Sam has been playing video games since his earliest years and has been writing about them since 2016. He’s a big fan of Nintendo games and complaining about The Last of Us Part II. You either agree wholeheartedly with his opinions or despise them. There is no in between.
A lifelong New Yorker, Sam views gaming as far more than a silly little pastime, and hopes though critical analysis and in-depth reviews to better understand the medium's artistic merit.
Twitter: @sam_martinelli.
It’s been a minute! For this latest edition of Punished Notes, I discuss Jedi: Fallen Order and Tekken 7. I also provide my hot take on review scores, along with plenty more in the oh-so-beloved Lightning Round. Plus, the movie/TV section makes its triumphant return to the internet!
It’s been a minute since my last collection of notes, and boy do I have a ton of random thoughts on all the games I’ve been playing! For the first PN of 2020, I’ll do…
With another year down, and 2020 just beginning, it’s time for some resolutions! See how I did against my 2019 goals — plus how confident I am in this year’s ones.
Happy (almost) New Year! To get the festivities started, here are my favorite games of 2019 (including a few standouts from years past).
For those of us who love, play, and appreciate video games, the end of the year is especially exciting because everyone gets to give us their Game of the Year lists. But why do we do these lists? Why do we care? Why should anyone? For this edition of Punished Chat, I spoke with this very site’s David Silbert about how we approach making our own lists, what we value, and why they exist at all.
From a game design perspective, God of War (2018) knocks it out of the park. Yet while the elements that make up its story are touching, the way the emotional story beats hit the player largely contradicts the actual gameplay of the experience. The end result? The whole game feels worse than the sum of its parts.
I have some strident political views; they’re always evolving, but they’re never muted. In Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds, I’ve been challenged to re-evaluate some of those views, and in interesting ways.
Welcome to the latest edition of Punished Notes! In this piece, I cover the intriguing universe of The Outer Worlds, the familiar but phenomenal Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, Death Stranding, and more. Also, a few words on a recent Netflix film you ought to watch.
Last year, I decried the overuse of gaming terms like “metroidvania,” as often such words and phrases do little to actually describe the experience any game presents. While I understand why someone might lean on a certain vernacular when describing various works, the time has come for us to rethink how we talk about games in order to describe them in a more accurate manner. I’m not calling for the obliteration of such terms, either; I just believe we should know what we’re saying when utilizing these words.
Here are five particularly notable examples.
Welcome to the latest Punished Notes, a series of my always-evolving and rarely consistent thoughts on the video game world. For this latest edition, I get into how Gears 5 criticizes military superpowers, the lovely remake of Link’s Awakening, and the annual joy of pumpkin-flavored stuff (happy fall)!
