Browsing: Op-Eds

I’m sure we’ve all been “addicted” to a game before — playing the newest gaming release into the waking hours of the morning. Maybe you’ve even taken the day (or week) off work to grind out levels or get to the end of your playthrough. Yet, while depictions of gaming addiction may seem exaggerated, the disease is not a fantasy: It is a life-ruining curse, and can also be a sign of deteriorating mental health.

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I would like to introduce the uninitiated to Over the Garden Wall, a cartoon miniseries for all ages that is best watched huddled comfortably around a screen, wrapped in a cozy blanket, as the slow-roasted warm tones of the changing leaves outside are lost in the darkness of night and stolen away from their trees by the cool, crisp autumn air.

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Fear is something that can excite and terrify gamers, be it the fear of losing to a boss on your final life, or fear that the creature stalking the halls will find you. Fear is something most modern day horror games claim to be able to invoke in their audience; however, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Today I’d like to propose that a more sinister horror become more prevalent in gaming: cosmic horror, made popular by author Howard Phillips Lovecraft. I’m happy that, as of late, a few developers have taken the plunge into Lovecraftian horror and seen great success as a result.

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Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order, Team Ninja’s latest crack at the long-dormant Ultimate Alliance series, is far from a perfect game. Still, the game as a whole just works, and not merely in the sense that its mechanics and systems function as intended; everything comes together conceptually, with the tone of the story and art style perfectly matching the chaotic ebullience of the gameplay. The game combines basic brawler systems with a cartoonish presentation and doesn’t try to be much more than that. Simply put, the game knows what it is and stays true to itself at all times.

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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).

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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?

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