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.
Welcome back to Punished Notes, where I (occasionally) release all of my blandest and most anodyne takes on the world of video games. This week, we’ll be looking at some of my favorite user-created stages in Super Mario Maker 2, why I can’t get into a recent game everyone adores, and how I got emotional over a movie trailer after three seconds.
When The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild took the gaming world by storm two years ago, it amazed players with its massive open world, improved traversal mechanics, weapon variety, and breathtaking scenery. … After playing Cadence of Hyrule, the latest Zelda spin-off, which uses the mechanics of Crypt of the Necrodancer, I now realize what was missing: the integration of music as a core gameplay mechanic (Kass doesn’t count).
E3 2019 is officially over, y’all. Though the world’s biggest gaming expo came and went faster than Elon Musk swiping that 2B artwork, the conference left us with plenty in the way of announcements to dissect and games to fawn over. As with our pre-E3 2019 coverage a few weeks back, your favorite panel of dream chasers — David Silbert, Sam Martinelli, and Kei Isobe — will be doing a rapid-fire post-mortem on the best and worse of this year’s show. Easy peasy, Keanu Reevesy?
I love The Witcher 3, but don’t like Dragon Age: Inquisition. I can’t get into most JRPGs, but I kind of like Paper Mario: Sticker Star. I’m a huge Legend of Zelda fan, but I’ve never loved the original. The Super Nintendo is my favorite console ever, yet I don’t think I’ll ever finish Super Mario RPG or Super Metroid. … Why am I like this?
Ahead of E3 2019, several Punished Backlog writers compiled lists of predictions for each press conference. Who will win? Who will lose? Here are our initial thoughts.
Back again from a long hiatus, I hope to fire off a barrage of takes for all you bozos out there dumb enough to read anything I write about video games (thanks for the clicks and likes, I love you all!). For this edition — the first since November (yikes) — I’ll be dishing out mini-notes and thoughts on Nier: Automata, gatekeeping, and adding a game to my all-time favorite list, plus a bit on working from home (super interesting, I know).
A Whole New World Yoshi’s Crafted World is not merely another well-crafted (get it?) Nintendo platformer with clever level design, uplifting music, and plenty of extras to collect along the way; it’s the truest imagining…
From Ni no Kuni to Bravely Default, a Discourse on JRPGs It’s no secret that I have a complicated relationship with Japanese role-playing games, but I do find their presence and importance in the video game medium…
What Happens When You Play a Game Decades After Its Height? Here’s something that everyone on this planet has experienced: Somebody is telling you a story with great enthusiasm hoping to elicit a certain response…
Starting off the New Year Right New year, new me! Well, probably not, but I do acknowledge the importance of forming New Year’s resolutions each year, even if I rarely ever make good on such…
