technology
VIDEO: HOOK EM’, STITCHES! Learning to love your hooks with Stitches in HEROES OF THE STORM
Want to hook with the best of the best? Watch me as I teach you to pass the Stitches Hook test. This is my first commentary and tutorial video for Heroes of the Storm, talking all about the best ways to position, play, and hook as everyone’s favorite abomination, Stitches. Continue reading
Better living through punching: A ‘Heroes of the Storm’ guide for the Monk, Kharazim
My name is Will Harrison and allow me to welcome you again for another Backlog Adventures character guide for the Blizzard MOBA Heroes of the Storm. In our last guide, we covered the awkwardly, awesomely adorable melee specialist Murky. This time around, I’ll be talking about the newest support character in the game, as well as the first support Hero from the Diablo universe: Kharazim, the Monk of Ivgorod.
On ‘The act of Not Writing’
Today I would like to talk about writing. To be more specific, I want to talk about not being able to write. Of course, I don’t mean some kind of debilitating infliction by which my hands can no longer move and I am left attempting to train a series of parrots-each with their own keyboard–to respond to an intricate series of whistles and mouth pops that will instruct them on which letters to type on my behalf
That would be absurd. Instead, let’s discuss the sheer inability to will yourself to write down words. Some call it ‘writer’s block.’ I call it a revolving wheel of apathy, personal failure, and extreme paranoia caused by an overactive superiority complex.
I guess that doesn’t fit on a t-tshirt, so let’s just refer to this phenomenon from this point out as The Cycle.
Nintendo’s failure linked to technology, game sales, and indie developers
Nintendo’s recent financial troubles have opened the floodgates for discussion on where the gaming company went wrong. The recent stock price drop and projected decrease in sales numbers are just one of many woes in the wake of the release of the Wii-U. Nintendo’s third-party relationships have failed and a formerly strong user base has been left feeling alienated by a company that seems stuck in the past.
Where did Nintendo go wrong? The lack of first-party titles? Marketing the Wii-U as a family device and failing to show consumers a difference between the new console and the Wii?
Any of these and more are valid criticism. The biggest contributors to the failure of the Wii-U are a poor and misguided use of technology and the internet, the rise and prevalence of game sales changing how consumers view the worth of Nintendo software, and Nintendo’s outright snubbing of an independent game developer community in their own back yard.
On PlayStation Plus, the best value in gaming
Retro City Rampage, Mega Man 9 and 10, NBA Jam: On Fire Edition, Darksiders, Guardians of Middle-Earth, Vanquish, Joe Danger 2: The Movie, Demon’s Souls, Zombie Tycoon 2, Sleeping Dogs, LittleBigPlanet Karting, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Saints Row: The Third, Battlefield 3, Bit. Trip Runner Presents: Runner 2, Resident Evil Chronicles HD Collection, Ico, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Shadow of the Colossus, Poker Night at the Inventory, Hotline Miami, Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen, Binary Domain, Grid 2, Borderlands 2, DmC: Devil May Cry, Bioshock Infinite, Resogun, Don’t Starve, Gravity Rush, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Wipeout 2048, Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus, Plants vs. Zombies, Disgaea 3, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend, Rayman Origins, Sine Mora, Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath HD, Soul Sacrifice, Sonic & All Stars Racing: Transformed, Urban Trial Freestyle.
If I were to add up the cost of each of these games as they cost today on the PlayStation Network store, the exact total–and I did the math twice–would be $862.13. You may be asking yourself what is so special about this specific list of games. Why the unnecessarily tedious math?
These are the games I have received in the one year and two months that I have been a PlayStation Plus member. The cost of that membership thus far? $85, thanks to a Christmas discount last month on the typically 50 dollar a year subscription. This doesn’t even take into account the discounts I have received on games and DLC.
PlayStation Plus is by far the greatest value in gaming and may very well be why Sony is poised to take back the console gaming crown.
On contextual storytelling, Dark Souls, and Don’t Starve
For my darling wife Rachel on her 26th birthday.
Some things are better left unsaid. Nothing is more true when it comes to the art of storytelling and the ability of a tale to not reveal all of the cards being held. The concept of letting a viewer or reader find their own way through a story or performance, left to their own devices to piece together plot, motive, and context is one of the oldest and most important fundamentals of storytelling.
Video games in the current era are getting in on the act, using the environment, items, actions, and sometimes a lack thereof all three in order to tell a story without telling the story.
Whether it’s a ragged doll in Dark Souls, a wrong turn down a stairwell in Bioshock Infinite, or the discovery of what beard hair and animal manure can do in Don’t Starve, it’s all part of contextual storytelling that allows players to find as much or as little of the details as they want.
Backlog Adventures 