"Puppies in a Wasteland" (Editorial) from 2007

Unearthed from 2007, this editorial lamented the poor availability of great discourse when it comes to video games. I always liked the "Blue Plate Special" banner (the header) for this one and I think the box of puppies in a wasteland is a good metaphor given the topic.

"Once I Think I'm Out, They Pull Me Back In!" (Editorial) from 2007

This editorial from Mr. Nash dates back to 2007 and recounts his year away from World of WarCraft. With all the MMO's that have come and gone during the intervening years, it's still a little mind-boggling to think that WoW is still going strong. Maybe it doesn't post the same kind of numbers that it once did, but WoW probably still has many, many years left in the tank.

...and Thanks for All the Fish!

It's a hell of thing to look back on 15 years of the Armchair Empire (AE) but I'm ready to turn my gaze forward and leave it behind.

For the last few years it has become increasingly evident – first in little hints then in crushing blows – that I'd gone as far as could with AE. What got me excited in the early days – creating the site, making contacts (when I got press kits in the mail), playing video games sent to my house, the metric ton of action figures, that feeling of endless possibilities – is the exact thing that has worn me down.

Without trying to sound too much like a question from the Riddler, all of it takes Time and once that Time is gone there's no getting it back and I just didn't ever seem to have enough of it.

Feature: GTA V Comments (Part III) - Canadian

Okay, think of Canada.

What was the first stereotypical image that jumped into your head? Did it include bacon, hockey, maple syrup, moose, Mounties, poutine, donuts? A beaver galloping through the Rocky Mountains? Some kind of weird amalgam of all of those things on a poster shaped like a toque being sold by Bob and Doug McKenzie on kijiji?

I'll bet the character below never entered your thoughts:

Trevor Phillips, Lord of Chaos

Raving Rant: The Gender Games - Part 2: Barbarians at the GamerGate

So far, The Armchair Empire has more or less stayed out of the whole “GamerGate” fracas, and wisely so in my opinion.  But sooner or later, it has to be addressed, and being the token loudmouth American (so far as I know) on staff, I might as well jump in.

In the last month, what began as yet another example of the bottom rung of Internet culture showing off its asshole credentials somehow blew up into a “thing.”  Game journalists suddenly got caught in the crosshairs.  Salacious rumors and unverified claims of infidelity became front page news, not in Wired or Ars Technica, but mainstream news in major daily publications.  And the hits just keep on coming.  Rumors of collusion between game journalists, sexual improprieties, death threats, DDoS attacks.  There’s a part of me that knows when the Internet loses its collective shit, things are never the same afterward.  Sometimes, it’s a good thing.  Sometimes, it’s horrific.  I've spent most of the past month or so thinking “fuck all, y’all!” whenever some fresh report of insanity with the hashtag of “GamerGate” heaves into view.  It’s had me vaguely toying with the idea of basically walking away from the video game industry entirely.  Why?  Because everybody who’s got even a modicum of restraint is drowned out by partisans on both sides, and I get enough of that as it is watching the local news.  The Internet, as a whole, does not do “calm.”  But it damned well needs to try.

Playing Dress Up in Games

Bards are arguably one of the most stylish jobs in
Final Fantasy XIV.

Customization has become increasingly popular in games over the decades. Whether it's something on the technical end like tweaking graphic settings or an RPG where players have points to allocate to various stats on their characters, this sort of thing has been quite useful and people really eat it up. While customization has been a big thing on the practical side of the spectrum, it's also become all the rage from a stylistic standpoint. It could be something like having multiple costumes for fighting game characters, or graphically reflecting equipment upgrades in an RPG, or it could be like in MMORPGs where many games have gone so far as to allow vanity gear that players can acquire simply to make their character as stylish as they like while still retaining stats from other gear that actually is useful in battle.

I remember it being a very simple thing, back when my friends and I played Street Fighter II in the arcades during the early 90s. Get into a mirror match with someone and inevitably one of you would be stuck with a color scheme on your character that you probably didn't like. This used to happen to me with Ryu all the time. I was a traditionalist with him and many of the other SFII characters at the time, and much preferred their original colors, as opposed to the alternatives, and couldn't help but cringe when I didn't get them.

Editorial: There Be No Headstone - A Note About Review Scores

Imagine you're standing in front of an open grave.

Now imagine that grave full of numbers from 1 to 10. Mixed in that tangle are decimals and a lot of extra fives. No need for a coffin.

Do you hear the eerie strains of "Amazing Grace" played on the bagpipes? You should.

Look around and you'll see me with a shovel, a mound of dirt nearby. I begin heaving the dirt into the hole.

When I'm finished, I pause for moment to wipe my brow, probably with a red handkerchief, then stare down at the fresh dirt and listen to a soft breeze blow through nearby cedars. A hummingbird thrums through the air.

I turn and leave the unmarked grave behind. I will drink Tequila and La Fin du Monde to obliterate the location of the grave from my mind.

In short, The Armchair Empire will no longer include review scores. Readers will still be able rely on "The Good" and "The Bad" summaries, but no longer will a numerical score accompany the review text for reasons mostly outlined in a recent editorial I wrote: "And The Score is..."

If you want to chime in on the decision, I invite you to add your comments below. Were the numbers buried for the right reasons?

- Aaron Simmer
Follow @EmpireArmchair

Raving Rant - The Gender Games, Part I: The Last Girl Standing

(WARNING: SPOILERS FOR "THE LAST OF US" AHEAD!  READ AT YOUR PERIL!)

There’s been a brouhaha over the last year or so about women and gaming.  On the one extreme, we’ve got the mouthbreathers spewing the usual sexist crap.  On the other extreme, we have Anita Sarkeesian and her highly disingenuous “Tropes vs. Women in Video Games,” which criticizes the tropes, but doesn’t offer any substantive evaluation beyond, “This is bad, mmm’kay.”

More recently, with the release of The Last of Us, we have Chris Suellentrop over at The New York Times bemoaning how the game just follows the conventions and declares, “This is another video game by men, for men and about men.”  Naughty Dog, naturally, took umbrage at this assertion, particularly in light of the story that they actually told their PR firm to get more women into the testing groups when it seems there was a dearth of them earlier.

Editorial: Raving Rant - The Night Elf and The Snowman

It’s been a while since I've found myself bereft of speech on an issue.

To be fair, the last several months have had a near daily flood of information that part of me didn't want to miss by trying to nail down any one set of specifics. I've been watching the near daily revelations of Edward Snowden with the same sick fascination one would properly expect of a train wreck, particularly one of this magnitude.

For years, I've been following a lot of the topics that the Snowden Files address, but always with the degree of removal that good investigative journalism imposes: you get a clearer picture, but you know that there’s probably information even the journos missed. I've long been opposed to the post-9/11 surveillance state policies that have warped and twisted the world into the shape it’s in now. And for good or ill, we've seen far more than even I could have even begun to imagine, and I've got a very good imagination. For example, the fact that half the alphabet soup agencies on the Federal Register blew time and taxpayer money hunting for terrorists in Azeroth.

Editorial: A Special Note

As we quickly close out 2013, I hope each and every one of you reading this has a chance to spend some time with family and friends this time of year. And maybe even play a game or two...

I extend a "Merry Christmas!" to you even if you're not really into the holiday scene and I wish you nothing but the best for 2014!

I'll admit the preceding isn't quite as poetic or stirring as what the Queen's speech writers come up with but it's a genuine sentiment. I raise a glass -- it's half-full at this point and the world is a little blurry -- and toast your success and that any challenges that come your way in 2014 make you a better person!

Aaron Simmer

Co-Founder and Head Writer, The Armchair Empire

Editorial: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 We Hardly Knew Ye

So, with a new generation of consoles here, it's time to eulogize the imminent passing of the previous one. We look back on all of the good times we had, the bad times, the high and low points, all the things that made the generation special for us. My problem is that this past generation was the first time I genuinely found myself not caring about console games, and I can see that opinion galvanizing in the future.

There were plenty of games that I liked that came out on those systems, but they also came out on PC where they were often times prettier. Even better, if I waited until something like a Steam Sale, I could get a lot of those games for a sack of nickels, which is quite the savings over their console equivalents where I was hard pressed to find a lot of those games for under twenty bucks.

Battlefield 4 (PC): Pre-Review Thoughts

At this moment, if I were to write an official review of Battlefield 4 it would be decidedly unfavourable. 1 star on Amazon, maybe a 2 for a Metacritic User Review because right now Battlefield 4 is like driving the ultra high-end sports car of your choice, with a twist. It looks gorgeous, the lines are great, the sense of power is incredible. But imagine that the hidden "feature" of this vehicle is that the front wheels will fly off without any indication that something is about to go horribly and dramatically wrong.

Editorial: Baker's Dozen Looking Forward

The original 2000 Armchair Empire banner.

It's August so that means my mind starts wandering back to the origins and development of The Armchair Empire.

The year was 2000, the month August, two 23-year old guys thought it would be cool to have a website devoted to writing about video games and action figures. Google wasn't a thing and Steam was associated with trains. Happy Puppy loomed large on the video game reviews landscape. Jeff Green wasn't the Editor-in-Chief of Computer Gaming World. Nintendo Power not only existed, it was going strong, running alongside the likes of (the original) EGM and GamePro. Argon fluorohydride was just discovered by Finnish scientists. Amazon was still "new fangled." The Playstation 2 had recently launched.

Feature: Why Video Games Can Make Great Dates

In general, guys are terrible at planning dates. What's so fun about going out to a restaurant on a first date, swapping resumes and watching each other chew food? What's so great about sitting next to a stranger in a dark room with the monkey chatter in your head thinking, "Oh my God, what's this person thinking?" I was guilty of planning the exact same dates when I was younger, immature and inexperienced. It wasn't until I started to ask myself, "What sets me apart from the competition and makes me better than the other people I'm competing with?" Part of that is planning great dates.

Editorial: Raving Rant - Dragging the Offline

This is Dutch Uncle Axel talking to you, EA COO Peter Moore: sit down, shut up, and pay attention.

This is important, because this is why you’re getting a second “Worst Company In America” award  from The Consumerist. I’d apologize for being brusque, but it would be an utter lie, and you need to hear this in as plain a language as possible. It will offend you. It will make you angry. I won’t spout the whole “anger leads to the Dark Side” nonsense because you’re already there. But anger does have value as a psychological motivator for survival. And you do want to survive, right?

Recently, my cable Internet service became unavailable for a prolonged period. Not a couple of hours, but a couple of weeks. During this interim, would you care to take a guess how many hours I spent trying to catch up on Mass Effect 3? Or Kingdoms of Amalur? Or maybe trying to beat a high score on Gatling Gears? The answer is zero, Peter.

Digesting Free to Play

Neverwinter is another in a recent stream of free to play MMORPGs
to come out

Over the last week, another batch of free to play games became readily available to the public either as a full release, or an open beta. Those games were Ragnarok Online 2 and Neverwinter. This isn't going to be a review of those games, or the time I've spent fiddling around in either of them, but more a chance for me to try and articulate my own thoughts on the current state of free to play, and by "articulate" I largely mean prattle on incoherently. So, business as usual.

Editorial: My (Fake) Condolences

I posted a few comments to my Twitter feed the other day that I thought deserved some special attention. The tweets took to task the enthusiast press to task for including “well wishes” in a News post. For a form of media – the gaming enthusiast press – that wants to be taken seriously and leaps to a high horse every time their integrity is questioned due to (usually) a self incriminating blog post, tweet or note on LinkedIn, it seems in conflict with what they actually write.

Why let emotions seep into reporting on games? I’m sure if you look back far enough, I’ve probably done the same thing. “I hope everyone lands on their feet” or some other meaningless line after a studio closure. But why should a “game journo” care about what happens to the employees at Junction Point? THQ? Radical?

Editorial: A Compromising Position

Have you ever been offered money under the table to write a favorable review?
No. Never. Thank god. But if someone ever did, not only would I chew them out big time, but I’d probably write about it in the magazine. Or threaten to at least.

- Interview with Jeff Green, September 4, 2000

Over the last number of days there's been quite a bit of arm-flapping and finger-pointing in regard to "games journalism" and alleged collusion between those in the gaming press and people in the marketing and PR departments of game publishers.

There have been broad-brush generalizations, accusations of elaborate Mafioso alliances that would have made Mario Puzo's brain melt (never mind my own), and just about everything between those two points. The thread on NeoGAF batting this around appears to have "leveled off" slightly with repeated calls for the big sites like IGN, Kotaku, GameSpot, etc. to come out swinging and make some kind of hard-hitting, kick-to-the-balls ethics statement about the relationship between the gaming press and PR/Marketing departments of game publishers, and that a lack of response indicates the enthusiast press' tacit approval and wagon circling for the press/publisher relationship as it stands.

Raving Rant: The Outsider

It sits there on Metacritic's page like a baleful and accusing eye.  It's the only one of its kind on that page, as of the time of this writing, a red square with a number "45" on it, and the name "Armchair Empire" next to that.  It is the review I submitted for Diablo III.  Right now, it's probably the most viewed page on our site.  I remember the email that Jeff Nash sent me after the review went up while I was at E3.  "Should be interesting to see how people react to the score. I suspect some hilarious comments will be forthcoming."

In this respect, our fearless leader was not wrong.

Editorial: The Trouble with Tentacles

There's been a bit of a brouhaha regarding Kickstarter, Soda Pop Miniatures, and their upcoming card game Tentacle Bento.

The premise involves players assuming the role of tentacle monsters passing themselves off as human (or just hiding really well in plain sight) with the goal of having sex with shojou-style Japanese schoolgirls.