Sound Shapes
Seeing Sounds
Street Fighter X Tekken’s DLC Characters
This is a light review of the twelve characters included in Street Fighter X Tekken’s August 1st $20 downloadable content pack. It is neither a commentary on the ethics of said content (for that, please look here) nor an overview of the balancing patch that comes with it (Shoryuken has a much better line on that). Instead, it’s a fairly casual look at the characters and content associa...[Read More]
Ethical quandaries in Capcom’s post-release content, or lack thereof
Street Fighter X Tekken’s downloadable content has been a subject of much controversy. When it was discovered last March (before the game even came out) that the twelve bonus characters were already on the disc, the Internet Outrage Meter predictably shifted to DEFCON 3. Did Capcom have a right to include data in the retail package and then try to sell the player $20 unlock key six mo...[Read More]
Dyad
Explosions in the Eye
A Helpful Guide to Finding Videogame Podcasts that aren’t Flap Jaw Space
With a fairly mundane day job, considerable exercise every other day, driving, and the infinite undertaking of making my apartment not look like a Brazilian favela, I listen to a lotof podcasts every week. Obviously I think Flap Jaw Space: The DigitalChumps Podcast is the best in the biz*, but despite my narcissism I can’t just listen to archived repeats of Ch...[Read More]
The Flap Jaw Space Power Rankings – Episode 53
*Episode 53 is currently not published! Time Paradox! Welcome to the Flap Jaw Space Power Rankings (text edition), a written recap of the dynamic perversion and informal melee that unfolded on the previous episode of Flap Jaw Space: The Digital Chumps Podcast. Power Rankings is a running segment where we continually update the ten best games of 2012 every episode. If you’re new, there’...[Read More]
The Walking Dead: Episode 2 – Starved for Help
Telltale's take on The Walking Dead continues to shame AMC's television series.
The Walking Dead: Episode 1 – A New Day
I'm aware this review is posting a little over two months after release of A New Day, Episode 1 of Telltale's take on Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead. It's appearing today at Digital Chumps because...
Surely this can’t be The State of the Game – OR – Shooter Fatigue
I think I’m done with shooters. Not games where you specifically shoot guns and kill things, I’m pretty sure I could still play Point Blank all day, but rather the certain first and third person sub-genre ubiquitously identified by the masses as “shooters.” I came to this realization after playing Max Payne 3 for an hour and found myself struggling to give a shit abou...[Read More]
Eric’s Ten Best from E3 2012
Over the course of E3 2012, a theme circulating around my head was the idea of wonder and curiosity versus the concept of expectations, and how those two ideas factor into personal anticipation. As this relates to my ten best of E3, with one glorious exception, each title is defined by how much I don’t know about it, and how the small bits and pieces I’ve come to understand feed my ant...[Read More]
Lollipop Chainsaw
Remember when videogames weren’t required to make sense? We didn’t need to know why Dr. Wily wasn’t smart enough, through six games, to create robot masters without dangerous and very specific weaknesses. It didn’t matter that Karnov could inexplicably breathe fire and spawn a deep sea diving helmet at a moment’s notice. Context was in complete service to game’s mecha...[Read More]
E3 Impressions: Guacamelee!
It was the chicken that did it for me. Guacamelee’s intense brand of action/platforming was fine, but it was the dedicated button to turn into a chicken that sold me on its potential. I mean, in the demo presented, there wasn’t much incentive to turning into a chicken. Occasionally you could become a chicken, a mechanic which makes you smaller, to sneak in some hidden areas. There was ...[Read More]