Entries in the "Gaming" Category

August 15, 2010
As I noted before late last year I decided that my blogging project for 2010 would be writing one article a week about the overlap of psychology and video games. Thus psychologyofgames.com was born. While the site hasn't exactly "blown up" mega huge, it has developed a readership that's sizeable...

July 16, 2010
I came across Lawrence Kuthner and Cheryl Olson’s Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth about Violent Games (And What Parents Can Do) while doing some research for an article on the psychology of video games. The book is the end result of a research program by the authors, funded...

April 22, 2010
April 22 weight: 170.0 Weight two weeks ago: 170.5 5 day avg weight: 171.7 5 day avg weight two weeks ago: 171.4 Workouts in last 7 days: 6 Hrm, stuck in another plateau. Weight spiked up on Monday, then it took me the rest of the week so far to...

March 4, 2010
Gearbox's Borderlands is kind of a weird bird as far as first person shooters go. In some ways it smacks of a game that wasn't quite 100% finished, and you get the inkling that its publisher just jettisoned it out into the wild, knowing full well that it might...

December 27, 2009
Over the last couple of weeks I've been working on a new blogging project for 2010. I thought that instead of doing more weekly reviews on books or movies, I'd tackle something bigger and honestly more interesting. Well interesting to me; not sure about you yet. I figure, I like...

December 18, 2009
I had good intentions. I was going to start blogging up reviews of all the video games I played and posting them here for you all to ignore. I even did a few, which the laws of probability say you can eventually find by performing random clicking motions on the...

December 4, 2009
When GameFly sent me Guitar Hero 5 instead of all the other more exciting games ahead of it in my queue, I grimaced. Badly. Activision has been busily bloating the market with an exasperating number of entries in the fake plastic rock genre lately, what with Guitar Hero 5,...

November 20, 2009
I think that technically the full name of this game is Call of Duty 6: Modern Warfare 2 or I may just be confused by some rebranding sleight of hand but who cares? The game sold 50 hoojilion copies in its first day, and for an understandable reason: developer...

November 15, 2009
It's one of my great shortcomings as a gamer that I never played any of the original Monkey Island adventure games released by Lucasarts in the 1990s. This is a shame, because those games and their SCUMMy ilk essentially created the "exploration and rubbing things together" blueprint for adventure...

October 11, 2009
Spider: The Mystery of Bryce Manor was really my introduction to an iPod Touch game that had substantial production values and a price tag where the decimal point was somewhere besides the far left. It's fantastic, really. The concept can be summed up as "You play a spider and...

October 1, 2009
The case (har har) of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is an interesting one. It's the first entry in what has become a long running series for the Nintendo DS (though the original game was actually on the Game Boy Advance in Japan) and even created a couple of spin...

September 24, 2009
So this is a really alluring premise for a video game: solve a series of little environmental puzzles by conjuring almost any object you can think of and interacting with it in the game. That's awesome! Who doesn't get excited about a direct pipeline from his imagination to a...

September 13, 2009
No, seriously. Thanks. When my first Xbox 360 console died on me, you were nice enough to send me a refurbished one as a replacement. Apparently that was enough though, because just 3 months or so after the warranty on THAT one ran out, it started freezing up and giving...

August 1, 2009
Red Faction Guerrilla (RFG) is the latest in a series of shooters involving the liberation of Mars from a bunch of jerks. This third entry into the series mixes the formula up a bit, though. The first change is that RFG is an "open world" game where you can...

July 18, 2009
So, if you were to look at the bullet points on the back of Prototype's box, you'd see some stuff about an open world game and lots and lots of action. The thing about the latter is that it is generally so extreme that it looks down on "over...

June 27, 2009
Here is what I would like to know: What is Japan's problem? I mean besides the squid cookies. I'm specifically thinking here about Capcom, a Japanese video game developer who felt it necessary to screw up Lost Planet, which for me was shaping up to be a pretty good...

June 20, 2009
Indigo Prophecy is perhaps the worst game I've ever played and I hate forever everyone who suggested that I should try it. Eager as I am to expunge abomination of a game from my mind, I'm tempted to leave my review at that. But I'll press on. For you....

June 13, 2009
Imagine one of the recent Grand Theft Auto games, only set in a hell hole of a private school and instead of playing a thuggish criminal trying to survive the streets you play a thuggish problem child trying to survive the hallways. There. That's pretty much Bully. Like the...

June 6, 2009
There's a lot of things that fight zombies: Soldiers. Nuns. Children. I have to admit, though, that I'd have never thought of pitting them against vegetable matter, which is probably one of the reasons I'm not working at Pop Cap Games making ridiculously addictive downloadable games. Now, I know...

December 20, 2007
Do you? If so, feel free to add me to your friend's list: Put your gamertag here too. Gamertag: hjmadigan In general, I'm really impressed with how well the Xbox Live service works. It's smooth, seamless, and ever present without being obtrusive. I just need some more friends who have...

October 23, 2007
If any of the weekly updates get delayed, here's the reason: Not pictured: My new copy of Bioshock. Big thanks to my sister, my brother-in-law, my mom, my in-laws, Geralyn, and Google for giving the money to buy this as a birthday present. Having had some time to play around...

January 6, 2007
I finally finished the PS2 game Final Fantasy XII the other night. After over 70 hours playing time over a couple of months (a lot, but not a record --I put in over 250 hours on Baldur's Gate 2 for the PC) I was ready to call it quits...

November 19, 2006
Well, as I mentioned I would do in my screed against the PS3 launch, I got up this morning in an attempt to procure a Wii, the new Nintendo gaming console that went on sale today (and in some places, at midnight last night). Here's what's sitting in front of...

November 17, 2006
So the Playstation 3 (PS3) launched today, providing unequal measures of relief and frustration to the hundreds (thousands?) of numskulls who camped out in all kinds of awful circumstances ranging from bad weather to drive-by shootings (with BB guns, but still) to robberry to near riots when hapless store...

September 1, 2006
Here's another sign that I'm playing too much World of Warcraft, and maybe working too much to boot. I've been working out of remote offices for most of the last 3 weeks, which has put me really behind on my work e-mail. Yesterday I sat down to get a handle...

August 12, 2006
One of the cool things about moving to a new house is that you uncover neat stuff you had long ago crammed into some cardboard box and forgot that you even had. Sometimes that stuff turns out to be real treasures, like original artwork from one of the creators of...

August 1, 2006
"And what's Daddy doing?" "I'm playing a game. It's called World of Warcraft." "He's flying!" "Yeah! He's riding on the back of a Griffin." "It's a bird." "Actually, Sammy, it's got the head and wings of an eagle, but the body of a lion. It's called a Griffin." "...It has...

June 21, 2006
My friend Sean put up a very interesting commentary on video game criticism on his blog, and it's really worth a read by anyone even mildly interested in the topic. Sean's comments are in response to an article in Esquire Magazine on the same subject. The Esquire piece wonders why...

January 27, 2006
You know you're playing too much World of Warcraft when you're picking out medicine for your feverish daughter and you think --actualy think the words-- "Well, both Tylenol and Advil reduce fever, but Tylenol has a cooldown period of four hours while Advil is six. But Tylenol stacks with the...

January 5, 2006
When not doing I/O type stuff, I've been playing a computer game called "World of Warcraft." For you philistines who haven't heard of it, it's an online, fantasy-themed game where you create a character and play with (or against) thousands of other, real people from all over the world....

December 17, 2005
I'm obviously a gamer, and as such I amassed quite a collection of games. This is especially true of the years I spent working at GameSpy, as that time represents not only my most active gaming period (so far, anyway), but also the time in which I received the most...

August 5, 2005
Pst, hey. If you've been hearing a lot about these new-fangled video games but aren't familiar enough with them to make a judgement about their value, go read this article in The Economist right now. It's well researched, level-headed, fair, sensible, and generally brilliant. There are many little gems in...

May 21, 2005
Time to wrap up my E3 blogging for the year with a few photos. Okay, over 40 photos. Sorry to those of you not on broadband. There's a few that I feel like I need to discuss specifically. As in previous years, I stayed late at the L.A. Convention Center...

May 20, 2005
E3 is over. Actually, it's still going on today, but I only stayed two days again this year. Just like last year, at the beginning of the first day I thought "Wow, there's no way I'm going to be able to see everything I want in just two days." But...

May 18, 2005
Just like last year, I'm off to the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) to cover it for GameSpy.com. Actually, I'm here right now in the GameSpy/IGN (or IGN/GameSpy, whatever) "war room." Unfortunately the power is out in half of the LA Convention Center, including the Media Registration room. So I can't...

May 12, 2005
The following is an open letter to Sony Computer Entertainment Studios: Dear SCE Studios, I've recently been playing your God of War game and I have to ask: What's it like to be possessed of your special kind of idiot savant mind? You do so much in this game that's...

March 29, 2005
Right, so as I've mentioned and as I'm sure Geralyn will grumble about if you ask her, I've been playing a lot of World of Warcraft lately. Short description of the game: You role-play, on your computer, fantasy themed characters with thousands of other people around the world. I've been...

March 8, 2005
My review of Star Wars Republic Commando for the PC is up at GameSpy.com today. It's a great game with amazingly high production values, but it's short and the multiplayer component is barely worth a derisive snort. But still, Republic Commando is a very good game I'd recommend whether you...

February 22, 2005
At work I've started referring to my daily To Do list as "my Quest Log." I think I may be playing too much World of Warcraft. Yes, I've taken a flying leap onto the World of Warcraft bandwagon and landed squarely in the dogpile. For the philistines among you, World...

February 1, 2005
My preview of Star Wars Republic Commando for the PC went up on GameSpy.com today: If the Star Wars movies are typically shown from the high-falootin' view of the Jedi Knights, then the hard-working Clone Troopers of Star Wars Republic Commando are your tour guides to the grittier, more brutal...

December 14, 2004
My review of The Chronicles of Riddick - Escape from Butcher Bay went up today at GameSpy.com. Said the quote monkey: Wait, wait. I know what you're probably thinking about The Chronicles of Riddick - Escape from Butcher Bay, especially if you didn't pay attention to the Xbox version released...

November 17, 2004
So Half-Life 2 came out yesterday. For those of you who are not PC gamers, all you need to know about this event is that the only thing that would have made it more momentous would have been if Jesus Himself had hand-delivered it to you, saying "Well, I was...

November 14, 2004
Or should I say "Battle out of Heck?" No, come to think of it I shouldn't. But at any rate, my review of this expansion pack is up at GameSpy.com. Scribbled the quote monkey: When Painkiller came out earlier this year, it surprised a lot of people. On its rugged,...

October 29, 2004
My Review of Shadow Ops: Red Mercury is up at GameSpy.com today. Again with the subpar shooters. This pretty much sums it up: Shadow Ops: Red Mercury is just a first-person shooter with all the markings of mediocrity. It's got linear levels, an unimpressive arsenal, and simplistic shooter gameplay for...

October 22, 2004
Okay, imagine this as a premise for a video game: You play a little ball of garbage that rolls around picking up other garbage, until you become a huge ball of garbage, at which point you turn into a star. Sounds weird? It is, it's called Katamari Damacy, and I'll...

October 5, 2004
My Shellshock: Nam '67 review went live on GameSpy today. The game's a dud. I'm also currently playing Shadow Ops: Mercury Rising for review, and I'm unimpressed and annoyed so far. But I'm only a few levels in. ...

September 30, 2004
table.page { border-width:1px; border-color:#993333; border-style:solid; background-color: white; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 12px; } Like a bajillion other people, I picked up The Sims 2 recently. This is a "people simulator" kind of game where you create your little family members, build their house, and run their lives. And...

September 10, 2004
My preview of Shellshock Nam'67 went up on GameSpy.com yesterday. Here's a snippet that should give you an idea of what the game is: The third-person shooter's main catch seems to be that, unlike other games that remove blood or soften things up in order to get a "T" rating,...

September 2, 2004
PC gaming is an expensive mistress. Since Sam was born I've managed to play on the cheap by buying older games, but the time finally came when my old computer was too ...old. When a typical first person shooter started looking like a slideshow, I knew it was time to...

May 14, 2004
People have been asking me to describe E3 to them, and I usually say it's something like a cross between a professional wrestling event, a glitzy Hollywood movie premiere, and that scene in every Godzilla movie where great crowds of people point at stuff and scream. That's pretty accurate, but...

March 12, 2004
For a while there, I thought I may not be a gamer any more. Not only does baby Samantha demand a lot more of the time that used to be used for gaming, I just didn't feel the urge to play like I used to. It did use to feel...

March 5, 2004
Nowadays I don't visit GameSpy (or any other site like it) very often, but I do feel compelled to point you towards something very cool that they're doing now: The Ultimate Gaming Grudge. Or maybe it's called "Title Fight". It's so awesome it needs two names. The concept is pretty...

February 5, 2004
When my daughter was born, I started to research books and other educational materials. To my dismay, I found very few basic books appropriate for little gamers in training. Most of the materials were all about sharing, harmony, and caring. Where were the books about fragging, point whoring, and team...

January 16, 2004
Well, not really, judging by my conspicuous lack of bling and/or drug addiction. But I was kind of surprised to find this page dedicated to me on RottenTomatoes.com. There I am by merit of the video game reviews I've written for GameSpy.com. In fact, most of the GameSpy.com staff can...

January 3, 2004
There's been a fair amount of stupidity going on in the media about the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. It seems to have replaced Doom as the psychotic whipping boy for those interested in slathering all over violence and video games. So, good for Doom, I guess. Once...

October 20, 2003
Started playing Max Payne 2 last night, and I'm very impressed. Though I hear it's short, the game is infused with so much quality it's squirting out through its gritty pores. The physics engine is an absolute riot to play with --you can knock objects down and around realistically, and...

September 16, 2003
My review of Greyhawk Adventures: Temple of Elemental Evil is up at GameSpy.com today. You can read the review for the details, but in general I thought it was a worthwhile romp. I'd recommend it to you since I know you enjoy romps of the good varieity. Just a few...