Climbing the Mountain Within You Minutes into my first playthrough of Celeste, I found myself breathing more heavily than usual. The 2D platformer certainly presented some light challenge early on, but that wasn’t what was…
Sam Martinelli
Sam Martinelli
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.
Putting Old Classics Under the Modern Microscope Though video gaming as a medium is still relatively nascent, enough time has passed since the original Pong that we as gamers have begun to set aside many…
Honoring the Best Publisher, Developer, and Game of 2017 The time has come. After weeks of deliberation, voting, and award coverage, we have arrived at the fourth and final wave of our Best of 2017…
The Best of Each Platform in 2017 January has come and gone, and though it’s a new month, our Best of 2017 coverage continues! Having already shared our Industry Awards and Storytelling and Presentation Awards,…
Our Industry-Specific Winners (And Loser) of 2017 We kick off our Best of 2017 feature with our Industry Awards. On New Year’s Eve, The Punished Backlog revealed its nominees for the best games of 2017. While…
The most jarring scenes in Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, Bethesda’s latest Nazi-shooting sim, occur not during bloody firefights, brutal executions, or in the midst of a completely obliterated New York City. They occur in…
Greats That Didn’t Quite Make The Cut As the name of this very website suggests, gamers often struggle to keep up with their extended backlog of quality video games. Sometimes, you just decide that, for…
A Classic Or a Failure? While I haven’t written very many video game reviews, I could probably take any game I’ve ever played and assign it some kind of rating out of ten. Breath of…
Ending on a High Note You’ve spent the entire game learning new mechanics, upgrading your skills, fighting boss after boss after boss. It’s finally time to face the head honcho, the final boss, your game’s…
Revisiting One of Mario’s Greatest Adventures Everyone is enjoying Mario’s latest excursion (you can read David Silbert’s excellent Super Mario Odyssey review here), and they should be! Super Mario Odyssey is a marvel in open-world…