I was primarily a PC gamer growing up. I had consoles, but my first choice of game and game type was generally on PC. From the memory match games I’d play against my father on our Tandy 1000 to the wide variety of games on my grandfather’s Commodore 64, and from the multiple 5-1/4″ floppy games like Blue Max to hard drive installed games like Rise of the Triad and Sim City, I’d play, play, play. Sim City 2000, especially, was a favorite of mine. I defeated aliens and Godzillas and rebuilt after tornadoes and earthquakes. I achieved arco exodus and populous cities on varied terrain. City building and maintenance is in my blood, and Tropico 4 fits right in. Read the full story

I know I probably said this in the last episode (This is Episode 12), as well, but this time I mean it: Marooners’ Talk is returning to a weekly format! WOOO! FANFARE AND APPLAUSE! Today’s episode of Marooners’ Talk, titled “The One Where We Talk About Some Games…And Shit” (so titled because I forgot to think of a title prior to recording) marks episode 13 of our on-again/off-again series, and marks the first episode of a (hopefully) consistent string of weekly recordings. Read the full story

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Before going into this review, there’s something you should know about me and my stance on zombies. In a conversation about zombies, I’m the guy vociferously and loquaciously pontificating about the oversaturation of the aforementioned subject matter in the highly enjoyable and addicting medium of video games. When done right, a zombie game can be fun. The issue is that zombies as a trend have become so popular that developers will randomly put zombies where they don’t belong (World War II, the Wild West, etc.) in order to capitalize on the popularity of said trend. That being said, I have no issue with zombies when done right, which brings me to All Zombies Must Die! Read the full story

I remember sitting in the crowded aisle of the Microsoft press conference at E3, watching the presentations with mixed reactions. Some I just could not care less about if I were paid to care less about them, while some filled me with childlike glee and anticipation. When Tim Schafer of Doublefine took the stage to present Once Upon A Monster, the Kinect based Sesame Street co-op game, I remembered the joy and entertainment I got out of Sesame Street as a child, and began to eagerly look forward to the rest of the presentation, and to the eventual release of the game. Read the full story

I have made recent mention of my incredible lack of artistic talent. That has not changed in the short time between that mention and this reminder. This supercharged deficiency makes a game like Pictionary particularly frustrating for anyone unlucky enough to be paired with me, and particularly satisfying and entertaining for anyone lucky enough to be positioned against me. So what game do I decide to play? Why, Pictionary: Ultimate Edition for use with the uDraw Tablet! Seems like a great idea, to me. Read the full story

I have a lot of respect for good artists. It’s not easy to do what they do, and it takes either preternatural talent, or lots of training to do it. I’m a terrible artist. Even something as simple as a stick figure ends up looking like an attempt at drawing a straight line during an earthquake, tornado, volcanic eruption, and mimicking Dave Gahan in Depeche Mode’s video for Everything Counts (for those of you who don’t get the reference, he dances like a spaz in that video; bad 80′s dancing at its finest). With that in mind, you’d think that I would avoid artistic endeavors, but you’d be wrong. I enjoy drawing, even if I’m awful at it. Thankfully, somehow, magically, the uDraw actually does make me a better artist. Perhaps its the digital medium, and perhaps a Wacom tablet would do the same thing for me, but I find that my drawings look just a little less atrocious than they do with pen & paper. Read the full story

Since the Kinect was launched, developers started crawling out of the wood work and have started making “games” for this new tech. Dancing seems to be the most obvious and prevalent of these, but unless you are into kids songs or club thumping there was not a place for the dancer inside of you to escape. Then comes Grease: The Game. Besides the obvious tie in to the movies, this game was designed for the worst dancers around. Read the full story

I’ve noticed an issue with reviewers using words like “beautiful” and “stunning” to describe anything ranging from the truly beautiful and stunning to the simply above average and well executed. I am far from innocent of this practice, but it’s a practice I’m trying to adjust and do away with. Why is this relevant? Overuse of a word like “beautiful” or “stunning” waters down the impact of the word. If everything is beautiful and stunning, then everything is pretty much on par with everything else. This is not always the case, and sometimes games that are vastly superior visually get lumped in with games that, while visually appealing, are not visually stunning. I say all of this because I’m about to say, “Trine 2 is stunningly beautiful,” and I want to make sure that statement has all of the impact it deserves. Read the full story

Not having owned a PlayStation 3 prior to June, there were a lot of PSN exclusives that were lost to me, much to my chagrin and disappointment. I remember when Joe Danger was first released, half a year before our PS3 came into our lives. I found myself desperately wishing that it would eventually become a multi-platform title, because it just looked like…fun. Well, children, sometimes wishes do come true. As I hope to make painfully clear and obvious in the following paragraphs, having now played Joe Danger: Special Edition, I am absolutely ecstatic that Microsoft Game Studios and Hello Games took a second look at Joe Danger and brought an improved version of it to XBLA. Read the full story

There’s a great knock-knock joke that I like to tell every now and then. It goes a little something…like this: “Knock-knock. Who’s there? Banana. Banana who? Knock-knock…etc.” This continues until the teller decides to change it from “Banana” to “Orange,” and the punchline changes to “Orange you glad I didn’t say banana again?” Why is this relevant? Well, I was thinking of Apples to Apples, the downloadable version of the popular board game, and realized that comparing the single player version to the board game would be like comparing apples and oranges. This, of course, reminded me of the most annoyingly wonderful knock-knock joke ever, and hey, here we are at the end of the introductory paragraph! Read the full story