Backlog
The Backlog: Spring is Sprung Edition
Mar 28th
Spring officially began earlier this week. Hooray! In theory, there should be less rain in the perennially rainy northwest soon, it should start to warm up a bit, and it’s staying light out past 7 pm at night. These are all awesome things. Not awesome? Living north of a place that refers to itself as “the grass seed capital of the world.” Anecdotally, many people who come from less-allergy-tastic places to our University of Oregon or Oregon State for college often wind up getting ridiculous hay fever because all that grass seed makes the Willamette Valley one of the worst places in the U.S. for allergies.
Guess who has two thumbs and allergies? THIS GUY! Ah well. That’s what medicine is for. Well, medicine and games. BACKLOG!
Backlog: South by Southwest edition
Mar 20th
Free riverfront concerts: Just another reason why SXSW is awesome
Holy crap, you guys. I can’t believe I’m still standing.
Not only did I just complete my second week at my new job, but I also subjected myself to two straight weeks of going out at night for music, food and drinks. I nearly overdosed on culture, having taken in a movie premiere, a dozen bands and a variety of Texas beers (not one of them held a candle to the Northwest’s best, for the record) and I’m proud to be able to sit here and tell the tale.
Of course, now that SXSW is coming to a close, it’ll be business as usual around here. Aaron’s up to his ankles in Dragon Age II’s trademark bloody, hypersexualized fantasy schtick, Doug’s digging deep into his gaming reserves, and I’m reluctantly easing back into the real world.
Backlog: Spring Forward edition
Mar 5th
This image is .05% related to the title. You can see that there's a Slinky, and Slinkys "spring." Also, this creature's stuck in it and can't move "forward." It's ironically genius, when you think about it.
Welcome to this week’s Backlog! I’m your typist-guide — my name’s Aaron, but you can call me Aaron — and it’s my job to introduce our content. So let me do that.
Today is a good day, and not just because I’m totally fond of our latest contributions about games we’ve all played during the past seven days. No, that’s all fine and dandy. What I mean in calling today a good day is that the atmosphere is different — finally. I can feel the air warming. I can see the daylight growing longer. My roommates are busy cleaning their rooms, watering their plants and putting on airs for guests who are showing up this weekend. People are emerging from winter’s woolen grasp and it’s visible on the faces around me. Spring is fuckin’ here.
How nice.
Backlog: Movin’ On edition
Feb 26th
Well, the day is almost here. I’m going to be driving out to Austin, Texas in a few days to start my new job at Facebook! In light of my newfound employment, please look forward to our relaunch as the brand-new, Zynga-exclusive Silicon Sasquatch! Forget Dragon Age 2 and Diablo 3; from here on out, if the game doesn’t have “-Ville” in its name, we don’t want anything to do with it.
Nah, don’t worry. We’re still gonna keep doing what we do best — as soon as we figure out what that is, exactly.
Backlog: Big G Edition
Feb 18th
What, pray tell is “G”? Beyond an uninspired sports drink ad campaign, methinks the man pictured above knows a thing or two.
In any case, G’s up this weekend on the Backlog. Nick has been fly like a G6 and popped into the rejuvenated Ground Kontrol, Doug got some AP English flashbacks playing a Great American Novel-inspired flash game, and Aaron apparently has the world’s gnarliest bird flu or ebola or something and has bravely pushed through to make an appearance here this week.
Now, unfortunately, the schtick is wearing thin so onward! Backlog, ho!
Backlog: Love Me Do edition
Feb 11th
It won't last, bro! Not with a goatee of that caliber.
Ah, it’s that time again. The taste of romance is in every gust of air. It rustles each leaf with libidinous intent while its bedfellow, infatuation, pours itself into our potable water reservoirs from the back of some unmarked van rented at an Avis by foreign insurgents. We’re talking about a biological terrorist attack of the heart here. That familiar, disgusting plague which incites both pleasure (a sudoric [read: sweaty] bedroom encounter) and pain (a three-course meal and expensive wine at a restaurant far out of your tax bracket) is back. A cruel holiday Valentine’s is: lovers love while the lonely get lonelier.
But who gives a shit when you’ve got videogames to play, right?
With no real honor or cause paid to Valentine’s Day (which is coming up this Monday, for those who are chronologically handicapped), I present this week’s Backlog in stunning LOVE-O-VISION ©.
Basically, I colored everything pink.
Read the rest of this entry »
Backlog: Clever Unifying Theme Goes Here edition
Feb 5th
Okay, fine: So maybe we didn’t put our thinking caps on this morning to figure out what ties all three of our Backlog entries together. It’s possible that we didn’t get enough sleep because some jerk woodpecker just had to poke the hell out of a dying fir tree about five feet from a certain editor’s bed for roughly three hours. Maybe that same editor grew frustrated in hunting down a hilarious .jpg and drew a crude comic to vent his frustration instead.
Who knows? It is a mystery. So why don’t we just file it away for now and move on to more pressing matters?
Lovely.
Here’s the skinny: Nick is up to his old tricks, Doug is off the friggin’ deep end of football-induced insanity, and Aaron just really, really hates free stuff.
Backlog: Is January the cruelest month?
Jan 28th
Truly, April may be the cruelest month, but January is getting damn close. After a respite granted by the holidays, the real world stings like the fog on a frosty January morning. Aaron’s got the working man’s blues, living for the weekend (whenever that may actually fall for him — it’s like a shell game, you see), while Doug and Nick have the non-working man’s blues. It’s enough to drive a person crazy.
Plus the days are still crazy short around here. At least we have video games to keep us company! Time for the Backlog!
Backlog: Mr. Fry Will See You Now edition
Jan 21st
Oh! Hello there.
So sorry I didn’t notice you; I was busy tousling my hair and practicing my charming, inextricably British character quirks.
Err-ahem. Yes. LittleBigPlanet 2 was released this week, headlined once again by a revelatory performance from your humble narrator. While those of you with a PlayStation 3 have undoubtedly snatched up your very own copies without hesitation, the rest of the world was left with no comparable alternative; alas, some of you had to resort to games from two years ago! Imagine that.
Now if you’ll kindly excuse me; I’m late for my weekly poker night with Hugh Laurie, Tony Blair and The Stig. In outer space.
Backlog: Videogame Lethargy edition
Jan 14th
This gorilla mirrors my current level of enthusiasm toward videogames
Has it finally happened? Have I lost my interest in the one pastime I’ve sunk the most effort into since I was a child? Are videogames suddenly boring?
Maybe. Actually, I doubt it.
In all honesty, I’m more overwhelmed with the industry right now than I’m disenfranchised with it. And I should be specific here: I’m not talking about the videogame industry so much as I’m directing my bitching to the large pile of games I still need to finish. That’s no one’s fault but my own — still, once I have “too much” to play I get bored with games in general and — gasp — go and read a book.
In semi-related news, I’m just about finished with book four in Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series. With that movie and TV franchise in the works, I kinda hope for/dread a videogame adaptation. Here’s a tip, Ron Howard and Mr. King: make Rockstar San Diego the developers.