It’s summer! Time to unplug and enjoy some games around the table. In this special edition of the podcast, Chris, Chris and Graham talk to Chris Norwood (of GamerChris) and Brad Talton (of Level 99 Games) about what makes board and card games so fun and special, and how to best start playing them if you haven’t! Later, Jeff, Shawn, Chris and Graham chat about the 3DS XL, Ys Origin and Pokemon Conquest.
The Best to Own Forever series isn’t about what’s great right now. It’s about what will be great in 10 years, even though there will be better-looking games and later sequels, and what will keep you pulling that dusty old console out of the closet every once in a while. In this installment, we look at the Nintendo DS.
Meteos is a one-of-a-kind puzzler that fully utilizes the DS’ touch screen in a fantastic way. This alone should make it a must own, but that’s only scratching the surface. The visuals, fast-paced puzzles and multiplayer modes all add a lot to a puzzle game that is, on the surface, fairly simplistic. It’s the perfect example of taking a basic concept and adding to it to make it seem more complex than it actually is and, as a result, Meteos is one of the most addictive puzzlers to come out in quite some time. If you’re a fan of puzzle games and you don’t have this in your DS collection, then you need to fix that immediately. – Andrew PassafiumeREAD MORE
I am coming into this game biased. I’m a big Penny Arcade fan, I’m a big SNES-era RPG fan, and combining those two things is an easy match for me to get behind. Episodes 1 and 2 surprised me with how much fun I could have in combat that focused a lot on consumable items. Being a fan of old RPGs, I had to unlearn my hoarding. If that bottle of weaksauce would make things easier right now then I needed to use it. There’s another bottle around the corner anyhow. READ MORE
In this column debut, Henry Skey explores losing, and how games don’t need to stop letting you enjoy them when it happens.
How do you feel when you lose? If you’re like most people, you hate it. You hate the potential embarrassment when you admit you lost your hockey game 9-0, even though you only played 2 shifts and barely broke a sweat. You hate how somebody else received the promotion because they’d been sleeping with the boss, when you had put so much effort last week in trying to sleep with your boss. You hate losing because, under certain circumstances, you feel like you’re not good enough. You start to doubt yourself and your abilities. Were they ever there in the first place?
These kinds of thoughts are commonplace when playing games.
Usually in New Game+, I discuss components of games, gaming culture, and the industry as a whole that I find engaging and worth talking about. I’m going to do something a little different this time. To celebrate the release of Goichi Suda’s latest project, Lollipop Chainsaw, I feel it’s time to discuss the man behind such cult hits as Killer7 and the No More Heroes games. Not only am I a fan of Suda’s work, but I find the ideas that fuel these strangely compelling experiences absolutely fascinating. READ MORE
