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Unrequited Love: Re-assessing your Hobbies
I’ve always felt Power Cords was a personal space. I started the blog as a way to get my thoughts out there, as well as enable friends and fellow writers a platform to do the same. We’ve had some rather revealing discussions here, but usually exclusively in the context of a single piece of entertainment, […]
Impressions
Gaming Journal March 8, 2013: Tomb Raider Impressions
I have put about 5 or 6 hours into the Tomb Raider reboot by Eidos and Square Enix, and I can … [Read More...]
Gaming Journal: February 22, 2013 – The Return
Power Cords is back this week! It's been a few weeks since we've really posted much, but considering … [Read More...]
The Hobbit Review
The Hobbit is finally here! We are finally returning to Middle-Earth after we fell in love with the … [Read More...]
Hotline Miami Review
What it is: Hotline Miami is a violent, top-down beat-'em-up style game from Swden's Dennaton … [Read More...]
Features & Editorials
Unrequited Love: Re-assessing your Hobbies
I've always felt Power Cords was a personal space. I started the blog as a way to get my thoughts … [Read More...]
Return of the old school RPG part IV: Might & Magic X Legacy
I am scornfully resenting my inability to have attended this year's PAX East convention because … [Read More...]
Why We Could Use a (Small) Collapse of the Gaming Industry.
Videogames have become too big. I don't mean the number of people playing them is too large -- in my … [Read More...]
Shootin’ the Shit: March 8, 2013 — Angry Mobs
Hey! Been a while, how have you been? After weeks off, I'm finally getting around to posting again, … [Read More...]
All Posts
Unrequited Love: Re-assessing your Hobbies
I've always felt Power Cords was a personal space. I started the blog as a way to get my thoughts out there, as well as enable friends and fellow writers a platform to do the same. We've had some rather revealing discussions here, but usually exclusively in the context of a single piece of entertainment, or the gaming/film industries themselves. This will probably be my most personal post on the site. Sometimes, events occur that force you to look at your life and your priorities in a different way. Just shy of two weeks ago, an event of such caliber took place in my life. It left me … [Read More...]
Return of the old school RPG part IV: Might & Magic X Legacy
I am scornfully resenting my inability to have attended this year's PAX East convention because there were some great announcements: SuperGiant's next game, Transistor, was shown off; The official name for the Double Fine's Kickstarter Adventure, Broken Age, was revealed; Capcom announced they would be remaking the classic platformer Duck Tales (which elicited such nostalgia-soaked hysteria from twitter it was almost allarming); but in keeping with the spirit of this column, I want to focus on one announcement in particular: Ubisoft's upcoming Might & Magic X Legacy. When the title … [Read More...]
Why We Could Use a (Small) Collapse of the Gaming Industry.
Videogames have become too big. I don't mean the number of people playing them is too large -- in my mind, the more people playing the better. No, I mean that the gaming industry as a business is too damn big. Last E3 is a perfect example as to why. The entire show was dedicated to well-known publishers parading their franchises around as the next Call of Duty or World of Warcraft. Horror games were masked as bro-shooters, open world sandboxes were turned into neck-stabbing simulators, and character-driven stories were boiled down to blood-spattered action sequences. It was insulting, to … [Read More...]
Gaming Journal March 8, 2013: Tomb Raider Impressions
I have put about 5 or 6 hours into the Tomb Raider reboot by Eidos and Square Enix, and I can safely say it is -- at this point -- the best early contender for game of the year. I realize that may be a slight hyperbole, but from the first moments I've been enthralled in this tense story of survival. The story itself isn't anything groundbreaking. There's a decent level of mystery on the island, and I can tell the story is slowly gearing up to some interesting twists and reveals, but what I find to be so affecting is the growth of Lara herself. She began the game scared, injured, and on … [Read More...]
Shootin’ the Shit: March 8, 2013 — Angry Mobs
Hey! Been a while, how have you been? After weeks off, I'm finally getting around to posting again, and with that comes a new addition of Shootin' the Shit. On the site itself, I posted two features, The Return of the Old School RPG parts 2 and 3, both of them follow up to my original from a few months ago. But that's not all that happened this week. News So much has happened these past 5 days. It seems like almost every day this week has had a big story. With those stories, came droves angry internet mobs, so lets cover the big ones. SimCity Launches... err, sorta So this week, … [Read More...]
Return of the Old School RPG Part THREE!? — Richard Garriott and Shadowrun Returns
Shroud of the Avatar There is probably one name more synonymous with old school role playing games than any other: Richard Garriott. He pioneered the idea of games as worlds, crafted the earliest CRPGs with the Ultima series, and sparked the MMO genre with Ultima Online. Hell, he even was the first guy to sell a game in a box. He's a pretty important dude, in RPGs or just gaming in general. Admittedly, I haven't played nearly as much Ultima as I probably should have. In fact, other than a few brief hours with a couple of the games, the series is pretty foreign to me. For me, names … [Read More...]
The return of the Old School RPG part 2 — Torment: Tides of Numenera
Perhaps one of the single most exciting videogame announcements of the past several years occurred a few weeks ago. A spiritual sequel to one of the greatest games ever made, Planescape: Torment, will be appearing in the form of a new, isometric CRPG called Torment: Tides of Numenera. Today, inXile -- the development team behind Torment, as well as the upcoming Wasteland 2 -- launched their Kickstarter campaign, aiming to fund $900,000 over the next 30 days, surpassed its goal in under six hours, and at this time has raised over $1.5 million from 28,173 backers, myself included. Obviously, … [Read More...]
Gaming Journal: February 22, 2013 – The Return
Power Cords is back this week! It's been a few weeks since we've really posted much, but considering the excitement of the PS4 announcement and deluge or February/March game releases to look forward to, I felt the time was right to jump back in to the blogging realm. It's been a few months since I posted another entry in my gaming journal series, but that isn't just because we took a break from the blog itself. Let's face it, there haven't been many games to come out these past couple months, and with a few exceptions the ones that have have been unspectacular. However, in that time I've … [Read More...]
Reacting to Sony Meeting 2013: The PS4 is Real.
And there you have it. The PS4 is real; it's powerful, it's innovative, and easy to use for both developers and consumers, and we'll be playing it this Holiday season. But most importantly, we saw games. New game, new IP. Sure, there were sequels, but there were so many amazing looking announcements. I'm still processing and decompressing -- that was a solid 2 hours of impressive footage and exciting ideas. I don't want to over-hype it, but the system sounds impressive. It 's seems like a truly next-gen machine, and Sony has clearly made some important partnerships. There are still … [Read More...]
Sony’s Big Announcement: Will it Bring Innovation, or More of the Same?
Today's a big day; Sony is poised to announce the "future of Playstation" in just a few short hours. We can only assume this means the next Playstation console. I'm very excited, not because I'm foaming at the mouth for a new console, and not because I'm a Sony fanboy (I haven't owned a Sony device since the PS2/PSP days); it's because finally, hopefully, I'll start to see the changes in video games I've been hoping for. For the past few years, I've had a pretty interesting relationship with video games. Mass Effect and Metroid Prime got me back into games in a big way. I was given an … [Read More...]
Gatecrash Spoilers: Batch Number 1
It’s that time of year again! That’s right, it’s spoiler season! While the first batch of spoilers admittedly came out about a month ago with a curious Craigslist sale I wanted to wait a bit longer so that I had a little more to sink my teeth into and then along came Cipher and all of the sudden I had more than I could chew. Let me start with those first five mythics which were spoiled first and from there move onto the guild mechanics. So it now is official. It cost 8UUUU to win the game. So for 12 mana you don’t only get to draw your whole library but you get an extra turn to … [Read More...]
Marshal’s Top 7 Films of 2012
2012 has been a phenomenal year for movies. Despite not being able to watch every worthy film I still had an excessively long list from the movies I was fortunate to watch. With that being said, I would like to reiterate that the movies on this list are the movies that I personally enjoyed the most out of the ones that I saw this year. Before jumping into the list I would recommend checking out the video below. Kees van Dijkhuizen Jr. makes these amazing compilations each year of all of the films that have come out and it makes for a perfect reminder of all of the gems that we got in … [Read More...]
Shootin’ the Shit: 2013 is going to be nuts.
2012 is just about over. The holidays are wrapping up, the new year draws nearer by the minute, and we can start getting excited about the coming year. I've got plenty to say about everything from games to music to movies, so let's take this one at a time. First off, games! Games in 2013 2012 had some awesome games, but 2013 is going to be a big year. We're all anticipating announcements from both Sony and Microsoft regarding new consoles; Valve is hard at work on a mysterious "Steam box"; The Ouya promises to give independent creators a new open source platform; and Nintendo … [Read More...]
The Best and Worst Games of 2012
2012 is winding to a close, and while there may be a few weeks left in the year, for all intents and purposes the gaming industry has slowed to a crawl until the first week of the New Year. Because of this, it's time for year-end lists! Last year had some truly great, landmark games. Dark Souls, Rayman: Origins, The Witcher 2, Bastion, and Skyrim were all experiences I enjoyed, most of which I still play over a year after they were released. 2011 was slightly less spectacular, but still a pretty big year for the games industry as a whole. Beyond just the games released, we saw a new … [Read More...]
Console Anxiety: Mending my relationship with Nintendo
A couple weeks ago, the hard drive on my gaming laptop (also my work and school laptop) went bully-up. Last week, my Xbox 360 began to randomly freeze after an hour or two of play. It's still running fine, and certain game seem to do worse than others, but it's made me apprehensive about even turning it on for fear that it, too, my be wearing out. Luckily, I'm home for the winter break so I can use the ol' family PC to write and get in a little Street Fighter x Mega Man here and there. But it's not a long-term solution. I still have a few weeks before I'll be able to nab a new hard … [Read More...]
Street Fighter x Mega Man!
I know I don't really talk about it much, but I'm actually a pretty big Capcom fan. Not the biggest, to be fair, but more so than others. Monster Hunter, Street Fighter, Mega Man X, as well as a handful of other great games like the Gamboy/GBA Legend of Zelda titles, all are series I follow or have followed in the past and played important rolls in my game-playing youth. As such, today's a pretty exciting day. As I pointed out in my post earlier about my wonderful discovery of Minitroid, today is the release of the next Mega Man game, Street Fighter x Mega Man. Like Minitroid, … [Read More...]
Minitroid is the best Metroid game in years.
Last night, I played perhaps the best Metroid game since Zero Mission -- and it wasn't even made by Nintendo. Created by a small group of indie developers, "construct programmer Tokinsom, artist Betatronic, and music composer Jamie Billings," Minitroid is exactly what it sounds: a mini Metroid. While only a free to download "tech demo," I found Minitroid to be rather brilliant. Comprised of three decently sized interconnected areas filled with enemies, secrets, and upgrades, just as you would find in any entry in the series. On top of that, Minitroid controls like a dream, and the … [Read More...]
The Hobbit Review
The Hobbit is finally here! We are finally returning to Middle-Earth after we fell in love with the world over a decade ago with the Fellowship of the Ring. Things are a bit different this time around though. Also, SPOILER ALERT. Much of this is written with the assumption that you are at least familiar with both the plot of the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. What it is: The Hobbit is a prequel to the Lord of the Rings written once again by Tolkien and directed once again by Peter Jackson. The Hobbit book was actually written before the Lord of the Rings and was a … [Read More...]
Pacific Rim Trailer
My god this movie looks awesome. I understand that this is a term that is perhaps too broadly used but from this trailer alone it looks like it deserves the claim. Anyway, Pacific Rim is the new monster movie being directed by Guillermo Del Toro and as we have seen from his past work, if anyone can do a monster movie, its Guillermo. Edris Elba stars in the this monster flick as mankind fights against an invasion of monsters from the sea with giant mechs. I realize this sounds a bit silly, but just watch the trailer and I will let you be the judge. Admittedly, the first thing that … [Read More...]
Kingdom Death: Monster looks amazing
One thing I really enjoy is a good board game; be it traditional games like Risk or Stratego, or table top ones like Warhammer and Magic the Gathering. There's something great about the immediacy and physicality of games like that. When it comes to Warhammer specifically (and I would assume D&D, though I've never actually played it), a large reason of why I enjoy the game so well is the miniatures themselves. Painting and assembling an army of Space Wolves or a squad of Nergal worshiping Chaos Marines is very rewarding, and gives a sense of personality and attachment to … [Read More...]
Shootin’ the Shit: Dec 8 2012
Heyoo! Yeah, hi, long time no see. Things have been kinda crazy and I've been meaning to write to you all, but I haven't found the time... Until now! So, a lot's happened since last we spoke. I have a few things I want to chat about but first let's talk about some big-picture stuff. There's been some new games like Far Cry 3, and a new Skyrim DLC pack; There's been a lot of Halo 4 being played by Marshal and me; We reviewed Hotline Miami and Cloud Atlas; Nintendo even released a brand new console. Oh, and Dark Souls II was announced! ...There's also been things like … [Read More...]
Let’s talk about the Dark Souls 2 trailer.
In a huge surprise at last night's 10th annual Spike Video game Awards, it was revealed that Dark Souls 2 is on the horizon. The announcement came by way of CGI trailer giving a VERY brief glimpse at the world and scenario of the next Dark Souls. Let's take a look at some of the elements of the announcement trailer*: The sole line of dialogue is spoken by a disembodied narrator. He says, "You are of the undead. Forever without hope. Forever without light." From that, it's fairly obvious the basic idea of the previous game remains, meaning we'll be taking control of another … [Read More...]
Dark Souls 2 Announced at Spike’s VGAs; consoles confirmed
The title says it all: the brutal, punishing, supremely rewarding gameplay of Dark Souls will be returning for in sequel some time in the near future. When? No clue. On what systems? Again, no clue, but it doesn't matter; whichever systems I need to own in order to play this game, I'll buy them. UPDATE: Apparently, despite the seemingly imminent precipice of next-gen consoles, Dark Souls 2 will in fact be a PS3/Xbox 360 title, which is good news in my opinion.* Introduced by the always charming Jessica Alba, the VGA's have once again proven to be a bastion of game announcements, this time … [Read More...]
Hotline Miami Review
What it is: Hotline Miami is a violent, top-down beat-'em-up style game from Swden's Dennaton games. Cut from the same cloth as films like Drive, Hotline Miami drips with just as much cool as it does blood. Why I love it: Hotline Miami has been touted as a game with a strong message about violence in media, especially in videogames. Nearly every review that hit after the game was released made hints at some sort of deep, introspective nature of the game's story. I was expecting to be challenged, and perhaps in even swayed, into changing my thoughts on the non-issue of violence in … [Read More...]
What? Power Cords is EVOLVING!?
Guys, guess what? You know all those subtle, brief allusions to "being busy" and "working on stuff" that seems to make their way into... well, basically every post I've written in the past two months or so? Well, I was serious. Power Cords is evolving, expanding -- basically just becoming even more awesome, taking yet another step towards "legitimacy." There's a whole mess of reason as to why we're doing this, but basically what it comes down to is we were brainstorming one day, and it suddenly dawned on us that not only did we have other topics we wanted to explore, but we also wanted … [Read More...]
