heroes of Dragon Age for iOS nevertheless manages to capture the spirit of BioWare’s beloved dark fantasy series from consoles and PC. However, the familiar music and faces merely amount to a pretty show. Strip away the ambiance, the lore, and…
Thirteen years may have passed since the original release of Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn, but I still remember pulling out the 263-page user’s manual, feeling my eyes widen in intimidation at stats like “THAC0,” and chucking it to the side and jumping in without it. I don’t regret it. Then, as now, Baldur’s…
For much of the past year, it’s been fashionable to use Diablo III as a standard for other action RPGs, but probably not in the way Blizzard intended. Players of Torchlight II occasionally voiced dissatisfaction with the series’ Pixar-esque aesthetic, but developer Runic Games’ effort was almost universally praised for its singular focus on loot…
Player housing isn’t quite as new to World of Warcraft as this weekend’s announcement at BlizzCon 2013 may have made it sound. After all, we saw Blizzard’s first stab at it with Mists of Pandaria’s Sunsong Ranch. Once fully upgraded by befriending the denizens of the fertile Valley of the Four Winds, the place could…
Several hours into XCOM: Enemy Within, pumping bullets into extraterrestrials and sending aircraft to chase UFOs, I found myself thinking of Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen. Rest assured, there are no dragons here, but Firaxis’ beloved tactical shooter follows much the same model as Capcom’s role-playing game in offering what some may call an “ultimate” edition…
Much like 2010′s Cataclysm expansion, Warlords of Draenor seeks hope in the days of Warcraft past. Then as now, it’s a risky move. Even now, I recall how excited I grew at the thought of revisiting lands I loved when WoW was fresh, but Cataclysm had barely run half its course before Blizzard’s nostalgia started…
Leif Johnson 