See, when a game concept loves another game concept very much, they do a “special hug” to produce an even cooler and more interesting gaming genre. Back in the day, a spreadsheet was impregnated by a roving atlas only to sire a long line of Paradox Interactive’s unique brand of complex Grand Strategy. Elsewhere, the classic board game of Chess mated with a ‘roided Real Time Strategy to produce a little guy named “Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance”, whom went on to have a fling with Marketing to ultimately dilute its lineage. “Sins of a Solar Empire” was the coddled love-child of a long string of “4X” games whom ultimately decided to go rogue and get rid of the Turn-Based element to their family’s chagrin, and continues with body modifications and facelifts to this day while flirting with and inspiring new types of games. Anyways, Grand Strategy, Forged Alliance, Sins of a Solar Empire, and an internet whore called Turret Defense (who has enough bastard offspring to invade China) all had the notion to have a group orgy and produced the under-appreciated indie game known as “AI War: Fleet Command”.

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Why do we punish ourselves? I’m not here to debate that. Instead, let me offer up two titles: Catherine and Dark Souls. Both are unique and deceptively simple video games. Both will challenge you beyond the point of frustration. Both come quickly and easily with my heartfelt recommendation…. but then again I don’t know your personality or skills well enough to distinguish between “passing along great games” and “wishing them upon you”. Why would you want to subject yourself to redundant and teeth-grinding difficulty? For the accomplishment and bragging rights, of course. Not to mention the total gaming experience that you will not find anywhere else.

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Why do we punish ourselves? I’m not here to debate that. Instead, let me offer up two titles: Catherine and Dark Souls. Both are unique and deceptively simple video games. Both will challenge you beyond the point of frustration. Both come quickly and easily with my heartfelt recommendation…. but then again I don’t know your personality or skills well enough to distinguish between “passing along great games” and “wishing them upon you”. Why would you want to subject yourself to redundant and teeth-grinding difficulty? For the accomplishment and bragging rights, of course. Not to mention the total gaming experience that you will not find anywhere else.

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Well, the 12-year wait for a sequel is over and Diablo fans are dusting off their criticism caps for another jab at industrial snob Blizzard Entertainment. Blizzard as you may know, is the poorest, most under-funded, and most “indie” niche developer in the video game market due in no small part to the fact that they have created exactly 3 playable games (none of them popular) since their founding in the early 90’s. It would seem that these most recent gripes might prove to be substantiated, however, since pics of a special character class leaked from an internal source has yet to be discovered by even the most hardcore of nerdaholics stuttering their way through the various other classes and game modes.

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The term “Meta” is synonymous with the Big Picture nowadays. It represents an idea within an idea, or two ideas connected by an interesting line of thought. It ties things that may not have been previously related, or dials back the scope to a degree that a larger network becomes the focus. I’ve been playing video games for a “reasonable” amount of time, thinking I’ve seen everything the industry has to throw at me, every trick in the book. But I came across an idea that blew my mind.

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