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This week, Jimquisition gives you a brief lesson in pasta sauce, and ties it into the misguided quest for perfection currently plaguing the so-called "AAA" title scene. Expanding on a few ideas found in last week's...
| Jim Sterling |
Dark Souls sold over two million copies and is a bonafide success. Tomb Raider sold over three million copies and is a disappointing failure. Wut? Different projects obviously have different standards for succ...
| Jim Sterling |
Just talking about an "always-on" Xbox is a really dumb idea. Hopefully not even Microsoft would be so stupid, but just in case any of the platform holders are seriously considering this awful, nasty little idea, let Jimquisition lay out the many good reasons as to why an always-on console would be utterly ludicrous. Seriously, it's ... it's terrible. Deal with it!
| Jim Sterling |
The game industry doesn't want female characters. That is allegedly the message publishers have been sending to developers. As female characters get hidden from the front covers of games and projects with leading ladies are ...
| Jim Sterling |
There's nothing wrong with a game that innovates. There's everything wrong with a game that goes out of its way to innovate without reason. Like any tool, innovation is neither good nor bad, and it has its specific uses. How...
| Jim Sterling |
DRM is back again, and it's here to stay! Games are a service, so we're told, but who do they really serve? SimCity's failure to launch thanks to ludicrous DRM restrictions has been the hot topic of the week, and naturally there's a Jimquisition afoot to skewer Electronic Arts right in its Electronic Nads. Time to put a bit of stick about, wouldn't you say?
| Jim Sterling |
The PlayStation 4 was announced last week, but Sterling wasn't quite feeling the buzz. The PS4 is interesting, Sony's plans are promising, but the industry itself, and the culture of business around console games? THAT is what needs a new generation. Hardware is just a placebo if the attitudes showcased at the big PS4 reveal are anything to go by.
| Jim Sterling |
Preorder culture expects gamers to trust developers more than ever, but how does that work when they inspire so little faith? The "take cash now, provide content later" tactic is currently serving companies well, but with re...
| Jim Sterling |
Waking through Gearbox's walkthrough of Aliens: Colonial Marines. That is, the Aliens: Colonial Marines Gearbox wanted the world to believe in, not the one that actually happened. While demo footage is not represen...
| Jim Sterling |
Jimquisition's had it wrong all this time. Videogame companies exist to make money, so it was foolish to ever suggest their anti-consumer policies are awful, reckless, and deserving of criticism. That was all sarcasm, just then.
| Jim Sterling |
A new business model comes along, designed to attract gamers with interesting ideas and consumer-friendly pricing. The old businesses latch onto it. The old businesses pervert it to suit their own miserable ends. Free-to-pla...
| Jim Sterling |
Games are racist. Games are homophobic. Games are sexist. And that's okay! Well, maybe not OKAY, but it is alright to acknowledge that, sometimes, videogames get it wrong. Everybody gets it wrong, and games can't be the exce...
| Jim Sterling |
The videogame industry wants you to believe that the offline experience is for miserable loners. Lonely is bad. Lonely is sad. Lonely people want lonely games because they don't have any friends. Only the lonely want to be d...
| Jim Sterling |
Warning -- Contains graphic content. If you don't want to see disturbing Internet things, skip the footage starting at 1:20 and ending at 1:49. As the mainstream news media continues to revel in the Sandy Hook shooting...
| Jim Sterling |
Over a year ago, Cliff Bleszinski (then of Epic Games) and myself had a public falling out and have never traded a word since. Ever a man of peace and goodwill, I hereby extend the olive branch the only way I know how -- with a little help from The Escapist's very own Miracle of Sound.
| Jim Sterling |
There's something to be said for tradition, and the Jimquisition's most sacred tradition is the year-end evisceration of the very worst games released. Quake in fear, O ye creatively impoverished fools! Presented to you...
| Jim Sterling |
The final Jimquisition Award is here! Four days have passed, four winners have been crowned. Now is time to hail the game of the year. This is 2012's ultimate champion. Was there any doubt as to what it was?
| Jim Sterling |
The very first Jimquisition Awards are here! Five days, five games, five awards! Games win awards for being innovative, intelligent, mature and memorable. Not many win them for being bloody funny. Lollipop Cha...
| Jim Sterling |
The very first Jimquisition Awards are here! Five days, five games, five awards! Very rarely, a game comes along that strikes a near-perfect balance between interactivity, visuals, and sound design. Journey&nb...;
| Jim Sterling |
The very first Jimquisition Awards are here! Five days, five games, five awards! We kick off with one of the most compelling new retail IPs released this year, a classic in the making from Arkane Studios and Bethesda. Yep, it could only be Dishonored!
| Jim Sterling |
There are valid concerns with the "dumbing down" of our entertainment, but as with so many issues, there are just as many invalid ones. This is especially true when "inclusiveness" and "dumbing down" are seen as the same thi...
| Jim Sterling |
When Jim Sterling isn't busy being the voice of a generation, he's a videogame reviewer -- one that's constantly told to abolish review scores. This is a silly request, hinging on the belief that review scores are an evil we...
| Jim Sterling |
Friendships are precious things that allow us to get through this horrific maelstrom we bitterly call life. Without friends, we would be but animals, hurtling cluelessly from one compulsive murder to the next. Nobody is an i...
| Jim Sterling |
The latest flavor in the restaurant of controversy is the concept of fake nerd girls -- women who pretend to like videogames and similar media, all for the express purpose of tricking honest, hard-working Americans. Yeah ... it's as insidious and fiendish a plot as anything found in Shakespeare's library of tragedies. Seriously, gamers? This is the new enemy? Christ al-bloody-mighty.
| Jim Sterling |
Over half a decade of frustration is about to be unleashed with glorious fury. It's been six years, the tech has been demonstrated, yet still the tech demos come. So few games have found a way to implement new interfaces gra...
| Jim Sterling |
This week's Jimquisition is fueled by Mounting Dudes. Halo 4 is out this week, and if you've been paying any attention to its marketing, you'll know that you won't be able to enjoy it without the crisp, refres...
| Jim Sterling |
Dr. Jonathan Crane accepts an invite to give the Jimquisition a lesson in fear. It's the Halloween special, and while your ol' pal Sterling confronts his greatest nightmares, a long-hated horror trope is discussed, defended,...
| Jim Sterling |
The punditry of the videogame community have been chatting an awful lot about booth babes this past year or so. There are those wanting them banished from events such as E3 and the Eurogamer Expo, and staunchly defendin...
| Jim Sterling |
Children are the holy grail of conflict. In media, they are the go-to solution for instant dilemma in a can, a way to garner immediate sympathy from an audience because they're children, and children are sooooo sympathic. Ex...
| Jim Sterling |
Resident Evil 6 has been criticized for abandoning survival horror and indulging its new fetish for Hollywood action. However, we may be jumping the gun by claiming Capcom's turned its back on horror -- Resident Evil 6 is ALL about the fear, provided you look at it the right way. Fortunately I have eyes that see further and better than a mere mortal. Let me explain it.
| Jim Sterling |
Oh, Team Ninja. Oh my dear, sweet Team Ninja. Oh my dear, sweet, misguided Team Ninja. Oh my dear, sweet, misguided, pervy, creepy, sleazy, weird, freaky, pervy, pervy, pervy Team Ninja. Your boobs are so bad. Your justification of said boobs are worse. Boobs. FYI, I fully admit today's episode is silly and quite possibly pointless. It was, however fun to make and I hope it is fun to watch.
| Jim Sterling |
Reactions to the Wii U among hardcore gamers have been mixed at best, downright cynical at worst. Not least of the system's problems is the fact that the next PlayStation and Xbox are going to inevitably upstage it with superior firepower. However, outside of raw tech-specs, Nintendo may have one thing Sony and Microsoft lack. The ability to survive the biggest threat of this next generation.
| Jim Sterling |
Most games are depressed and miserable, but are they truly tragic? Of course not, otherwise there wouldn't be a video asking such a deliberately leading question. The trouble with most games today is that they rush to the sa...
| Jim Sterling |
Angry gamers have been to Anita Sarkeesian (and gaming feminism in general) what DRM has been to piracy. Attempts to kill a thing have only made it stronger. It's an age-old situation, but one we as people have yet to master...
| Jim Sterling |
To combat piracy, your mission is clear -- provide a better service than pirates. Competent, efficient, fast service will trump freebies for all but the most stingy of consumers, and that is why Sony practically deserves to be ripped off with its archaic way of doing business. Using the PS Vita as the most recent example, Jimquisition proper goes off on one this week.
| Jim Sterling |
Electronic Arts and Zynga duking it out is one of the biggest supervillain slap-fights in history. Both companies are reviled by gamers the world over, but as is our nature, we can't just sit back and watch the carnage. Peop...
| Jim Sterling |
Nobody asked Jim Sterling to film his own documentary about himself, and naturally he took that as a silent urging from fans to film his own documentary about himself. Coming soon to a theater near Jim Sterling, we present Thank God For Me: The Jimquisition Story. (Absolutely has nothing to do with any other documentaries).
| Jim Sterling |
Continuing on from the argument that one can love games as art but hate them as a business, Jimquisition this week focuses on how gamers can best express their distaste for the latter while still supporting the for...
| Jim Sterling |
Everybody knows Mario, most people love him, but is Mario being Mario enough anymore? Recent Mario games have jumped headfirst into nostalgia without offering much in the way of dynamic new content, while younger platform ch...
| Jim Sterling |
Are photorealistic graphics the key to advancement? Do we need believable visuals in order to convey believable emotions? Is a console generation over as soon as you've pushed the systems to their technical limits, or is the...
| Jim Sterling |
Those who love videogames deeply enough will learn to hate them. There are two sides to this industry -- one worth cherishing, the other worth nothing more than scorn. Like a certain coin-flipping supervillain, the game industry has two faces, and it is our duty to support one side while despising the other. If we truly love videogames, we must accept that they deserve to be hated.
| Jim Sterling |
According to some of the biggest first-person shooters on the market, women don't exist. Men give birth to men who become manly men and shoot stuff with man-guns. However, not only is that unrealistic, it's exclusionary, sil...
| Jim Sterling |
What effect does a game's name have on the quality of the actual software? According to some gamers, everything! The idea that a game is bad because its name places it into an existing series is rather rife in the community,...
| Jim Sterling |
There was once a time when consoles had something that PCs didn't have. They were cheaper, easier to use, more convenient. They dominated the market because they dominated our need to be lazy and catered to. Then this genera...
| Jim Sterling |
There's nothing like a debate about art games to ensure that everybody has a fun, enlightening, and not-at-all-aggravating time! Let's discuss the assertion that "art game" as a descriptor doesn't work, that it's a broken te...
| Jim Sterling |
Why is it so much better to take a life than to rape somebody in fiction? Why can videogames allow us to get away with killing thousands of our fellow humans with swords and guns, yet a game like Rapelay drowns in ...
| Jim Sterling |
Recently, IGN asked EA why people hate EA in an article that seemed designed to dismiss any actual reasons for people hating EA. Hardly surprising, since EA was the one being interviewed about the hate for EA. Looking to set...
| Jim Sterling |
E3 2012 was considered by many to be the most gun-heavy show we have ever seen. However, looking back upon the week, there really were no more shooters than usual. In fact, most of the games were featured in last year's line...
| Jim Sterling |
This episode went up last Monday but didn't get posted here due to me being in L.A. at the time it went live. The reason for the subject is a little dated now, especially with IO Interactive issuing an apology and kickstarti...
| Jim Sterling |
The Jimquisition takes a break from discussing consumer shenanigans to focus a little on the games themselves. What exactly is the best looking game this generation, and why does it look better than the games you're all thin...
| Jim Sterling |
