All tagged with mail this.
Gaming Regrets: Mail This: Quit Crying, It’s not that Horrible
Dear Horrible Night, As I understand it, this month is all about gaming regrets. And I’d love to join in and share my feelings about games I’m sad I missed out on or games I wish I liked, except I’m not a whiny, moping child. Throughout January, Horrible Night will be featuring articles on Gaming [...]
Mail This: Fire All Phasers
Dear Producers of Tired-Assed Franchises, On September 8, 1966, Gene Roddenbury sent Captain James Tiberius Kirk and his crew of intrepid explorers on a mission to visit strange new worlds and boldly go where no man (or vulcan) had gone before. Since that date, there have been 11 feature-length films, 4 spin-off series, some very [...]
Mail This: I Need a Hero
Dear “Heroes”, I’m writing you today because most of you are boring and you don’t even know it. Although I’m cc-ing Commanders John and Jane Shepard and Agent Denton, I’m not berating them because they are nothing more than meat puppets for the gamer to control; their development does nothing more than ape the gamer’s adopted [...]
Mail This: Enough with the Tweaking
Dear Beloved Series’ “Improvement” Board, Although I’m willing to give you credit where it’s due when you successfully turn one game into a series that your customers salivate over when you show a preview video 18 months before release, you have a rather disturbing habit of attempting to re-invent the wheel and/or fix things that [...]
Mail This: Minibosses Unaware of Pecking Order
From: GiffTor, Outside Efficiency Consultant To: Midlevel, Mini- and Sub-Bosses Re: Organizational Structure Executive Summary I’ve been brought in by management and tasked with taking some of your time today to discuss the proper natural order of things, specifically, the fact that you are all mid-level bosses yet seem either unaware or uncaring regarding your [...]
Mail This: Invade Already!
Dear Malevolent Interstellar Invaders, Whether you’re an insectiform hive intent on wiping out any and all competitors, a reptilian dynastic empire driven to conquer and enslave all life, or synthetic super-collective whose prime directive is to assimilate intelligent life everywhere in a quest for god-hood… would you hurry up and invade already? Look, I know that [...]
Mail This: Pride is a Sin
Dear Electronic Entertainment Executives, Although the Catholic Church has since added some additional sins to the list, you really can’t go wrong with the original seven, particularly since they have such broad ranging appeal that the Mahatma, Mohandas K. Ghandi adopted them in a slightly broadened form. If you have any taste in movies and [...]
Mail This: Bio-Worn Out
Dear BioWare, I’ve spent a really disgusting amount of time using your games as an example of how to properly develop a game and an even more absurd amount of time in video game related discussions lauding your work. I don’t want to admit how many hours I’ve plowed into your games or how terrified [...]
Mail This: Kids, Teach Your Parents Well
Dear Gamer Kids, First off, you know those name tags that say, “Hello, My Name Is:”? Well, I’m not grown-up enough to write “An Authority Figure” on mine. For my younger cousins and nieces & nephews, I’m the semi-adult who tells their parents to calm down over the misunderstanding with the hair spray and the [...]
Mail This: Being Rockstar Went to Your Head
Dear Rockstar Studios (in all of your “cool” locations), It’s not every developer that can claim to have simultaneously pioneered the sandbox game, the cinematic plot experience, a mechanism by which you regain health by banging hookers and who manages to generate a conservative/non-gamer media shit-storm with almost every release not set in the old [...]
Mail This: Four Broken Microsoft Commandments
Dear Microsoft Legal Department, I’m hoping that you maintain the same sense of humor that you had when the Windows 7 phone was first jailbroken and keep in mind that everything I’m about to say is hypothetical, constructive criticism from a near-rabid consumer of your goods. Also, this is satire, which is protected by the [...]
Mail This: Humanity is Not a Parasite
Dear Union of Post-Apocalyptic Game Writers, I have a confession to make. If I had directed the amount of time that I have invested engrossed in the plot lines that you produce into something like “working” or “studying,” I might be one of those obnoxious 30-year old multi-millionaires, but I don’t toss and turn at [...]
Mail This: Your Classic Games Aren’t Worth Defending
Dear Annoying Pseudo-Cult-Classic Gamer, Since you’re a big fan of things that are, to paraphrase Agent J, the old busted-ness, here’s a quarter. Call someone who cares. If you can find a pay phone that is only $0.25. Without making up a fake percentage, most of us out in the gamer-verse don’t give a crap [...]
Mail This: Quit Wasting My Time With Broken Collectibles
Dear Muse for Video Game Developers, It’s been years since the first time this little issue resulted in my first smashed Sega Genesis controller and yet you continue to shirk your duties in reminding your charges that fixing it is easily done, would keep thousands of controllers from wanton, senseless destruction and save literally hundreds of [...]
Mail This: Only the Mechs Can Save Christmas
Dear Former Developers of Mech Games, I was writing a retrospective last week and I realized that the Awesomeness (which is like Mana, except in a fight between Awesomeness and Mana, Awesomeness wins) is leaking out of the world and it is your fault. I can grudgingly accept that the market will only support one [...]
