The Nerd Next Door

 Isn't this an odd one, Nights Into Dreams . I had heard people praise this as Sonic Team's best non-Sonic work and one day it was around $2 on Steam so I figured why not. Of course if it's on this backlog dig it means I never played it. Is Nights as good as people claim and worth begging for a sequel to as so many have?  Nights' story follows Elliot and Claris, two children going through tough patches in their lives, as they're pulled into the Dream World of Nighttopia. There they discover that an evil wizard is trying to destroy Nightopia with nightmares and team up with Nights, a jester of unspecified gender but I like to think is a woman, to stop said wizard and save Nighttopia. The story of Nights is told non-verbally and barebones which I personally am torn on was a mistake or not. There's clearly more going on here with Nights and the bosses she fights, namely this identical jester who serves as the second to last boss, and it looks like an interesting w...

After Dukey Nukey in the Third Dimension , I figured it was time to revisit a game I hadn't played in years, Tomb Raider . No, not the 1996 original, the 2013 reboot. I remember playing this on Xbox One and not being impressed by it. It just felt kind of forgettable to me. But that was 8 years ago and shockingly time and hindsight gave me new appreciation for this game I didn't have when I was younger. The story of Tomb Raider is an origin story, following famed gaming heroine Lara Croft's first adventure. Lara, fresh out of college, winds up marooned on a mysterious island while on an archeological expedition. It quickly turns out however that the island is full of crazed lunatics who worship a long dead Japanese queen and it's up to Lara to survive, rescue her shipmates, and learn if the long dead queen is truly the reason no one can leave. Now I'm skipping a lot of nuance but one thing about this story I actually really liked is Lara's own growth. Lara star...

 After the kinda dark and dystopian Bioshock I had Resident Evil 4 next on the docket; but I was waiting for the HD pack mod, so I went with what was right next to it, Duke Nukem 3D . In terms of Boomer Shooters I had been wanting to do the Build Engine trinity of Duke Nukem 3D , Blood , and Shadow Warrior for a while. I have Blood , I have Duke , I still need Shadow Warrior though but that's beyond the point. The point is that we're here to ask the question, was Duke Nukem ever truly the king 90's gamers proclaimed him as? Well to start with we have the story, which is that aliens have invaded Los Angeles and are stealing Earth's women. The only person who can stop them is Duke Nukem; a perpetually horny steroid abuser with a penchant for murdering aliens. Shot down while returning to Earth after his alien killing side scrolling adventures; Duke must kill his way through LA, the Moon, and LA again in order to save the day. If that description wasn't obvious, Du...

After the magical world of Spyro I decided I needed things to get dark, so I decided to get into Bioshock Remastered . Now I had played Bioshock on the Xbox 360 as an easter gift from my parents, because my parents were awesome like that. But that was fourteen years ago in 2008, when I was 12. I was also young and stupid as a child, so how does it hold up now that I'm older and slightly less dumb than usual? Well first up is the actual Remaster job which was fine. I know some bemoaned the lack of graphical options but it's a remaster of a game from 2007, it can probably run on a toaster. Ran like butter for me at least so I have nothing but praise for this Remaster, which boosts the frame rate beyond the original 30fps. Now I didn't notice any big graphical changes, but I last played Bioshock in 2008 so I'm not a good position to judge. Frankly I much prefer Bioshock Infinite to Bioshock  even if it is a sloppier game, but I'll get into that one day, for now, our fe...