Posts by Alex Porter [ 21 ]

Gaming Crushes: I Loved You Until You Opened Your Mouth

02/08/2012
5 Comments
by Alex Porter in: Editorials

So you see this girl across the room. She’s beautiful, mysterious, and she’s motioning you over. It could go any direction from here, but right now you think you know everything you need to, right? Wrong! It’s not every day that I bring up my dating history on a gaming website, but there are a couple of relationships I’ve had that I think are worthy of noting here, for the sake of some of my own back-story. Throughout February, Horrible [...]

Ready Player One Book Review: A Video Game Treasure Hunt

01/11/2012
2 Comments
by Alex Porter in: Editorials

So, books, eh? I know, they aren’t technically video games but there are some books, some glorious books, that are about video games. I’d like to take a few minutes from our normal writings on video games to tell you about one such tome. The book is titled Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. If you read our site then you’ll like this book. Bold statement, I know, but I really believe it and I’ll tell you why. Ready Player One [...]

Gua-Le-Ni Review: Flippin’ Blocks for Science!

11/30/2011
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by Alex Porter in: Rated, Reviews

Look out, it’s a Lob-Hog! Or is it a Wart-Ster? I’m not sure, but it’s all a part of Gua-Le-Ni, or: The Horrendous Parade, the inaugural game from Italian game developer Double Jungle. In this new puzzle game for the iPad the idea is to manipulate the order and orientation of a few “taxonomy cubes” which either have an animal head, torso, or backside as well as a piece of the animal’s name on each side in order to match [...]

Speaking Code: HTML5 and Games of the Open Web

11/09/2011
3 Comments
by Alex Porter in: Editorials

Games on the web are nothing new. About as long as the internet has existed, it seems like there have been games in the browser. In years past we’ve relied on browser plug-ins like Java, Shockwave, Flash, Silverlight, or Unity to play these games, but a new era is beginning as we speak. As browsers get faster and more powerful, they are able to handle the more complex capabilities required by games under their own power without the help of [...]

Glitch Review: Big Free Creativity

10/19/2011
1 Comment
by Alex Porter in: Rated, Reviews

You know what’s big? Giants. You know what giants have that are also big? Imaginations! So big in fact, that 11 giants combined their imaginations to create the game world of Glitch. Glitch is a new web-based MMO created by Tiny Speck that allows players to run around one “giant” universe learning, creating, and doing! You control a very customizable character that lives in the imaginations of the ancient giants (I like to think that one looks much like Cthulu). [...]

Gamer’s Journey: Robotic Operating Buddy

09/28/2011
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by Alex Porter in: Editorials

Ever since I was a child, I wanted to see the Robotic Operating Buddy for the NES, or R.O.B, in action. I’d seen about half of the pieces floating around my house growing up, but it always seemed like there wasn’t quite enough there to make it work. This thing looked like an awesome toy, if only I could use it. Every few years I think I tried to complete the machine and bring it to life, but with no [...]

Pixels and Rocket Science: An Interview with The Last Rocket Creator, Shaun Inman

09/07/2011
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by Alex Porter in: News, Our Culture

Being an interactive developer, I’ve been following Shaun Inman for quite a while. He fills that much coveted role of designer/developer/problem solver/creator of all great things very well, and in my industry, that’s the kind of person you want to pay attention to and learn from all you can. Recently he started talking more and more about his new passion, game development. I knew I had to play his newest game, so I played through (and barely put down until [...]

Baby Monkey (Going Backwards on a Pig) Review: All is Right in the World

08/17/2011
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by Alex Porter in: Rated, Reviews

Internet memes. They’re everywhere now, popping up by the second. One moment you see a turtle humping the crap out of a shoe, quickly followed by a man playing WoW and running to his death while screaming his name. The fact is, the mainstream media is saturated with them now as we have no less than half a dozen cable shows dedicated to showing these so-called “viral videos” on television. (They have to keep cable programming relevant somehow right?) Well the [...]

Gamer’s Journey: Lord of Ultima: Fall of an Empire

08/02/2011
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by Alex Porter in: Editorials

I’ve learned a LOT about myself in the recent weeks when it comes to how my “gaming” life and “real” life mix. But one of the biggest things I’ve learned is that my gaming habits do not occur in real time. A couple of months ago I wrote an article detailing my leadership training in the MMORTS Lord of Ultima. I have since stepped down as the leader of The Horrible Nights of Caledonia. While more and more of these “social” games make it [...]

Just 5 More Minutes: Kirby’s Dream Land

07/13/2011
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by Alex Porter in: Editorials

I need to talk today about a moment that is important in the life of every young gamer. When we’re young, we have all sorts of influences on our gaming habits. We may have parents who play, older siblings we watch play, or even friends at school we play with. At some point later you gain your independence and play a game that will be yours and yours alone. You’ve picked this game because you just think it’s fun. You [...]