Author: Westen
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Stellar Blade Review: More Like “Really Good Blade”
In the world of sports, there is nothing more exciting than a rookie. If a rookie shows you just about anything positive in their first year in the pros, your mind starts to extrapolate all the ways that player could become a superstar. Video games can often feel the same way. When you see a…
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1000xResist Spoiler Free Review: The Story of a Lifetime… Until it’s Not
I didn’t read any reviews for 1000xResist before I picked it up earlier this month. I just saw that it had gotten tremendous scores and went for it. As I started reading reviews and even some of the games’ marketing material after I beat it, I was surprised by how many plot details were pretty…
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Rise of the Ronin Review: Combat is King
Reviewing video games is an odd and inexact science. While almost every website has a similar review scale these days (7- good, 8- great, etc), I imagine that every reviewer has their own journey as to how they come up with that final number. I feel like, at times, many reviewers start at a certain…
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Little Kitty, Big City Review: A Pleasant Little Distraction
At times when I’m playing a particularly difficult or intense video game, my wife will look over at me and say, “You do this to RELAX?”. And well, yes, I do. In the end, I enjoy the intensity and stress that comes from video games. That intensity can be a big part of why I…
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My 15 Biggest Winners from Summer Game Fest Week
In a lot of the reaction pieces that I see from things like Summer Game Fest, the winners are usually the surprises and big showings. And those are awesome and all, but these often miss the mark, in my opinion. Summer Game Fest, Xbox Showcases, State of Plays, etc, are built for the purpose of…
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Unicorn Overlord: The King of Modern SRPGs
One of the hardest parts about playing Unicorn Overlord is its name. Whenever I’m playing it on the go with my Switch, I inevitably will get asked by someone “Hey, what game is that?” And early on, I felt uncomfortable with that question and found ways to duck it or be vague. I’m a pretty…
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Video Games Couldn’t Save Me From Depression, But a Dog Did
When I was 20 years old, I was not doing well. Seemingly nothing in my life was going my way. I had dreamed of being a journalist my whole life, and I had come to the sudden realization that the plans I had made since I was 6 years old were not going to work.…
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My Top 10 “Video Games as Art”
It wasn’t that long ago that arguments would still pop up from time to time declaring that “video games are not art.” By the strictest definition of art, it was almost always an absurd statement. Oxford Dictionary says that art is “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual…
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Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II Review: We’re Going To The Movies
One of the most amazing things about being in my mid-30s is that I have been able to watch almost every step in how video games have evolved over the years. There was a time when I’d watch cutscenes from a game in the PS/N64 era and wonder what it might be like when actual…
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Gaming Round up: Stellar Blade, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and Unicorn Overlord
It has been about a month since my last gaming round up. I continue to game hop maybe a bit too much, but there are just so many cool games to enjoy right now that it’s hard not to. Outside of shorter indie games and the upcoming Hellblade 2, there aren’t many big releases that…
Big Nerd Gaming 