Matthew Jay

Video game nostalgia is an odd phenomenon. It makes us hang on to outdated technology, spend hours upon hours sewing scarves and hats adorned with the heroes of our youth and get into heated arguments about which entry in a series is better (rather than agree that they’re both pretty great). But rarely does it lead to anything productive. READ MORE

Time for another edition of Why haven’t you played this?, the portion of Jay Button where I make you feel guilty for no reason. When games successfully made the jump from 16 to 32-bit era with the PlayStation many new ideas were thrown out of the nest before they were ready to fly, while a few were allowed to stick around a bit past their time. One relic of a bygone era was cute mascot platformers. READ MORE

As more and more action movies come out each summer, they all tend to blend together. In order for Hollywood to make sure the newest film is a sure thing, it must tread some proven ground to make sure the masses will accept it. Once in a while, a big-time action movie will stand above the rest with snappy dialogue, more impressive action scenes or a budget that allows the use of cutting-edge technology, but they’ll still include a number of cliches. The good guys will win, everything will be wrapped up and fixed within the next two hours and, perhaps most importantly, the hero will almost always get the girl. I like to call this “Speed syndrome”. READ MORE

I never need a reason to re-read a good chunk of the Penny Arcade archive. At least once every six months or so, I’ll whittle away an afternoon by clicking on a random date and reading onward. When they finally started putting the comics out in print form with the collected trade paperback volumes available at retail, it was all over. I own each of them and they’re practically hanging off the spine because PA’s gag-a-day format makes it so easy to pick up and hard to put back down. Gabe and Tycho just celebrated their 13th anniversary as the creative team behind one of the most wonderful and enduring pieces of internet humor ever. READ MORE

Bethesda is a company whom you really can’t begrudge for their faults. Sure they ship unfinished games with horrible, obvious and sometimes game-breaking glitches, but the game itself is usually really good. This actually may not be the case with the incredibly-hyped Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. READ MORE