As a kid in the 1980s, I never really was a fan of the Transformers. I’m not really sure why. No, I was too busy finding broken shovel handles and beating the living hell out of dirt piles in the back yard while acting like I was Donatello, the nerdy but butt-kicking ninja turtle. If…
Today the Blockbuster Video at the corner of State and Huron in downtown Chicago is going out of business. As a newly devoted aficionado of both Netflix and Gamefly, I feel somewhat guilty about this since this used to be my stop for both movies and games before I discovered the joy of rentals by…
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 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.…
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 