Living throughout the 90s and going into the turn of the century was a big deal for many of us kids, on the onset it looks like just a number, a useless metric made up by us. In hindsight however, those four digits all turning at once into a brand new number ushering in the beginning of a millennium truly did mean something big. I remember the days and nights going by as we approached the new year, my tiny mind had great fear over it. What's gonna happen? Is the world gonna explode? Are the refrigerators gonna come alive and enslave us all? You laugh, but a mind that young is full of creativity, which comes with a side effect of believing a lot more than you should.

Obviously, none of that happened. It was just another New Years Day, but little did I know that it took a bit longer than that to truly feel like a generation was ending and another was coming into it's own. Rookie mistake of course, I was still learnin'.

There was this advanced futuristic console coming, the supposed sequel to what was....and still is my favorite system. The PlayStation 2. Bang. The Dreamcast didn't even see it coming, I am so sorry my friend, it seems you were simply the harbinger. What game could possibly lead the charge and rally the troops to Sony's cause? Well, I loved Tekken 2. I loved Tekken 3, and here we are. The Tag Tournament to end all Tag Tournaments. Tekken was big enough to not need a crossover, Tony Stark wants no part of Paul Phoenix, and to this day they say that Logan is scared shitless of King giving him a Muscle Buster. Tekken 3 was the big fighter on the block, but part of me always missed Kazuya and his purple suit. But here he is, staring at you on the cover. Like, "I'm back bitch."

The introduction cinematic even starts with that beautiful cityscape, with Kazuya simply getting up out of his chair to make his way to the elevator. He's the only one I know who can make something so simple look so damn awesome. When I get out of my office chair after typing this up, I'm gonna pretend I'm him. He'd have to be pretty awesome, considering the reason he's going to the roof of his building is to turn into the most awesome final boss of all time and blast his laser into the sky to show off his dominance. A perfect opening cutscene to prepare us for a new system, with high-fidelity futuristic graphics, 2-on-2 matches, and a gigantic roster featuring everyone that isn't Gon or Dr. B. Kazuya fired them, and I approve.

It's mindboggling, because Tag Tournament wasn't even a part of my opening lineup of Christmas games to go along with my console. Twisted Metal Black, Dynasty Warriors 3, and Metal Gear Solid 2. Killers row, but I'm not sure I'd ever associate them with the advent of 365000 sundowns. That's probably because Tag Tournament still existed prior to my system thanks to playing it in arcades way back. You know the drill, get chaingrabbed by a King player who's ten years older than you with no idea how to defend. The good stuff. Being a practice mode warrior at the dear age of 9 years old could only do so much. Alas.

So ends the ballad of big ol' cartridges and CD-ROM, and thus the bringer of the new age in the form of DVD and little Nintendiscs starts the last hurrah of my nostalgia. An age that I personally consider to be the last truly great era of gaming. Is it nostalgia, or is it true? Who cares? I'm gonna uppercut you into the moon, because I'm Kazuya Mishima and I'm bowling a 300 against True Ogre.

The prior seconds pass with the enormity of centuries. Scattershot shrapnel peppers the asphalt, signaling the arrival of two street demons, both careening through air in a ludicrous display of car-nal car-nage. Like detached limbs, their wheels flail freely, in defiance of death itself, rolling to an uneventful stop against the guardrail. Launched beyond the rail’s comforting bounds, misfortuned motorists find their engines extinguished, their windshields splintered and scattered haphazardly. For what it’s worth, it's a spectacle with little to show for it; the same crumpled wreckages find themselves sprinting down the stretch once again, leaving little but metal and skid marks. Coming to my senses, parallel with the rail, I’m lightheaded and weak.

My ribs are a fine powder, my liver a congealed mass, my brain pulsing red-light, green-light pain and shock overdoses… but my machine roars to life. A gentle nudge of the accelerator eases her back on the straight-ahead, but an injection of noxious nitrous oxide pumps searing adrenaline through her veins – With a banshee’s scream, she climbs to 100, 120, 150, 200 miles per hour. The prying eyes piercing into the roll cage soon burn into spectral light, their lesser vehicles little more than dust against my almighty steed. Lost in the cacophony of merciless thieves, I give chase to secure what’s rightfully mine – The dizzying height, the brightest shine, the golden flow of first place. But my rivals, backstabbers and bastards all, seem poised to pilfer perfection from me once again.

It’s a trio ahead – The former deceased pair, and an impervious highway star leading the pack. In an endless stretch, it’d be a massacre, but with less than two miles left, the nerves start wearing me down. First is the rookie mistakes – a drift too harsh here, a grind against the median there, hell, even a full-scale collision to spice things up, but all too soon I’m peering down invisible crosshairs at the weakest link. Everything happens fast as I shotgun a final blast of nitro into a purring motor, my chariot a battering ram; the lesser of the twins crumples underfoot, ripped in two as hopeless fourth bashes into the corpse. The wiser twin falls just as simply; grinding against my steel chassis, they neglected to peek the eighteen-wheeler hurtling headlong. I can barely make out a resentful curse from the driver’s seat as the million-dollar machine is mulched.

And then, it was you, me, and the finish line. And brother, I wish our tale ended oh so simply, but either through fate or karma, neither of us were to receive fated first that day. It was as it always goes, in the United States, across Europe, to the far off shores of Asia – Even at our best, neither of us expected a humble family of four to be our downfall. You crashed into the van, as expected, but as if touched by a vengeful spirited, your shell bashed into me, and I into the monorail over yonder. Seeing this moment of weakness, hopeless fourth charges, pointless fifth overtakes, and… impossible sixth takes home the gold – My gold.

Still, I can’t help but laugh. Over a hundred gold metals, and I’m still caught off-guard, still left to ponder what-ifs and what-abouts. Pulling a swift 180, I curve my car along the backroad, glancing at the glistening lights in the rearview. With a smile, I hit boost once again… Launching myself directly into the busy highway, where a city bus embraces me at 90 miles per hour.

I wake, still slumped along the guardrail. The dual gods of speed soar overhead, colliding with the gathering crowd. With a flick, I boost back into the race. For one last time, let’s go for gold.

Around the beginning of the year, I looked back at my rating for Outer Wilds with a bit of hesitation. I may be more generous than many other reviewers with my 5/5's, but I still genuinely consider everything I give the perfect score to, a league above the rest, and as I looked at Outer Wilds, I couldn't conjure up as many concrete reasons, as I could with any of the others, to the point where I retroactively changed the rating to a 4. So I began to tackle the DLC, in hopes of remembering what blew me away about this game, in a previous life.
Outer Wilds is a game that I played alongside over 50 other's in the oft unfondly remembered year of 2020. During those months of quarantine, fewer and fewer hours at work, and dwindling social interaction, I took to clearing out my backlog at a rabid pace. It got to the point where I was playing multiple story heavy games in the same day. I begin to get addicted to watching the credits roll after beating a game, and so I just kept going, realistically past the point of burnout, but this was Covid era, I was experiencing burnout with everything. And then in October, after my declaration of a 52 game/One game a week pace for 2020, I played Outer Wilds. I was charmed by the world, the atmosphere, but I genuinely wasn't viewing the game for what it actually is. While I was playing Outer Wilds like an open world adventure game with cool sci fi flare, I was missing out on the layered puzzle at the core of it all. For whatever reason, I viewed the obtuse logic and note rewarding puzzles as obstructions to seeing the credits roll, so I willfully looked up walkthroughs, almost immediately when I'd hit an impasse. By the time I made it to the remarkable finale, I tried my best to feel proud of what I'd accomplished, but over time the victory began to feel hollow, and I desperately wished to wipe my memory of the game and start fresh.
Fast forward to 2023; Life went on, my game completion rate dwindled, but everything else began to improve. It wasn't until I sat down with a newly acquired PS Plus (Extra) subscription, and noticed a familiar space-traveling game, that I decided to give Outer Wilds another shot. It was genuinely like I was playing a new game, despite my previous knowledge undercutting some puzzles, I was still having a blast reading the history of the Nomai, figuring out their technologies and cities, and using immensely satisfying A->B->C logic chains to get a full picture of what I had seen 3 years ago. It was then that I remembered that I had purchased the games' acclaimed DLC soon after beating it, but I had simply never played it.
I had a miniature revelation moment, knowing that this was my chance to experience a chunk of the organic discovery process the base game offered, with completely fresh eyes. I made it my goal to avoid walkthroughs, unless I had tried out everything to the extent of my knowledge, I focused on deductions and exploration, and I ended up being genuinely blown away by what Echoes of the Eye has to offer.
This may be one of the best-in-class complete packages that I've ever seen for DLC of a game, it offers something completely fresh, while keeping the same satisfying design principles that the base game did.
As I type this review, I am about one hour removed from the completion of Echoes of the Eye, the tears have dried a while ago, but the impression that I'm getting, is that I finally understand not only what I felt in 2020, but what I missed, playing this game back then with guides. I hope everyone can find some sense of satisfaction with this weird, messy entertainment medium, because Echoes of the Eye definitely reminded me of what that feels like.

The first DOOM became one of my all-time favorite shooters the moment I'd beaten it; I was blown away by how crisp, fun, and innovative it remained, even three decades later. It's easy to understand why the game had quickly garnered such a large and dedicated fan base in `93. People were obsessed with DOOM, and they wanted more. Fortunately, they wouldn't have to wait long for a sequel.
DOOM II released exactly ten months after DOOM. With such a short time frame for the devs to work, it's no surprise that the game borrowed many of its assets and mechanics from the first. However, its gameplay additions, ambitious level designs, and brand-new soundtrack set II distinctly apart as its own experience.
One of the most immediate changes is the addition of the Super Shotgun. This powerful close-range weapon is capable of taking down entire hoardes with one blast. Being one of the most fun and useful weapons in the early years of the franchise, it's easy to understand why it became so beloved amongst fans. It has remained an integral part of Doom Guy's arsenal ever since.
II also introduced many new enemies! These included the Arch-Vile, Pain Elemental, Hell Knight, and Mancubus. It's a treat to jump from I to II and discover new challenges awaiting you, even if both have a near-identical core. Not only do these new demons make the gameplay feel more well-rounded, but they add a much-needed splash of new aesthetic.
My only real issue with DOOM II is some of its level design choices. I've seen many people assert that the first game's layouts and puzzles are too confusing, but personally, I find the second game to be a much worse offender (The City levels in particular were very frustrating for me.) I do appreciate the creativity and effort put into creating a new experience; however, I spent much more time running around aimlessly in II than I ever had in the first.
Unfortunately, this pattern continues even into the Master Levels. This expansion pack is easily the most frustrating part of either classic DOOM for me. The puzzles and maps are so obtuse and frustrating, to the point that I nearly gave up. I love the idea of including fan maps in the series, but these are wild.

Visuals: 5/5
Sound: 4.5/5
Gameplay: 4.5/5
Worldbuilding: 4.5/5
Replayability: 4/5
Overall game score: 4.5/5

The DOOM series is such an interesting and important part of gaming history. Even decades later, these first two classics hold up as some of the best FPS games I've played; they undoubtedly changed the community's landscape and trajectory forever, and for good reason.
I can't wait to experience the rest of DOOM's journey! Witnessing the jump to 3D is going to be interesting, to say the least.

As a school teacher, the distinction between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation is something I face on a day to day basis. You cannot teach a student to be intrinsically motivated, but you can force them to be extrinsically motivated. Grades, parental pressure, peer to peer comparisons, even compliments from the authority figure. These methods do not get students to suddenly become invested in learning about math, science, literature, etc. They do, however, get them to put effort into learning regardless of what little joy they find in it.
Such is the way of public education. A constant push and pull between individualized education for the diverse group of students in the world as well as ensuring their skills and knowledge is apt for the future of our society. The best thing a teacher can do then within said system is create an environment for the students to find a love of learning regardless of the exams, grades, and other negatives. If you think back to your favorite teachers in school there is likely something they did to instill a level of passion or joy for just coming into the classroom each day. If they matched really well with you perhaps they got you invested in a new topic or career path.

In many ways I find that the AAA game landscape is similar to public education in how its goal is to appeal to the masses. Public education serves everyone who does not have the opportunity to choose a private school or homeschooled education. Those situations end up being highly specialized areas where the expectations and results can be controlled due to the individual interests of the stakeholders being more considered. AAA games try to make experiences that are broadly appealing and interesting, niche appeals and interests can’t be catered to as to get the most people involved as possible. So like in public education they overcorrect the expectations for the player and try to implement rigid and clear methods of both punishment and reward with the ultimate goal of getting to the end.

Nintendo, the video game industry’s local House of Mouse, is a notable producer due to their seemingly massive amounts of Quality Control put into their top titles. They are a system built to get people from all backgrounds interested in games, as Disney is the same with animation. Though realistically most games they make are still reliant on very cheap extrinsic design. One does not have to look much further than this same year’s Super Mario Odyssey as a game whose core loop is based on an empty, extrinsic “grab all the moons” open world style. A game whose mechanics bore much discussion but there isn’t really much to say about the middling open world design of the game.

Breath of the Wild of course stands as a sharp difference to most AAA games on the market, even those created by the Japanese Michael Mouse itself. It is a game when discussed is about free flowing decision making as opposed to an accomplishment of objectives. For this review I will simply point to the current third most liked review of the game on the site by @JimTheSchoolGirl which will be my cheap short hand to show why many people love this game. The game itself is less focused on you, the player, beating it but instead giving you different opportunities to interact with systems and create your own creative solution to multiple problem solving situations. Jimminy was never told to do the things he listed here as a goal or a scripted sequence, this was meaningful because he decided to do this himself.
This is Intrinsic Motivation at work. This is something most game designers (and teachers) find nearly impossible to discover naturally but not only did this work for Jimminy, it has worked for hundreds of thousands of other people who salivate at the mere idea of this game. How in the world did they do it?

That’s not any easy question to dissect and give a short answer. It begins with things like the art style and music along with other aesthetic elements having that draw that appeals to many people. That part is the Disney effect so to speak. The game simply looks appealing and accessible without any fluff. That isn’t something to be said about most games especially for Immersive Sims which BOTW is often compared to.
That’s step one. Give people the invitation into the game. If we continue with the Public School Analogy this is the mandatory attendance, the part that gets butts in seats. Except for the fact that games are profit driven and not really meant to raise the next generation (oh dear god hopefully).

The next step is expressed easiest in the intro. You cannot begin a free form adventure in chaos. Most games that do not give you much advice in the beginning are doomed to not appeal to the masses. The developers solution to this was to have a restrictive tutorial with clear objectives before putting the foot on the gas. Much ado has been said about the tutorial island so I won’t dive too deeply into how it was designed, but I will say there are two pulling factors here that cause it to pull in everyone who has begun playing it.
One: A clear problem to solve. 4 shrines, 4 items, one area.
Two: Multifaceted solutions along with many smaller problems existing in the same area (temperature, guardians, weapon durability, etc.)
These combine together to form something similar to what is referred to as Problem Based Learning (PBL) in education. I am not an expert in this subject to be honest, but I will do my best to point out how these function in terms of building Intrinsic Motivation.

The first part is the clear meaningful problem to the participant. Oftentimes a PBL uses some local phenomena (forgive me if I use too many education terms lmao) to anchor itself in the minds of the student, similar to how the island creates a clear and immediate issue in the mind of the player. Secondly there’s many smaller issues in the way that the individual must consider in completing their final task. The game splits up the task into four shrines, each with their own smaller problems surrounding them, however often in Education it requires the students to go through an engineering process of design and redesign. The loop is similar enough to compare them since the player must constantly rebuild their knowledge base with each issue that comes up along the way from dealing with various enemies, climbing, dealing with cold weather, and interacting with natural objects like trees.
The goal of a PBL is that the student is self-sufficient. It stands in stark contrast to the sort of null hypothesis of Teacher Centered learning. Things like lectures and rote memorization as opposed to giving the students agency to investigate solutions on their own end and learn what they need to know at their own pace. This, as you can probably guess, is the line between Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation. Being able to give an individual their own agency to solve a given, relevant issue makes it far easier for someone to get invested in something. In education that is what is called Student Centered Learning, and in Breath of the Wild that is the interaction with many systems that is exemplified in the Tutorial Island.

The benefit of the player learning this other than a sense of pride, is that the designers are able to give them different complex problems within the same system and it is up to the player to engage and figure out solutions. This knowledge base can grow for new problems and new experiences, from riding horses, dealing with more complex enemies, the glider, and the dungeons in the game. A PBL exists to get students invested for the duration of the topic before the class starts again with something new to move on to. However the skills gained in the process are invaluable as the topics become more complex.

Of course on the other hand, many people fall off of Breath of the Wild. I know I stopped playing once I hit about 20 hours in and I have no intention to return. It isn’t really hard to see why either in this case. While it manages to draw in a massive amount of people to be naturally entranced to explore the world it creates that won’t ever work for everyone. In fact, to say that most gamers are intrinsically motivated to play games is foolish bait. I have many a person in my Twitter circle that will claim x game/genre is better because of what the player can invest themselves into, but that’s ultimately a very narrow view of the appeal of Video Games. Much of the appeal of gaming can be the rigidity of systems based in extrinsic motivation, hence why the mobile market is the most popular and successful. It is nice to have a simple goal with clear success and failure states (the discourse around Vampire Survivors has made this much more apparent lately).

One of the main issues of Breath of the Wild is that the developers and the game itself do not trust themselves. The core hook, while wonderful, will not keep everyone engaged to the very end. There is never much growth in how the game builds it’s problem solving. The comparison of a PBL often becomes tenuous particularly when it comes to time. A given PBL lesson will last typically around 4-7 hours spread throughout a week or so, this game lasts 30+ hours. There is no growth in these systems as they are introduced early on. There are very few new systems that are introduced as well, and often the ones that are introduced often only take a few moments to solve. There are many extrinsic rewards and objectives littering the game, however you do not do the shrines or divine beasts because they appeal to the feeling of beauty and exploration the game holds within. You do them because there are rewards or because the sensation of checking off an objective on a list is appealing. In so the game does not create objectives to enhance its core experience, but instead to attempt to distract from the flaws of its lack of dynamism.
After 20 hours you may not have seen everything the game has to offer but you certainly can feel like you have. That mileage depends on the person too. Some people will drop Twitter clips in the year of our lord 2022 showing crazy interactions in the game, others like myself will drop it to never pick it up again part way through. The truth is that the game does not build upon its core. It takes a very big “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” approach which, while respectable, did not entrance me in the way it did for many other players. Once I hit that 20 hour mark I said to myself “This game’s sequel will be straight up bussin’.” Jury’s out to see if that’s really true, but I would imagine the designers are more aware of what I discussed here than I am fr fr.

Breath of the Wild is a fascinating game that causes many regular people to fall in love with its world through Intrinsic Motivation. It fails often because outside of the core systems it does not provide any quality content for the players to engage in, things such as shrines and dungeons exist to fill time rather than improve the experience. I would certainly go so far as to call Breath of the Wild a classic, but it fails in so many ways I won’t gas it up like everyone else on the planet.
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Hey what's up gamers. I don’t really vibe with the author’s note but I will say this is the start of a “series” of sorts where I compare game design and Pedagogy since I think there’s more overlap than people readily consider. Really though this is my Copium of focusing on my career at the moment rather than trying to actually make a game haha. Eventually I will make that sweet game though and hopefully it’ll be good. Ideally it involves punching Dracula but we’ll see what happens.

Important thing to note is I’m a Master’s student in Education and have only taught for one year so far. I’m not really an expert, but I do have a lot of observations so please feel free to critique me and ask pedagogical questions. I’m always happy to tell people about how Teaching works haha.

Also shout outs to my homie @SimonDedalus for his review of Resident Evil 4 which certainly influenced my writing here in more ways than one.

It's hard to nail down the charm of a handheld exclusive title, especially one using a pre-established formula, but Aria of Sorrow fills that exact niche with an amazing level of confidence. There's something to be said about the simple charms of checking every corner of a map, getting lost, and having that wonderful moment of discovery that blows the whole game wide open, it's pretty intoxicating, and seems to be a driving factor behind the metroidvania subgenre's explosion in popularity. I think Aria takes a great no frills approach to a lot of those wonderful design philosophies and squeezes it down like a fresh orange, and the subsequent game is a tight, joyous, pulpy little romp that kept me entertained through multiple hotel stays and flights!

I always had complicated feelings with Uncharted 2, and as time goes on, it only grows increasingly entangled and difficult to parse, like the old wired earphones that I left in my pockets for longer than I should. Thus, a replay is in order. My first Uncharted game is Uncharted 3, and I was completely blown away by it back then. I only got to the previous two Uncharteds about 2 years after, and I think the perspective of coming from Uncharted 3 definitely hurt Uncharted 2 in my eyes. While the story is more structurally sound and tightly paced, everything else left me unimpressed. The set pieces and technical aspects are an expected step down, and the locales, villains and supernatural/mythology elements are much less interesting to me. The combat sections are usually too long and happens too often, resulting in a body count that is far too high. I don't even want to talk about fighting the supernatural beings in the last section of the game, and that dreadful final boss. In my eyes, Uncharted 2 has been outdone by its successors, especially after Uncharted 4 came out. I would have said the same thing with Uncharted 1, but I came to realize that the game's self-contained nature and raw "first entry" feel has a long lasting charm that manages to outlast Uncharted 2, at least for me.

Still, nothing can delude me into thinking that I don't have a great time with Uncharted 2. Like all other Uncharteds, all of its best qualities are very accessible, and the qualities are varied. Frantic gunplay, likeable characters, impressive detail, memorable environments, stunning set pieces, and so on. Not to mention, the game fluidly weaves various gameplay element into its simple and elegant controls, and the remaster has done a great job of updating this and all other technical aspects. Again, all of these especially applies to future Uncharted games in a much higher degree (and each newer entry adds their own spice into the formula), but it's nothing to scoff at.

Uncharted 2 still stands as a major trailblazer of the cinematic gaming era, with it's incredible success of emulating theatrical blockbusters in real-time software, and setting the basic formula for all future followers. As more and more games embrace looser pacing in the service of widening gameplay flavors and increasing the sense of freedom, Uncharted 2's influence wanes, but just like its inspirations, it has left enough of an impression through mostly shock and awe, as the most advanced video game technologies of the time converge to satisfy PS3 owners during a landmark year for the console. "You just had to be there!"