I enjoy novels focusing on a character whose motivations and questions mirror my own darker side. Two recent examples, The Magus (John Fowles) and The Magician’s Land (Lev Grossman), both explore the plight of the young man, and what is he to do? The Magus is a cryptic chasm of false starts, true shocks spiraling the narrative down a hole so deep, I don’t know if I’ve climbed out yet.
There were so many times I asked the very same question the main character did, he might as well have been me. What just happened? Was I there? Who is in on this? Is anybody in on this? What does this all mean? Questions still flood my memory and I’m unable to breach the surface to breathe. What just happened? How am I 31? Did I really do that play? Were they laughing at me? Did I say the wrong thing at a social gathering six weeks ago? Is everybody aware I said the wrong thing? My inner frustration grows, moreso when I’m not even sure if I should do something about it. READ MORE
Power Rangers was great. Well, it was great to me when I was a kid. Looking back at it, every episode followed the same general outline: head bad guy orders this week’s adversary around, adversary terrorizes city, rangers fight low-level mooks and adversary at normal size and win, and rangers mash their robots together to fight giant-sized adversary and win. And honestly, at 10, that was enough for me. READ MORE
A while back I talked about Lord of the Fries, a Cheapass Games title about zombies working in various restaurants. While that game just finished up a successful Kickstarter campaign for a new edition, the zombies of Frieday’s (the Fast Food Restaurant of the Damned) first appeared in Give Me the Brain!, which itself just received a new “superdeluxe” edition as part of the Stuff and Nonsense campaign. READ MORE
When it was originally released in America in 2012, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 was largely overlooked. That’s not surprising: it was an original Nintendo DS title launching nearly a year after its successor hit the market, and it came just six months after Devil Survivor Overclocked, which, despite being a half-measure in many ways, was a much-needed complex RPG for early 3DS adopters who had little in the way of quality titles.
With a 3DS re-release, Devil Survivor 2 has another chance to capture the attention of the game-playing public. And it should, because Record Breaker makes an already-great game even better. READ MORE
China, as it turns out, is a perfect setting for an Assassin’s Creed game. While Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China plays quite unlike other titles in the franchise, the 2D spinoff retains the spirit and feel of the world. Gone are the open world and filler side content, and here to stay are the stealth kills, free form exploration and templar-assassin lore. I’ll admit, I’ve played enough Assassin’s Creed by now that I’m feeling quite burned out on the series, but even with the fatigue, there are enough new ideas present here to make it worth a play. READ MORE
