The Nerd Next Door

I recently beat the original Half-Life and it's expansions after years of putting it off; fairly fun game though anytime you have to go to Xen it sucks my soul out. But that's not really what i want to talk about, if I straight up reviewed Half-Life I wouldn't have much to say that others haven't; basically, "Great but aged, stop at Xen." What interested me however was how Half-Life and it's expansions nail the art of the side story in a way that I've only really seen once; with the original Halo on Xbox and it's book adaptation.  Both Half-Life and Halo have fascinating tales in their own way but both also leave room to see various sides of the same conflict. Its an odd similarity, but I think it's worth exploring the kinds of stories they tell. Who knows, maybe it might inspire others to try something similar. Half-Life follows Gordon Freeman, an MIT graduate working in the massive underground Black Mesa Research Complex. When a teleporter ex...

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. ...

  Ah DOOM 3 , the black sheep of the DOOM franchise, stripping away the speedy, fast, heavy metal action and going for a more slower, cramped and claustrophobic experience; DOOM 3 feels like a sore thumb compared to earlier and even later entries like DOOM 2016 and Eternal . From the outside looking in, DOOM 3 is a divisive game; it's an underrated horror masterpiece to some and a slow plodding mess to others. Some recommend the original PC version and some recommend the 2012 BFG re-release and other still would have you ignore it all together. So after beating 64 I decided to go straight into 3 and finish my own personal DOOM story that began in 2016 to see how it held up. DOOM 3 lays down what it wants to be in the first 10 minutes of the game, a horror themed Half-Life . After the introduction cut-scene you, a nameless space marine, are hurled into a Martian base to get acclimated, meet the people, enjoy some world building; ya know, like in Half-Life . But sure enough you h...

Ah October, pumpkin spice is in the air, spooks are abundant, and I even rebrand myself as Spookbringer to get into the season. Things have been a little tougher this year to get into the mood, what with the looming threats breathing down our necks come November, but I decided to do so anyway with two games, Luigi's Mansion and DOOM 64 . Now this isn't about Luigi's Mansion , chances are if you're a gamer who owns a Gamecube/can emulate on PC you'll know Luigi's Mansion is a classic so I'm not here to beat you over the head with that knowledge. No, I'm here to tell you about a Halloween classic you may have slept on, one that went largely ignored even in it's own series' fanbase until about, two-three years ago.  Yes, we're talking DOOM 64 for the Panasonic 3DO Nintendo 64, a game that is shockingly not just DOOM but on the N64, it's a wholly original game and a Halloween FPS classic. Now , DOOM 64 is sort of an inappropriate name, ...