Share your games writing/criticism!

Lifestyle Workshop
#688

The Sonic Amateur Games Expo (SAGE) was recently and unlike last year, where I reviewed 87 games by myself (!) I thankfully only had to review a third of the games. SAGE is starting to attract a bit of an indie presence, which I think is contributing to its growth. Anyway, instead of 7 articles, I only had to write two:

http://www.tssznews.com/2019/10/02/sage-2019-review-slew-pt-1/
Games talked about: Pizza Tower*, XF Drive*, Rodea Eternal, Sonic Explorers, Hedgephysics Revival, MegaMan Makeshift, Klonoa: Dream Trigger, Sonic Liquid Survival, Sonic Smackdown, Teabat*, Sonic Battle R, Dunkehr*, Lloyd the Monkey 2*, Zups!*

http://www.tssznews.com/2019/10/05/sage-2019-review-slew-pt-4/
Games talked about: Sonic Between Worlds, Tuff Stuff*, Sonic Ultima, Sonic Roll-a-Ball, PETRICHOR*, Project Lynx*, Sample Sonic, Sonic Ascends, Sonic Digitalized, Sonic J, Carlos & Maria: Pearl Madness, Sonic: The Murdering Insanity, Project Z-treme*, Sonic All-Mix

* Implies it's an original indie game and not a fan game

1 Like
#689

My second retrospective on the Gears of War series is up! Gears of War 2 is such a weird thing in 2019, especially considering how much the ideas both narrative and mechanical that it introduces play into the rest of the series.

Read for discussions of how Metal the series was, what spectacle meant for games in 2008, and chainsawing people up the butt.

2 Likes
#690

Wrote this satirical piece. Felt very Waypoint.

#691

Did a commissioned piece on 1979 Revolution: Black Friday. Was an interesting little game.

#692

Piece I did for Anime Herald on Luminous Arc 1 & 2 and why the first was miles better than the second.

#693

Psychonauts and why it’s good because the developers didn’t know much about platformers

1 Like
#694

Another week, another attempt from me to summarise all of Gears in a way that puts the games in a historical context:

Gears 3 is so interesting. Such a 2011 game in so many ways.

2 Likes
#695

Great read! I think sincerity and humbleness and character design goes a long way when it comes to engaging with narrative. I had a similar experience where I couldn’t get through Danganronpa V3 because I just couldn’t connect with the characters the same way as I did for previous entries, even though nothing changed about the overall formula.

#696

Hey y’all! My brother and I have started a loose and fun series called Infinite Fantasy, where we engage with every piece of Final Fantasy media (games, movies, books, manga, etc.) and rank them based on how much we enjoyed them, and how “Final Fantasy” they are.

Each episode, we’re going to run through 5 pieces of Final Fantasy media, and rank them on our lists. We’ll have a podcast-y version, where we have a free-form discussion about the games/other media, and then I’m going to make a more written, structured version of our critiques.

The episode 1 written version can be found here: https://alexplemoine.wordpress.com/2019/10/26/infinite-fantasy-episode-1/

And the podcast-y version can be found here (my side of the audio is a little bad, apologies for that): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWrDkCZfDjA

I’d love to know what you guys think, thanks!

#697

My review of Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD. It’s a remastered version of a forgettable Monkey Ball game, and I don’t understand why they chose it over a more beloved game in this series.

http://www.tssznews.com/2019/10/29/review-super-monkey-ball-banana-blitz-hd-playstation-4/

#698

i wrote a bunch about Control and how it uses its bureaucratic setting to portray the capitalist system. Also a lot of deleuze

#699

I got frustrated with the tiny text in games and made a video about it.

3 Likes
#700

I’m just going to link the trailer here, because this actually makes up two videos, and both are linked in the end screen.

In short: I’ve made videos in the past of the “definitive way to play” certain Sonic games, which usually opens with a bit of a history lesson on what happened to that specific game over time and why it needs a video describing how to keep playing it.

That’s not so simple when it comes to Sonic 3, for reasons some of you may or may not know. I touch on a lot of subjects in just 30 minutes, from Sonic 3’s erasure, to Michael Jackson’s involvement with the soundtrack, to Sega indirectly cultivating piracy. It’s a journey.

If for whatever reason the end screen isn’t working in the embed, the Definitive Way to Play Sonic 3 is here, and the Optional Supplemental Podcast where I talk about the recent Sonic 3 prototype is here.

1 Like
#701

A lot of IRL stuff happened that delayed the release of this episode, but my IndieCent over Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines is now up. We’re leaving youtube and are going to start looking for a new home, so we’re using mine and Elmo’s patreons for podcast hosting right now (I did include download links).

1 Like
#702

I wrote about the games I had to just kinda watch pass me by in 2019 due to money/mental illness reasons.

Edit: And then I went and added 15 more games after reading through it again after posting it.

2019 had a lot of games jfc

4 Likes
#703

Your comment for Cadence of Hyrule is my generic reason for not playing tons of games, I have to say (“I’d like to watch someone better than me at this type of game playing it”.)

1 Like
#704

Let’s talk comedy games, comedic pacing, and the challenge that comes with making games funny while grappling with the issue of the long strings of no jokes that will be bound to follow.

1 Like
#705

Here are my fave games I played in 2019, plus some honorable mentions.

3 Likes
#706

Here’s nearly 3,000 words on Death Stranding, which I got to write because work was slow today:

2 Likes
#707

Everyone’s probably had enough end of year coverage… but just case, here’s my Top 10 Games of the Year video.

A few disappointments from the year too.

3 Likes