Crispy Gamer

Brian Mardiney's blog

Is There a Chill in the Air?

Submitted by Brian Mardiney on Sun, 04/18/2010 - 19:00
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Initial Impressions: Sam and Max 301: The Penal Zone

Submitted by Brian Mardiney on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 19:00
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TV has become stale with chronological trickery. You know the trope: an episode starts right in the middle of a hostage stand-off. The hero is pointing a gun at someone you thought was an ally, who is, in turn, forcefully restraining a woman you thought was an enemy. The world is upside down and you have no idea why. Then, up comes the black screen and letters reading "24 hours earlier..."
 

iPad Madness

Submitted by Brian Mardiney on Thu, 04/08/2010 - 19:00
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Hinterland

Submitted by Brian Mardiney on Wed, 04/07/2010 - 19:00
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Starved for anything even remotely RPG-related after finishing Risen a while back (if you haven't played it, you need to), I decided to gamble on a little "under the radar" game that had no demo but promised an interesting gameplay mechanic: the RPG/Town Builder hybrid. That game is called Hinterland.
 

Don't Be Stingy, There's Enough Hate to Go Around

Submitted by Brian Mardiney on Sun, 04/04/2010 - 19:00
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In grappling with Alex Di Stasi's blog post, Don't Hate On Ubisoft For DRM Issues, Hate Pirates, I had to admit that a lot of the points he brings up are valid, and even correct. But while we could haggle over the details (I'm more than happy to do so), principles are what matters. And in a debate such as this, you can't afford to operate with an "ends justify the means" mentality. 

Initial Impressions: The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom

Submitted by Brian Mardiney on Wed, 03/31/2010 - 19:00
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The Adventures of Hobo Ron

Submitted by Brian Mardiney on Tue, 03/30/2010 - 19:00
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I have a sort of mildly like/indifference relationship with The Sims. Whenever I boot it up after a period of months (or years), I am always eager to create my new character and assigning traits in The Sims 3 is almost as fun as assigning weapon skill points in an RPG. Once inside the game proper, however, my interest quickly fades as it occurs to me, yet again, that playing The Sims is like working a job. Grinding for skills, juggling relationships, work-sleep-work-sleep schedules...I just usually just turn it off and uninstall 30 minutes in.

Why I (Almost) Always Care About Video Game Storylines

Submitted by Brian Mardiney on Wed, 03/24/2010 - 19:00
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With all due respect to my new colleague, Crystal Kaba, I'm afraid I have to disagree with almost everything she wrote in her article Why I (Almost) Never Care About Video Game Storylines. I contend that story is not just a nice feature for a game to have, it's almost always essential. Without narrative, games are just pretty sandboxes that leave your memory as soon as you put the controller down.

Initial Impressions: Just Cause 2

Submitted by Brian Mardiney on Mon, 03/22/2010 - 19:00
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Some Thoughts on Bioshock 2

Submitted by Brian Mardiney on Thu, 03/18/2010 - 19:00
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This will be my first blog entry for Crispy Gamer and I'm thrilled to be contributing to the site. Aside from playing and replaying the Just Cause 2 demo about 30 times (not hyperbole), I've also been sneaking on to my girlfriend's Steam account to try out Bioshock 2. Two descriptors pervade my thoughts as I play this sequel: "repetition" and "going through the motions".

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