The Nerd Next Door

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...

  Halo 3: ODST , one of my favorite games of all time, has finally received a proper PC port so I felt it was time to talk about what made it so special. ODST stood out in the Halo series for changing the formula; new gameplay ideas, new design, throwing what a Halo game was on it's head, and focusing on more personal stories about the world you're in as opposed to the big epic scales one got used to. Over the years however, I've noticed one game that does the same thing in it's own series and stands out for those same reasons as ODST , the Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask . Sure it's a different series and gameplay styles, but you'd be shocked at the common story these games share, right from inception. ODST and Majora's Mask both started out as other projects entirely, for ODST it was Halo: Chronicles , a failed project meant to be directed by Peter Jackson. When Jackson bailed however the team behind Chronicles were left with nothing to do. So, ...

So now we are at the end of the line, all the mainline Halo games have played and now the wait begins for Infinite and the MCC port on PC. A wait that honestly is taking longer than expected, but I can wait, I'm a patient lil sausage. But there is a path here, one I've seen over my journey through Halo , one that in my opinion can perfectly explain what the hell happened here and we can find out jsut what the hell happened to cause the rise and fall of Halo. In my opinion and in terms of single player, what made Halo stand out from games like DOOM, Quake, and Duke Nukem was it's ability to flawlessly switch from hallway style linear shooting to big outdoor arenas with lots of vehicles and weapons, all of which encouraged experimentation and approaching things how you want to. It also had a sense of humor about itself, the stakes were big, epic, and serious, but the tone of at least the human characters indicated that they were having a bit of fun with the wh...

With the Halo Trilogy concluded, developer Bungie prepared their next steps, but Halo owner Microsoft decided to farm out the Halo franchise to another developer. Insert Ensemble Studios, the team behind the Age of Empires RTS series. The mission? Make a Halo based RTS that played smoothly on the Xbox 360, a realm few RTS' dared to move. Did they succeed? Or was Halo Wars the last game Ensemble made for a reason? Halo Wars is set in 2531, 21 years before Halo 1 and six years after the UNSC's war with the Covenant began. The game follows the starship Spirit of Fire, an ex-colony ship converted into a factory ship/carrier stationed on the colony of Harvest to battle the Covenant over some Forerunner artifacts in the planet's north pole. The main focus of the Spirit of Fire's crew follows what I consider the most mediocre cast in the Halo franchise. Sergeant John Forge, commander of ground forces on the Spirit of Fire and a cocky firebrand with a heart of gold...