Struggling to Connect in a Pixilated World The process of estrangement from self and others results from a declining sense of embodiment in social space and an associated diminishing of communication possibilities. …The dementing body is situated temporally and spatially in a known past as opposed to a confusing and incoherent present. From this basis, we can suggest that the not-uncommon...
Electronic Gaming Monthly, November 2007: Unlike Nick [Suttner], I didn’t mind the camera. In fact, my usual beef with “marble puzzlers” is that you can’t see around corners (I’m looking at you, Kororinpa), but in Revolution, you can niftily rotate the playing field and zoom in and out. The teeter-totter controls seem a bit too loose, and I am no fan of...
My review of the early Wii title Boogie—which hit the Internet the moment the embargo lifted on August 7, 2007, two days before the game’s launch—was very quickly maligned. People assumed that my low score, compared to the 4 out of 5 stars that GamePro had awarded it, was surely the wrong score, and folks on the Internet jumped all over me, going so far as to speculate that I must be a...
Electronic Gaming Monthly, July 2007 Innocent Life is different from the average agrarian simulation, ostensibly because it’s set in the future. As a Neo-Pinocchio robot-boy, you are tasked with renovating ancient ruins into a giant farm. As you cultivate your farm and make friends with the townsfolk, your “human” abilities (like cooking and loving!) slowly improve. But farming...
Electronic Gaming Monthly, April 2007: With chirpy music and candy land levels, Kororinpa: Marble Mania comes wrapped in a deceptively unassuming package. You simply navigate a marble through a 3D puzzle, tilting your Wii-mote to move the board while collecting gems en route to the exit. The most fulfilling of these puzzles involve rotating the game board onto its side, so that walls become...
Electronic Gaming Monthly, February 2007: OK, guys. I’m split. I’m happy Capcom tried to make this sequel feel different with the Psyche-Locks (which make the exploration parts more difficult), but they don’t really improve gameplay. Instead, they simply serve to distract gamers from how much of a retread this truly is. Still, I loved the original, and I don’t feel the...
Electronic Gaming Monthly, February 2007: Demian pretty much nailed it: For someone who barely understands what a videogame even is (Mom!), Wii Play is probably the best playable instruction manual ever. But for anyone who’s, uh, ever played a videogame, more than half of the nine mini games are about as fun as a Wii Remote calibration test. Still, even the suckiest games are OK in...
Electronic Gaming Monthly, June 2006: Greg is so right-on about the gameplay being artificially lengthened. What should be a tight, concise game instead extends to sprawling proportions—even the 2D graphics are stretched to jaggyville—making Azoth feel a little…I dunno, wimpy? Murky? Unfulfilling? The time bar in the battle screens does offer some strategic depth. And though it seems unfair...
Electronic Gaming Monthly, June 2006: Addictive as hell is right. No matter how deliberate a battle’s pace is, Field Commander never has a dull second, thanks to the constant strategy lurking beneath each turn-based move. Even online play, tinged with lag, never loses its momentum. I also like how you can save game progress anytime during missions—even in multiplayer—so that long rounds can...
Electronic Gaming Monthly, June 2006: What? I scroll away for one second to get a quick look-see at my minions, and I scroll back only to learn some monster has been punching my hero in the face repeatedly. Uncool. While its hybrid of game mechanics is truly nifty, Lost Magic quickly becomes a fast-paced terror of multitasking and micromanagement. Granted, there’s an enemy...