Around the Network

Hello! How are you? The weather seems to be on the turn here and the evenings are getting a bit lighter, so the general mood seems to be lifting a bit. January sure sucks, huh.

Well, a low mood for the last month and a bit hasn’t stopped me from hammering out a whole bunch of cool stuff for you to hopefully enjoy! We’ve kicked off a new Cover Game feature, for starters, as well as several ongoing series.

Hit the jump to see what you might have missed this week.

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MoeGamer

Sunday Driving: Hit the Skids – The Split/Second production team decide the previous episode wasn’t nearly exciting enough, so they once again break out the helicopters and trucks, just waiting to ruin my day.

The MoeGamer Podcast: Episode 17 – Death to Metroidvania! – Chris and I are both trained in media analysis and criticism to varying degrees, so it’s probably unsurprising to hear we have plenty of words to say about the concept of genre with regard to video games. Today we have a good old chat about the “Metroidvania” descriptor, and how much we dislike it.

Diggin in the Carts: A Collection of Pioneering Japanese Video Game Music – The beginning of a new series on MoeGamer, exploring soundtrack albums and collections of music relating to video games, track-by-track. We begin with this interesting compilation of lesser-known tunes from a variety of Japanese games and platforms.

Delving Into Dynasty Warriors 8 Xtreme Legends Definitive Edition #2 – This time around, I take a closer look at how DW8XLDE handles its story mode, with its branching structure, optional objectives and “hypothetical” scenarios.

Warriors Wednesday: In Case of Emergency, Use Taishi Ci – The Wu campaign against Orochi continues as a pair of enthusiastic heroines stand alongside the mighty Taishi Ci in an attempt to give Orochi yet another bloody nose.

Delving Into Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown #4 – In this fourth article, we take a closer look at the “game” side of Ace Combat 7, and how it is very much a true Ace Combat game in every respect.

New Game Plus: Furaipan Da Yo – The New Adventures of Atelier Rorona continue as we attempt to fill a bit of time after completing the first assignment for the kingdom. Punis beware!

428: Shibuya Scramble – Introduction and History – A look at where Spike Chunsoft’s unusual “sound novel” came from, and what distinguishes it from other, similar experiences.

Atari A to Z

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This week we’ve got bouncing balls, time-travelling bandits and vector graphics spiders all vying for your attention. Some real classics among this lot!

Don’t forget you can easily check back through the Atari A to Z archives on its own dedicated site here.

Cool Stuff By People Who Aren’t Me

As always, I’d like to take a moment to note that I’m a Patron of Paul “Mr Biffo” Rose, the Cheap Show podcast and The Game Chasers, because all of them put out great content that is worth your support. Check out some fine examples here.

And as always, let’s take a trip around the broader WordPress community and see what else has been going on recently. If you have any blogs I’m not following that you think I should be, please feel free to let me know! It’s always great to have new stuff populating my Reader each day.

Anatomy of a Game Review: On Categories and My Perspective on The Critic’s Place (The Well-Red Mage) – If you like games and you’re not following The Well-Red Mage, I encourage you to rectify that as soon as possible! The man’s built an impressive site with a whole ton of contributors, and consistently posts some of the most thought-provoking writing about games out there. And all without calling anyone sexist or transphobic — who’d have thought it possible? Anyway, this is an interesting discussion on the critic’s role — be sure to check the comments, too.

Comparison Isn’t Fair(ison) – Allowing Wargroove to Stand On Its Own (Adventure Rules) – If you’ve listened to the episode of The MoeGamer Podcast linked above, you’ll know that Chris and I are no great fans of analysis and criticism that is dependent on knowledge of something else before you even get into the details. Well, Robert Ian Shepard of Adventure Rules has an interesting case study on just that subject: the recently released Wargroove.

What Anxiety Is Like (A Geeky Gal) – Anxiety sucks, but you might feel a little less alone after reading Megan’s excellent breakdown of what it does to your mind. If you ever find yourself struggling to explain “what’s wrong” to people who Don’t Get It, point them in the direction of this post.

First Impression: Project Zero 2 – Crimson Butterfly (NekoJonez) – Well, I’m always going to click on someone giving Project Zero some love, so here’s NekoJonez’s initial thoughts on the installment that many people regard as “the best one”.

The Best (and the Rest) of Windows Entertainment Pack, part 3 (Everything is bad for you) – AK checks out the very best of what Windows gaming had to offer in the early ’90s. (Spoiler: Not all that much.)

That’s that for another week. Be sure to support these creators I’ve linked to above, as they’re all working hard at creating entertaining, informative CONTENT!! for you all. And, as always, thank you for your continued support of MoeGamer and my other projects — it means a whole bunch.

Have a great week!


Thanks for reading; I hope you enjoyed this article. I’ve been writing about games in one form or another since the days of the old Atari computers, with work published in Page 6/New Atari User, PC Zone, the UK Official Nintendo Magazine, GamePro, IGN, USgamer, Glixel and more over the years, and I love what I do.

If you’d like to support the site and my work on it, please consider becoming a Patron — click here or on the button below to find out more about how to do so. From just $1 a month, you can get access to daily personal blog updates and exclusive members’ wallpapers featuring the MoeGamer mascots.

If you want to show one-off support, you can also buy me a coffee using Ko-Fi. Click here or on the button below to find out more.

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2 thoughts on “Around the Network”

  1. Hey, thanks for linking to my post. Digging through the rest of the casual Windows games was interesting for me, even if they aren’t nearly as good as some of the classics like SkiFree and Chip’s Challenge.

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