Restless Dreams [Reviews, Reactions, Responses]

This piece has been repurposed from my enterprise story assignment submitted in my JMC 201 News Writing and Reporting course at Arizona State University.             Video games have been around for almost six decades, and as such as have evolved to cover multiple different genres, just as books, film, television, music, and other forms of media have. Among the games that feature crime sprees or cooking or go-karts or martial arts, one genre that has captured the interest of a wide audience is “survival horror,” a term popularized by the game “Resident Evil” in 1996. Though not the first horror game, "Resident Evil" brought the genre into mainstream interest. This genre is defined by experiences that force the player to endure terrifying situations, which can vary widely: “Five Nights at Freddy’s” sees the player confined to a security room at night under the assault of animatronic characters, “Alien: Isolation“ pits the player in a decommissioned spac

This review is based on the PC version of Alien: Isolation , available on Steam. Background Can I just start this off by saying that I love that this game exists ? (yes, I can, it's my review. I'll do whatever I please.) I've been a fan of the Alien film series for years. I own all of the four Alien -titled movies on DVD, and I'm able to appreciate parts of Prometheus and the two Alien vs. Predator films, but my favorite will always be the first: Alien , from 1979. Perfect pacing, a really great plot of events, realistic characters with strong performances from everyone, fantastic visual style and sound design, and the amazing designs by the amazingly talented late H.R. Gigar for the Alien (among other things) make it one of my favorite films of all time. The fact that the first and the last few minutes of the film lack any dialogue really shows a great sense of direction. It's no wonder that so many films since its release have borrowed something from Al

This review is based on the PC version of The Wolf Among Us , available on Steam. Hot off of the success they garnered with their excellent adaptation of The Walking Dead , Telltale Games set off to tackle another acclaimed graphic novel with The Wolf Among Us . And boy am I glad that they did. Based on the Fables series written by Bill Willingham, The Wolf Among Us is centered around the investigations conducted by Bigby Wolf, the sheriff of a community in New York City called Fabletown. Appropriately, Fabletown is where a variety of characters from old fables and folk lore now live, following their exile from the Homelands. Bigby thus has to deal with the issues of such characters as Toad, Beauty, Beast, Snow White, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, and Grendel. Many of the characters would look peculiar in our "Mundie" world of humans, so some (such as Grendel and Jersey) use a magic called Glamour in order to appear human, though they'll show their true forms in t

  This review is based on the PC version of The Legend of Korra , available on Steam. Seeing as this is a review of a game based on a pre-existing series, I feel it's important to discuss that series at least briefly first. Avatar: The Last Airbender is perhaps my favorite animated series (read: NOT ANIME) of all time, and I'd say a vast majority of the people who have watched the series also hold the series in high acclaim. In this world, some people are able to manipulate one of four elements (Earth, Fire, Air, or Water,) except for one being: the Avatar, who is able to "bend" all four elements. The original Avatar series centered around the adventures of the 12 year-old Avatar Aang, who's tasked with saving the world from Fire Lord Ozai. Along the way, he becomes friends with such compelling characters as Katara, Sokka, Suki, Toph, and even Ozai's son, Zuko. The series is excellently written and paced, and covers many topics most other children-