The year was 1999, and I was slouched on my friend Mark’s basement couch, watching him play some new skateboarding game on his PlayStation. “You gotta try this,” he insisted, passing me the controller after his two-minute run ended. I took it reluctantly. I wasn’t particularly interested in skateboarding games—my previous experience with them had been clunky side-scrollers or overly complicated sims that never quite captured what made skating cool. Plus, I was on a…
There are certain gaming experiences that burn themselves into your memory—moments so intense that your palms sweat just thinking about…
If episode one of Amazon’s Fallout series was about establishing this world for newcomers while throwing nostalgic nods to us…
Episode 4 of The Last of Us TV series is called Please Hold My Hand. This episode deals with Joel…
Last night I watched Fallout’s seventh episode with the same anxious energy I feel when I’m down to my last…
There’s something uniquely satisfying about championing the underdog. Maybe that’s why, nestled between my PlayStation 5 and Switch in my…
The first time I ever played StarCraft was at my friend Kevin’s house in the spring of 1998. His parents…
I remember the exact moment RPGs changed for me. It was Christmas 1991, and I was thirteen years old, unwrapping…
I was thirteen when I first stepped into the rain-soaked opening of A Link to the Past, huddled in the…
The first time I saw Street Fighter II was at Circus Pizza, this dingy little arcade/pizza joint hybrid about fifteen…
How Mario Kart 64 Became the Ultimate Party Game The smell of microwave popcorn and Mountain Dew. The glow of…
The summer of 1989 was defined by two things for me: a horrifically awkward growth spurt that made me look…
I still remember the first time I booted up The Secret of Monkey Island. It was summer break, 1991, and…
I remember the exact moment I fell in love with adventure games. It was Christmas 1990, and after weeks of…
There are moments when some games just leave lasting marks on players, and for some reason, with their strange gravity…
