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Archives for November 2013

I Suck at The Bridge

November 20, 2013 by Nick Leave a Comment

 

 

BridgeScribble

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Simply put, The Bridge is a king hell bastard puzzle game that will, in any single puzzle, require your brain to not only comprehend but also maneuver up to three different layers of gravity and two ‘black & white worlds’ of reflection, both of which, in any given puzzle, may be occupied by Indiana Jones-like stone spheres, vortexes, and black and/or white keys and their corresponding locks. Everything affects everything else; changing one thing changes everything. The Bridge’s aesthetics is a bedeviling coverup to the fact that the game is pure spatial lunacy. And my brain cannot do this kind of processing. It.just.can’t. I am not wired to be able to patiently envision and enact the solution to these puzzles. My right parietal lobe must be swollen like a raisin or something. The only axons that must be active there are the ones that are still connected to my prefrontal cortex because, like a fat kid with moobs trying to play basketball with the rest of the gym class, whenever the solution to a puzzle exceeds what the axons are capable of they fire currents all the way to the other side of my brain which triggers the impulse to punch my monitor. Dark Souls didn’t even make me rage quit this much.

And, to an effect, co-opping with my brother in Portal 2 has also revealed just how deficient – how squishy – my spatial constructing abilities are. My brother, a bicycle mechanic, and who, upon purchasing a dissembled piece of furniture, can take a single glance at the instructions and piece that sucker together in the same amount of time it would take me, if charged with the same task, to play with my poo-poo. In Portal I’d stand there at the entrance to a new puzzle and would be pondering the mysteries of the universe while sucking my thumb and he would be running around, scoping the place out, and devising our escape. I’m lots of fun to play with.

So, The Bridge isn’t the enemy. Portal 2 isn’t the enemy. AntiChamber isn’t the enemy (Don’t EVEN get me started with Antichamber.) And my brother certainly isn’t the enemy. The enemy here is my flacid right parietal lobe.

Lobes

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Features

Study proves what we sorta knew (and hoped all along)

November 17, 2013 by Tony Leave a Comment

I’d like to write more about this after I get a chance to read the report, but I feel like this is really important: Game Play Has No Negative Impact on Kids, UK Study Finds

A massive study of some 11,000 youngsters in Britain has found that playing video games, even as early as five years old, does not lead to later behavior problems.

Filed Under: Blogging

November Releases

November 6, 2013 by Tony Leave a Comment

This is my least favorite month to do this post (November) when all the shovelware gets pushed out to be on the shelves for the Holiday Buying Season©. Couple that with the launch of not one, but two consoles, and this post suddenly becomes unbearable. I don’t have a lot to say. My days of gaming on the cutting edge of consoles may be over. I have mulled over getting either an Xbox One or a PS4, but I haven’t pulled the trigger on a preorder and probably will wait for at least three titles on one of the consoles to push me over the edge. Right now, Xbox One has Dead Rising 3 and that’s about it. The only thing I’d really like to have is a Blu-ray player, but I’m not getting a five hundred dollar console to get that. So for now, I’ll sit on the giant backlog of Xbox 360 and Steam games that I have and let this next generation figure itself out.

With that said, on to this month’s releases:

Xbox One

Week of November 19th
Battlefield 4
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Madden NFL 25
Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag
Just Dance 2014
Fighter Within
NBA Live 14
FIFA 14
Dead Rising 3 Day One Edition – This “Day One Edition” business sort of bothers me. Do I pick up this edition even though I probably won’t be getting a Day One Console? This is a decision I should not be making.
Ryse: Son of Rome Day One Edition
Forza Motorsport 5 Day One Edition
NBA 2K14
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
Need for Speed Rivals
Angry Birds: Star Wars

Week of November 5th
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Castlevania Lords of Shadow Collection
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition

Week of November 12th
DuckTales – Remastered 360 – A week away from the launch of a new generation, play this classic from five generations ago.
XCOM: Enemy Within
Deadfall Adventures – Xbox 360

Week of November 19th
Need for Speed Rivals
Farming Simulator
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON’T KNOW!
Young Justice: Legacy

Week of November 26th
FI 2013

Week of November 12th
DuckTales – Remastered

Week of November 19th
Super Mario 3D World
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON’T KNOW!

Week of November 5th
Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures

Week of November 19th
The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds
Mario Party: Island Tour – Has Mario Party been fun lately? I enjoyed the Gamecube version, but just barely. It has potential but it just hasn’t been great lately.
Young Justice: Legacy
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON’T KNOW!

Week of November 5th
Final Exam

Week of November 12th
Contrast
SimCity Cities of Tomorrow

Week of November 19th
Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag

PS4 Banner

Week of November 5th
Call of Duty: Ghosts

Week of November 12th
Battlefield 4
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag
Need for Speed Rivals
Madden NFL 25
LEGO Marvel Super Heroes
NBA 2K14
Killzone: Shadow Fall
Knack
Angry Birds: Star Wars
FIFA 14
Just Dance 2014

Week of November 19th
NBA Live 14

Week of November 12th
Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus
XCOM: Enemy Within
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
DuckTales – Remastered

Week of November 19th
Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I DON’T KNOW!
Young Justice: Legacy
Need for Speed Rivals
AquaPazza
The Walking Dead Game of the Year

Week of November 26th
Painkiller: Hell and Damnation
FI 2013
MX vs ATV Alive

Week of November 12th
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition

Week of November 19th
The Amazing Spider-Man
Tearaway

Week of November 26th
Ys: Memories of Celceta – Silver Anniversary Edition

(Note: As always, all Amazon.com links have our affiliate code embedded in them. If you purchase something through our link, we get a little commission. It’s appreciated.)

Filed Under: Gaming

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