The Nerd Next Door

I know I said I'd be talking about Half-Life last time but then I realized how many shooters I have been talking about lately and decided to do something about that. So we're talking Fire Emblem, the Strategy RPG series that for the longest time was known more for being in Smash Bros. until Awakening propelled the franchise to heights previously unseen. It also does that Final Fantasy game where each installment, unless otherwise stated, is set in it's own world unconnected to other games. But I'm not here to talk about the overall series; I've been playing the old GBA games lately and I've noticed an issue with these games, the support system. Which has always had issues in some ways but feels more pronounced in the GBA games which are The Binding Blade (FE6), The Blazing Sword (FE7), and The Sacred Stones (FE8). Supports in Fire Emblem grant two units close to one another bonuses in combat and these supports can be leveled up to become more powerful. But when ...

Id software, the beloved pioneers of blowing shit up while rocking out to heavy metal. For decades they've been a leader in the first person shooter market and have become a household icon of the industry. From their attempt to port Super Mario Bros. 3 to DOS to the heavy metal album that is DOOM Eternal; Id has always been pushing gaming forwards in some way whether through technology, gameplay, or artistry. But from 1993 to 1997 Id was at their A game; churning out monster hit after monster hit. So after finally getting through the original Quake duology I decided to rank my favorites from this era that I consider their Golden Age. Some of it may be a hot take and some of it may not, but either way none of these games are bad, so keep that in mind. Oh, and no Wolfenstein or the expansions for Doom and Quake. Wolfenstein is more of a maze game than what Doom and Quake are and it feels too different to properly rate. Also I feel adding the expansions takes away from the pacing of t...

When one stays away from a game for a long time the feelings one has towards it may soften or even fade away. This may lead one to wonder, " what was so bad or great about that game? " I was a teenager when I played Battlefield 3 and while I felt (and still feel) the multiplayer is a good time I remembered hating the single-player for BF3. But it had been almost 10 years since I last played through BF3's campaign and I could hardly remember why I hated it. On top of this I've been seeing people demand a remaster of this game, which made me feel like I had been too harsh towards this game seeing as how other folks obviously loved it. So after playing Fire Emblem 7, I decided to use BF3 as a palette cleanser. Taking the words of LateNightGaming into mind when talking about Call of Duty, "Think of it like being an actor in an action movie." It didn't help and to understand why, it's best that I go through step by painful step. Suffer with me. ...