Category Archives: Reviews
Angry Birds
Portable gaming is not new. The first true story-driven portable games came on the GameBoy a quarter century ago. The earliest portable games on platforms like Game & Watch or GameBoy were so primitive that if they had any story at all it was implied. Mario rescues Pauline from Donkey Kong because that is simply [...]
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice for All
In this second installation in the Phoenix Wright series, Wright tangles not only with ruthless prosecutors, but with his own concepts of what justice is, and who he is. For this popular series of interactive novels, identity issues are not usually par for the course. Ace Attorney has always been about foibles and plot twists [...]
Also posted in Nintendo DS, Video Games
Tagged ace attorney, mystery, Nintendo DS, video games
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MOTHER 3
The Mother series, known in the US as Earthbound, is one of the most loved and underutilized properties in all of the video game industry. The first game, Mother or Earthbound Zero, was an NES game that introduced the series’ unique RPG play style and its most unusual sense of humor. The much more famous [...]
Also posted in GameBoy Advance, Video Games
Tagged coming of age, family, gameboy advance, glbt, modernity, MOTHER, video games
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Kirby Superstar Ultra
The Kirby series has always been one hallmarked by accessibility. Kirby’s games are easy to pick up and play– at any age or skill level. This has placed it squarely, largely, in the genre of children’s games. Despite some challenging titles and some very fun game play, Kirby does not skirt the kind of age [...]
Also posted in Nintendo DS, Video Games
Tagged fantasy, kirby, Nintendo DS, remediation
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Sublife
The modern world tells us that anything we desire can be ours. The problem inherent with this generous philosophy is that no one truly knows what it is that they want. We can ask for cars and money and sex, but ultimately what fulfills us is not something that can be purchased on stores or [...]
Art Style: Cubello
Downloadable content on the consoles has made smaller, more inventive games more possible. With the Art Style series, Nintendo is putting out very small titles which are little more than ‘semi-mini games.’ Cubello is the latest of these titles. Cubello begins by presenting the player with a three-dimensional figure made up of variously colored cubes. [...]
Sumomomo Momomo
Animated sexual comedies are fairly uncommon in the United States. There are many satires which use sex as a frequent vehicle for humor, but none for which sex and gender relations are a central theme. In Japan, however, there are several, and they are some of the sharpest pieces of commentary in animation. From the [...]
Mega Man 9
More than a decade has passed since Capcom released Mega Man 8. One of the most beloved series of the 8-bit video game era, this franchise has long languished in tangential games which attempted to change up traditional Mega Man formula with ideas more reminiscent of the Pokemon series. However, this game is different from [...]
Star Trek: Year Four – The Enterprise Experiment
Despite fan efforts to save it, Star Trek’s original run ended in 1969. The show’s opening tag line spoke of the Enterprise’s 5-year mission, but the realities of ratings and budget cuts brought an early end to Roddenberry’s cult-favorite series. Since 1969, fans have wondered what happened with the rest of that historic 5-year mission. [...]
Sanctuary
The Sci-Fi Channel and Movie Network’s new television, formerly web-based, series Sanctuary is an interesting, media-informed piece that mixes existing new media mainstays with a variety of social messages. Viewers who are familiar with other science fiction and new media franchises like X-Men will see a lot of familiar concepts in this series. There are [...]