The Minority Gamer

I'd love to do a full review of Red Dead Redemption, but there are two main problems: 1. I'm about a year late. 2. I've played like, four story missions and keep getting killed by mountain lions. Jesus christ mountain lions are scary. It's a wonder we ever tamed the wilderness at all. I didn't play RDR when it first came out, partially out of disinterest (the wild west was never my thing... more.

Kingdoms of Amalur Before being distracted by Mass Effect 3, I was playing Kingdoms of Amalur. And I wanted to write a review for it, I truly did. But despite hours of playtime and a few genuinely good things that I noted about it, I just genuinely could not bring myself to care about the game in any way shape or form. Kingdoms of Amalur plays like someone was writing an MMORPG and then coul... more.

Buckle in, kiddos, this is going to be a long, messy ride. Mass Effect 3, the latest RPG offering from Bioware, has found itself the center of a large controversy that has been covered by everyone from Penny Arcade to whoever runs the game section of Forbes magazine (we're guessing someone's nephew). Never before has the divide between developers and their fans been so great. But Mass Effect... more.

"I just don't get along with other women." It's a common enough cry among IT girls and geek girls, and it's a sure sign that they've internalized the misogyny inherent to society. There are three unspoken statements that go into this: "I just don't get along with other women (1) because other women are lame (2) which I am not because I am special (3) which they can't handle because they're j... more.

Expecting a Final Fantasy game to have a coherent storyline is a lot like expecting that thing that never happens, ever. Final Fantasy XIII-2 is spectacular in its incoherence largely because it seems absolutely determined to shove it in your face. "We need to change the past... by changing the future!" say the characters, over and over again, pleading with us to believe them. It's not true, chara... more.

Gears of War Fan Says What? I've always been fascinated by bro-gamers; you know, the ones that play Call of Duty and Halo and not much else. I had this conversation with a co-worker today: "I don't approve of games like Grand Theft Auto," he said, and then continued with (I truly am not making this up), "I think it has a bad influence on the kids." "But it's rated MA," I said. "I get card... more.

To accuse Saint’s Row: The Third of sexism or racism is like accusing the MMA association of glorifying violence. Not only are bigotry and misogyny integral to the Saint’s Row recipe, but it is something they are proud of. When the credits roll at the end of the game (and you ask yourself, “What did I just take part in?”), there sure are a lot of photos of smiling, white, dorky men standin... more.

Princess Zelda was named after Zelda Fitzgerald, the strong-willed, proto-feminist wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Perhaps Miyamoto was having an uncharacteristic bout of sarcasm that day, as in the series, Zelda primarily serves the purpose of being rescued, over and over, through infinite variations of the same story. If you go to the Wikipedia article "Damsel in Distress," three of the top arti... more.

It's taken me a while to compile my thoughts on this game. If you want to know how I've spent most of my time, well, last play session I became so encumbered by the massive amounts of cheese I was carrying that I had to go buy a house solely for the purpose of storing my cheese. This is how most Elder Scrolls games are: the actual game is completely ancillary to the  OCD psychosis that it som... more.

A little while ago I wrote that Skyrim was slowly destroying my sanity: well, mission accomplished. Having finished Assassin's Creed 2: Revelations, I realize that I spun an 8 hour game into three days. If you give me a counter, I have to fill it. 100/100 animus data fragments that do absolutely nothing? Sure. In fact, why not make it so the first 30 or so of them unlock things, and then give ... more.