Recent content by Hemingslay

It's nominally a fantasy series, but it's handled more like historical fiction. It's almost worth checking out just to see common genre cliches bucked. The characters aren't heroic ideals, honour is a liability, good people don't always make good rulers, and it's the discreet and conniving...

Chalk up another vote for The Room. Everything about it is so sublimely terrible in such a fascinating way that it's impossible to stop watching. It's like a series of slow-motion car crashes strung together with horribly-accented ADR and stock-footage of San Francisco. I suspect Tommy Wiseau...

It's a good thing copyright laws exist to protect the interests of artists, creators and innovators. And not to, say, allow massive media conglomerates to desperately hold lucrative properties hostage. Because really, the works that are numbly churned out to satisfy the bare minimum for...

If you've got a free afternoon you can make 'em at home, pal! You can find some pretty simple recipes online--the recipe I used called it a "gyro" (but we all know it's really a doner kebab, roight?). Ground lamb/beef, onions, garlic, oregano, salt and pepper--blend in a food processor, bake...

So... The next time a production company complains about people playing their games without paying for them, we can pat them consolingly and remind them that there's probably also a big chunk of people paying for their games without playing them? Really, though, doesn't everyone do the same...

One thing I still appreciate about the series is that, gameplay wise, it trusts players to overcome obstacles on their own. It gives you a bunch of tools to work with and sets you loose in scenarios where, for the most part, various combinations of stealth and action are all equally valid. If...

Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee (Playstation) The first game I ever owned! A grotesquely beautiful alien world with a ton of care and attention put into its details. Weird, funny, one of a kind. Silent Hill 3 (PS2) Badass everyperson protagonist, terrifically creepy audiovisuals, horrible monsters...

I made the switch from Sony to Microsoft pretty much because of Dead Rising. I'd loved the original Playstation and PS2 growing up, and it kind of bummed me out when the PS3 dropped backwards compatibility--but mostly I just wanted to throw household objects at zombies, I guess.

Fallout 3 was fine, but once the novelty of gibbing enemies in VATS wore off I realized I wasn't really interested in the setting, characters, or story. It made a good first impression, but I found myself quickly getting tired of slow slogs through endless wastelands and copy-pasted subway...

Unskippable cutscenes are a blight on galactic purity--doubly so for scenes preceding boss fights or parades of quicktime events. Wax mannikins exchanging fortune-cookie-calibre dialogue with Wiseauian delivery aren't improved by repeat viewing. Every time someone rewatches a Resident Evil...

As mentioned above, the intro to Soul Blade was straight-up awesome. And I've got a real soft spot for Final Fantasy VIII's opening. Prey had an excellent first scene. An abrupt change of tone followed by a really eerie take on one of the oldest cliches in the book.