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 through critical analysis and in-depth reviews to better understand the medium's artistic merit.
Twitter: @sam_martinelli.
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…
Highlighting the Best of an Impressive Year for Games Many have said that 2017 was a particularly special year for gaming, but I actually feel like 2018 was better. Not necessarily in the sense that…
Disclaimer: This game is super long and I have so many thoughts about it, and there’s just no way one article can encompass all of those thoughts. Red Dead Redemption 2 might very well be…
