The Nerd Next Door

Turns out one article wasn't enough to satisfy my Half-Life kick, because when I was choosing to play Half-Life 1 I had two options, Half-Life 1 or the remake Black Mesa. And while I chose Half-Life 1 I was fascinated by Black Mesa, a fan remake of Half-Life 1 that Valve allowed to sell for a profit on Steam.  And it got me thinking about fan games and how they're important to most gaming companies... except one. I'm a Nintendo fan and Nintendo's logic on fan-games is that if you do any fan game and it gains traction you will be automatically shut down. They have the right to do so mind you, but I feel it's a net negative on fandoms in general. Fan works are important and I feel that if developers support fan works in a healthy way it can create a sense of camaraderie and love for a company that would allow it to, in the eyes of the public, elude a lot of criticism. The biggest example of supporting fans is Valve. Ever since the release of Half-Life, Valve has suppo...

Last week Valve announced Steam Deck, a handheld PC with a starter price of $399 and going up to $650 for the highest end model. Automatically people compared it to other Valve hardware, namely the Steam Machine; Valve's attempt at the console market in 2015 that failed miserably. However, I disagree with people making this comparison; in fact I think Steam Deck stands a far better chance than Steam Machine did. But in order to understand why I need to explain why Steam Machine failed in the first place and where the Deck seems to learn from it. The Steam Machine was released in 2015 as an attempt to go up against the PS4 and Xbox One while offering an entry into the PC market for non-PC gamers. This was where the problem began, no one knew is this was meant as just a prebuilt PC or a whole new console. And because Valve took the 3DO route of licensing the brand no one knew if you could even upgrade a Steam Machine. It was a very muddled system with an unclear role in a market wher...

It's Fullmetal Alchemist's 20th Anniversary today and that fact has basically overridden every braincell in my head. You know those people who make their entire identity one thing and don't ever shut up about it? That's me and Fullmetal Alchemist , except I learned some restraint which is why my twitter is not a flood of FMA memes or fan art. It would be if I wasn't self-conscious of how bad a look that is. But today's an occasion to celebrate, not to tear others down. Because Fullmetal Alchemist is my favorite thing, ever. No media franchise will hold my heart captive in it's palm better than FMA. But why do I love this franchise so much that I'm one or two impluses away from being a stan account for? Glad you asked. The basic premise of Fullmetal Alchemist is this, in a world where magic is a science called Alchemy; two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, attempt to use Alchemy to resurrect their dead mother. This works out poorly and leaves Edward ...

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. ...