Aaron Thayer
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Posts by Aaron Thayer
The Backlog: Call a Plumber, the Great Plains are Flooded edition
May 31, 2010 - 9:04 am
Tags: Alan Wake, Angry Birds, Bejeweled, Carcassonne, DS, iPhone, Ninjatown: Trees of Doom, Picross 3D, Red Dead Redemption, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Wii, words with friends, Xbox 360
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The new Mario game is out, though we’re all still playing Red Dead Redemption. Alan Wake is also mentioned in this week’s edition, and Nick even played a real board game. Like, one that has pieces and tiles and you have to have a large, flat surface to play it on. What an interesting year [...]
Why I can’t wait for Red Dead Redemption
May 18, 2010 - 12:40 pm
Tags: Editorials, PS3, Red Dead Redemption, Rockstar, Rockstar San Diego, Xbox 360
Posted in Editorials | 3 comments
Hype is a strange thing. It causes all sorts of people to vehemently defend a product they’ve never even touched. And despite my best efforts to remain neutral about the release of certain new videogames — in a laughable effort to sustain my school-bred journalistic ethics — I’m as susceptible to flashy advertisements and smart [...]
The Backlog: Final Collision Fantasy with Friends edition
May 7, 2010 - 7:24 pm
Tags: Call of Duty: World at War, Demon's Souls, Final Fantasy, Flo, Halo: Reach, Just Cause 2, My poor totaled car, Progressive Auto Insurance VII: Lamentations of the Claims Adjuster, Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty, Rhythm Heaven, Super Street Fighter IV, words with friends
Posted in Backlog | 2 comments
Our Backlog is full of Awesome Sauce this week. Don’t believe me? Good. You shouldn’t. But click the link anyway, please. We know when you don’t!
Review: Mass Effect 2 (Xbox 360)
April 30, 2010 - 4:21 pm
Tags: BioWare, EA, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, ME2, Windows, Xbox 360
Posted in Reviews | 1 comment
by Aaron Thayer Mass Effect 2 is the greatest game BioWare has created in its 15 years as a developer. Its prolific development schedule seems all but impossible: to release one fantastic blockbuster in November (Dragon Age: Origins) and then, two months later, hurdle over the quality of that game with the launch of another [...]
The Backlog: Better Late Than Later edition
April 21, 2010 - 8:52 pm
Tags: Pokémon HeartGold, Splinter Cell: Conviction, words with friends
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Last week’s post, which was intended for Friday, had to be re-appropriated by our crack team of internet henchmen at this tardy hour, and even though it’s late it’s fashionably so. In fact, it’s so fashionably late, Tim Gunn would be proud. He’s from Project Runway. Why do I know that?
The Backlog: Sandbox of Chaos edition
April 5, 2010 - 3:55 pm
Tags: Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Final Fantasy XIII, Forza 3, Just Cause 2, Mass Effect 2, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, PES 2010, Pokémon HeartGold, Project Gotham Racing 4, Rock Band, Rock Band 2
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I kinda got carried away with Photoshop this week. You see, Rico Rodriguez, the protagonist from the Just Cause games, is chaotically belly-flopping into a child’s sandbox, which serves a visual metaphor for the open-world adventures he stars in. Hence the headline. With that out of the way, I can tell you this edition of our [...]
Sasquatch PSA: Who wants a bonus when buying a new Xbox 360? You do.
March 22, 2010 - 11:52 am
Tags: Amazon, PSA, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 Arcade, Xbox 360 Elite
Posted in PSAs | No comments
I just learned something about myself, not more than 15 minutes ago: It’s apparently easy to break down my willpower when there’s a lonely and Xbox-shaped dusty void in my entertainment cabinet. I just placed an order on Amazon.com for a new Xbox 360 Arcade to replace my red-ringed console. I’d been waiting for a potential [...]
The Backlog: Did Anyone Drink Green Beer? edition
March 19, 2010 - 10:00 am
Tags: Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Final Fantasy XIII
Posted in Backlog | 2 comments
Saint Patrick’s Day was Wednesday. I’m sure those of you still nursing your hangovers won’t have forgotten the holiday already, but I’m trying to be conversational here, all right? Though I’m of partial Irish descent, I’ve never felt the need to “act a fool” in the name of the motherland during March 17th festivities. It [...]
The Backlog: Dammit, Seriously? edition
March 15, 2010 - 11:14 am
Tags: red ring of death, RROD, Sigh, Xbox 360
Posted in Backlog | 2 comments
It’s happened again. At the tender age of four, my Xbox 360 Pro 20 GB model, bought in March of 2006, passed away this Saturday at 7:55 p.m. Because my console has been out of warranty since last June — extended for an extra year after I payed to repair the then-not-free E74 error in [...]
About an Adult Swim Flash Game: Robot Unicorn Attack
February 13, 2010 - 5:46 pm
Tags: Adult Swim, Canabalt, Flash, Robot Unicorn Attack, Scott Stoddard, Spiritonin
Posted in About an Adult Swim Flash Game | 1 comment
What is a “game” but an alchemist’s mixture of disparate concepts that by themselves don’t mean much, yet somehow make sense as a whole when paired accordingly? Gears of War’s cover mechanic has no use in a two-dimensional fighter. A licensed Barbie title (maybe) doesn’t need Castlevania’s map system. And – obviously – Guitar Hero’s flurry of [...]