Category Archives: entertainment

Guys, it is time to start wrapping up the Ravenflight series. Here are the three final races: Centaurs, Gnomes and the Celestials. They are all markedly different. Centaurs are mostly good guys and kinda awesome. Gnomes are neutral but strange, … Continue reading →

In the past month or so, I have written quite a few posts about video games being a storytelling medium. I adore games that have compelling characters and carefully constructed narratives that avoid common tropes. Not everyone shares this opinion. … Continue reading →

My relationship with video games has changed over the years. When I was younger, every game was a wondrous journey into the land of entertainment and fun to me. But as I got older and experienced more games, both good … Continue reading →

The three green skinned races of Raven Islands are not directly related, and unlike various human ethnic groups they cannot interbreed. However they are frequently lumped together because of their skin color, and because they have all arrived on the … Continue reading →

Few weeks ago I wrote about a billion and seven words about Papers Please, which was a indie game that touched me in a rather personal way. Not only did it posses a wickedly dark humor and an absolutely soul-crushing … Continue reading →

Hey Ash Whatcha Playin’? commonly abbreviated as HAWP is a web based comedy series that I’ve been on and off following since about 2008. Every once in a while someone will post a link to a recent episode, or I … Continue reading →

If you feel lost, I highly recommend starting with Part 1 of this series which provides some background information with respect to goals and scope of this project. And now, formalities aside, lets talk about humans. To be frank, humans … Continue reading →

Back in April, I started writing what was supposed to be a gushing, three part Bioshock Infinite review. I never wrote the third part because, while I thought I had a lot to say about the story I actually didn’t. … Continue reading →

For a while now I have been running my Reinventing Fantasy Races series of posts in which I try to come up with unusual and unconventional approaches to common fantasy tropes. Over the last few months several people mentioned that … Continue reading →

Two weeks ago I reviewed Far Cry 3 which was a mix in terms of quality: really good in some places, really bad in others, offensive at times but really fun throughout. In my eyes, it stood out a bit … Continue reading →

Spoiler Warning: this review contains massive spoilers. You have been warned. I picked up Far Cry 3 during the Winter Steam Sale and played it throughout the holiday break. I must admit it was a lot of fun. This was … Continue reading →

I have a very strange relationship with the Fantasy genre. On one hand, I absolutely love the classic Tolkienesque “dwarves, elves and goblins” style settings in my movies, video games and pen and paper RPG’s. On the other hand, I … Continue reading →

It’s time to play that game in which you stare at a tiny picture with a mosaic of pixelated screenshots and try to make out what game they are from. Yes, it is the Name That Game… um… game. Last … Continue reading →

The big movie release this month is of course going to be The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Everyone is excited for it, and so am I, albeit cautiously knowing full well that these new films can never be what … Continue reading →

Shadowrun Returns is a really interesting product because it lets us examine whether or not Kickstarter works well as a platform for releasing niche titles. When teams of indie developers first jumped onto the crowd funding bandwagon, there was a … Continue reading →

When I first saw a trailer for the Pacific Rim I thought it was a terrible idea. The haphazardly shot teaser depicted giant robots, punching amorphous monster things using Michael-Bay style rapid-fire cuts and dynamic camera angles that worked so … Continue reading →

If you remember my review of the original Thor movie, you might recall that I was slightly underwhelmed by it. One of the main weaknesses I pointed out in that review was that the film makers were still very much … Continue reading →

Here in US we just celebrated Halloween, and the new season of The Walking Dead has just begun so I’ve been thinking a lot about Zombies again. We had a few really good Zombie themed threads over here in the … Continue reading →

If you’re up for a good read, put Grass by Sheri Tepper on your to read list immediately. It is a solid, wonderfully written Science Fiction novel, with amazing characters and interesting premise. It is also the book that inspired … Continue reading →

Remember my Reinventing Fantasy Races series? I haven’t done this in a while, haven’t I? So, lets do it, and lets do it hard. I’ve been focusing on anthropomorphic races in the past, so lets try something different. I’m going … Continue reading →

Every once in a while I like to pick up SF classics that I have missed in my childhood. A while ago I compiled a list of my personal picks for essential SF novels, but I often find new books … Continue reading →

Gaming as a hobby has always had a core audience. The target demographic which most developers tend to care about the most has traditionally been the 16-30 year old males. Of course publishers are happy to sell their games to … Continue reading →

There are two kinds of stories awesome and not awesome. Professional critics may use much more granular scale, but for my purposes this is pretty much sufficient. The awesomeness of the story, as indicated by the back-of-the-cover blurb or it’s … Continue reading →

It was the lazy summer of 97 (or maybe 98) when the three of us sat on the cool basement floor, clustered around the TV and swearing like sailors every time Lara died which worked out to be about every … Continue reading →

Charless Stross is currently one of my favorite SF authors, but his output can sometimes be uneven. He typically averages between stuff that’s absolutely bloody brilliant (Accelerando, Glass House) to high end pulp (like Singularity Sky). Even his low-end, underwhelming … Continue reading →