Mento

The First Diverse Zeldiverse1

So here's a fun little exercise you can do if you're extremely bored - write a list of all the Zelda games you've played and for each take 60 seconds to list all the elements that apply to that game only, or failing that (it's harder than it sounds)

100.0% 2/2 Votes

That's MS. Pirate To You0

I have no idea where the cliché of the pirate queen comes from, beyond simple "oh shit, the pirate captain's a girl?!" narrative misdirection. I'm all for a bit of gender equality in positions of power, but I wonder why this progressiveness so often

100.0% 3/3 Votes

Psychopomp Up The Jam1

In every culture of every region of the world, there's nothing quite as inscrutable as death and the journey beyond. We all formed our own ideas, despite the fact that most of them admittedly quite stupid. However, our psyches are such that it's some

100.0% 3/3 Votes

A General List From a Genesis Generalist1

Hey all. Nothing too boat-rocky (is that even a valid adjective?) from me this week, just a list of Mega Drive games I've played. This list is far shorter than a hypothetical one for SNES games would be, largely due to me being a Nintendo kid, so thi

100.0% 1/1 Votes

Shop 'til the Drop0

All right, time to christen this site with a new list. I won't be going for this fancy new "click trap" mechanic just yet (but man does that look like a tempting way to annoy people), so instead I'll do something to honor a lost feature of the old si

100.0% 3/3 Votes

Turn and Face the Chain (Ch-Ch-Chainses)0

Like all middle-class white males, I'm afraid of chains. So when I see gigantic ones in my video games, it's definitely pause for thought. The first of which invariably is, "What the hell, why did someone make this? How did they make this?"It's perha

Sugar and Spice in a World That's Not Nice0

The old "damsel in distress" routine is perhaps one of the less socially progressive clichés that video games still deal in, due to the simple narrative elegance of a character wanting to fight for something they love. Pretty much every beat-em-up (n

100.0% 1/1 Votes

Tower Power0

Pretty much the oldest cliché in the Big Book of Being a Bad Guy is to build your immense, trap-filled lair forever downwards, letting adventurers get deeper and deeper under the Earth's crust as they contemplate how great an idea following this dark

100.0% 1/1 Votes

Games That Believe Patience is a Virtue0

Video games are normally whiz-bang affairs, dropping you in the action and having a dozen things happening at once. Any respite has to come from the player, or rather, the player's utilization of a handy pause function. Sometimes, though, video games

100.0% 5/5 Votes

Favorite PS2 Games0

It seems that now that the PS2 is officially retired, happily running around a farm somewhere "up north", everyone's talking about the wealth of games for that system and the few in particular that really stood out for them personally. Having such a

100.0% 1/1 Votes

List of Games Beaten in 20130

An annual tradition. If a game's on here, I beat it this year. "This year" being 2013, inattentive future peoples.

100.0% 2/2 Votes

Pile of Shame 2013 / Wishlist / A Miserable Little Pile of Shameful Wishes0

Most people only start to feel shameful after drinking too much on New Year's Eve, or perhaps after a huge Christmas dinner, but I'm getting an early start. For this week, leading up to the 25th, I've been busily playing all the excellent Indie games

100.0% 3/3 Votes

The Timbre of Timber0

Hey, a musical list. I don't make these often. After subjecting the endlessly patient @buzz_clik and @FunkyStudent to all manner of VGM jams on the Giant Bomb plug.dj room (found here), I've come to the realization that the best inspiration for atmos

100.0% 3/3 Votes

GOTY 20120

A list of games that are good. They are not bad. Phew, check out this super technical vernacular I'm swinging around like a deadly weapon. Hoo boy.The list is now finalized. I don't think any of these remaining Indie games I'm sitting on are likely t

100.0% 4/4 Votes

Games I'd Like To See On GCCX0

GCCX, or GameCenter CX, is a Japanese television show that's starting to see some exposure in the west, partly due to the abortive efforts of "Kotak" to translate it in as obnoxious a way as possible, but largely because of the focused efforts of a s

Desura December Dementia: The Determining Decider/Deciding Determiner0

Indefatigable Indie-loving individuals, I need your help. Come December, I'll be following up my award-winning* Steam May Madness feature with a similar one for the relatively overlooked Desura digital distribution service, from which I've managed to

Future Assassins of the Past0

Playing some AC III, I've noticed Desmond must be just about out of ancestors to call on for precursor knowledge. Might be time to retire the face-morphing Northie candidate for some fresh blood. Seeing how there's probably still a whole mess of Assa

100.0% 2/2 Votes

Liststorm of Scariness0

So OK, this list serves two functions: The first is to track the Shitstorm of Scariness October '12 side-project of Messrs. Matt and Pat of the "Two Best Friends Play" Machinima series, in which they record themselves getting terrified at the best (a

100.0% 3/3 Votes

More Like The RMS Frightanic0

Greetings, ghouls and buoys! Sometimes, when a video game (especially a JRPG, for whatever reason, or really anything to do with the ocean or space) wants to have a bit of horror-filled fun to mix things up a little, they'll sic a haunted vessel on y

Guns That Aren't In Borderlands 2 (Yet)0

When you think about it, a bazillion really isn't all that many.

100.0% 2/2 Votes

A Dos and Don'ts Guide to RPG Mascot Characters0

I mean, besides just "don't". That would make for a short list. Let's assume that a mascot character is like getting 85 or more on Metacritic: The designers don't get to eat if there isn't some adorable chirping nuisance making the game ever so sligh

100.0% 5/5 Votes

Castlevania Checklist: A Miserable Little Pile of Draculas Yet To Beat0

I'm a big fan of Konami's series of vampire killing platformers, perhaps their most famous franchise that doesn't involve cardboard boxes. Yet I'll be daggered if I still don't have a veritable holy waterfall of these gothic adventures left to whip i

50.0% 1/2 Votes

Life is The Bubbles!0

Inspired by a recent playthrough of the thoroughly enjoyable Everblue 2, I've completely changed my tune about how horrible most underwater instances in video games can be. Now I think they're all great! Without exception! (Do not read this list if y

100.0% 2/2 Votes

More Famous Military Leaders and Their Pokémon0

An extension of this.It's been hot lately and I haven't been sleeping right. Not trying to make excuses, but... I dunno, I offer it as an explanation anyway.

100.0% 1/1 Votes

Where No Mento Has Pointed And Clicked Before0

Just a list of adventure games I've yet to beat, since I've been getting into them again of late. Some of these are real bangers too, so I feel kinda bad about not playing them. Hey, why bother making a list if it won't make you feel bad about yourse

100.0% 4/4 Votes

Square-Enix Soundtracks I'd Like To See Theatrhythmicized0

Like more than a few fellow JRPG Bombers, I've been utterly obsessed of late with the Square-Enix/Indie Zeros musical nostalgia trip that is Theatrhythm. However, as of now the game is staying within the confines of the venerable Final Fantasy series

100.0% 2/2 Votes

Video Game Absurdity (Now In List Flavor!)0

I created a blog this week (right here in fact) about games that focus on absurdist and surrealist humor as a stylistic method to either frame an otherwise unremarkable game (like Amped 3) or modify the gameplay in a way so that it becomes purposeful

100.0% 2/2 Votes

Superboss Fortnight0

Howdy folks. Inter-acquaintance and resident Japanophile Prime Hailinel recently completed an entire month's worth of daily blogs detailing notable end of game bosses. To honor this achievement, and because imitation is easier than innovation, here's

Summonable Monsters of Master of Magic0

I've been doing something of a loose analysis of Simtex's fantasy Civ classic recently, what with a whole "A Brief Jaunt Through" feature of late. So I'd figure I'd put together a list of everything you can summon and why you would want to. It's alwa

Joey, Do You Like Video Games About Gladiators?0

The arena. The roar of the crowd, the glory of bloody victory, the annoying fans that follow you around afterwards. Video game writers love the classical Roman Coliseum because it's an easy way to combine a narratively lucrative set-up (such as the m

100.0% 1/1 Votes

I Am Not A Number0

Everyone on this list is a number.OK, maybe that's not quite true. Being designated as a number is considered to be quite dehumanizing, the resulting lack of empathy of those designated as numbers leading to some quite dire atrocities in our collecti

100.0% 1/1 Votes

E3 20120

I'm contributing!

Brilliant Brutes0

The Brilliant Brute is a simple misdirection ploy many forms of narrative media that deal with conflict might use when crafting a tough character, presenting a burly brick wall of a fellow who then later displays a heretofore hidden depth of intellig

100.0% 4/4 Votes

Winter is Coming0

Possibly the most appropriate list in these hot Summer months. A typically topical tropical list, you might say. If you're a jerk.So yeah, these are games that are threatened in some way by an endless winter or a sudden cold snap, just like in that s

100.0% 3/3 Votes

Dude, You Look Terrible0

A common trope in video games is that of the recurring boss: a persistent menace that won't leave you and yours well enough alone. Some are played off as comic relief, inexplicably hopping back from the many grievous drubbings you keep handing down t

100.0% 4/4 Votes

Best Giant Hands0

Man, that Datura QL sure was something, right? "No, not really"? Suit yourselves.

100.0% 4/4 Votes

The Cool Old Guy0

Every game needs a cool old guy, whether it's to help out and advise a cast of whippersnappers or just to be a raging badass who should theoretically be too old for this shit. It's an established trope, but a fun one.I'm increasingly becoming one of

100.0% 4/4 Votes

Every Sentient Species in Video Games0

So yeah, I'm following through on a threat I made to make a big ol' list of all the fictional races from video games. I'm currently drawing the line at animals and other mindless creatures, since there's a hell of a lot of monsters in the wiki too, b

80.0% 4/5 Votes

Attention Duellists!0

To go hand-in-hand with a recent article about rivals, I've put together a list of famous duels in video games. The "duel boss" is a fairly common video game trope, so I've narrowed it down to ten that have some significance to not only the games the

100.0% 1/1 Votes

They All Float Up Here0

It's perhaps become something of an overdone trope in video games, yet whenever a game chooses to have one of its cities or a larger land mass floating through the air, it never fails to impress both conceptually and visually. As long as you can look

100.0% 2/2 Votes