In June 2001, I was working my first-ever job as a games attendant at a local amusement park. I was 15 years old, finally earning some disposable income of my own, and still reeling from the untimely demise of the Sega Dreamcast. Until this point in time, I had only ever owned PC and SEGA gaming har...

Hearts of Stone begins with a seemingly rote witcher contract in which the player is tasked with slaying an amphibian monster dwelling in the sewers below Oxenfurt. As you work your way into the beast's lair--joined by none other than Shani from the first Witcher (and the book series)--you come acro...

One of the joys I've had with Sonic Mania is really introducing my wife to the series. Like Stanshall was saying with their own Sonic history, she had this idea that Sonic was all about holding the joystick/d-pad down to the right and allowing Sonic to just speed towards the finish line. She'd even ...

Somewhere between the release of Final Fantasy XII and Final Fantasy XIII, I set out on a personal quest to collect and play all of the mainline Final Fantasy games minus the sole MMORPG entry at the time, FFXI. I had already finished and adored Final Fantasies 7-12 (again, with the exception of 11)...

I was eight years old the first time I played Mortal Kombat. I was spending the night at a friend's house, and he and his brother were big fans of the series. Until that night, I had only ever seen the game in arcades, and only ever out of the corner of my eye. I was not a sheltered child, but I was...

_eO_pqzP4EI Lands of Lore 3 is not a good game. It's a disappointing conclusion to a classic series and a game that was showing its age well before it ever hit store shelves. The story is unsatisfying, the RPG mechanics are often broken, and its characters don't even move their darn lips when they ...

Near the end of Act Two of The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, you arrive upon the Isle of Mists where at last the search for Geralt's surrogate daughter, a plot arc that has dominated the game's main story up until this point, will come to its conclusion. After a run-in with seven dwarves--themselves caric...

seansthomas wrote: ↑May 21st, 2017, 10:00 am That was a great read!

Thanks! That's high praise coming from a Cane and Rinse forum vet

Never before have I had such a love-hate relationship with a game as I do with Destiny. It's the type of game that you turn on casually at 10 PM on a weeknight only to find yourself finally crawling into bed at 2:00 AM, your eyes bloodshot and your alarm set for just a few hours later. It's addictiv...

Kain is deified. The clans tell tales of him, few know the truth I can still hear the harsh horns echo in the recesses of my mind along with Raziel's narration of Soul Reaver's opening cinematic, which is burned into my memory virtually word for word. Before ever having actually played the game, I ...

For my 11th birthday, my parents gifted me a copy of Lords of Magic, a hybrid strategy game that combined a turn-based (almost) 4x strategy game with real-time-with-pause combat. The idea behind the game was to combine Lords of the Realm with Heroes of Might and Magic, and while the result was a uni...

One of the short stories in 'The Sword of Destiny' goes into why Geralt isn't keen on dragon slaying. You're right! And the dragon in that story has a really rewarding connection to Saskia in The Witcher 2, also. I think you get enough of an explanation in-game as for why Geralt doesn't normally ki...

As I mentioned in my brief review of the first Witcher game, seeing The Witcher 2 for the first time was my catalyst for finally sitting down to play the series. Presumably riding on the surprising success of the first game, CD Projekt RED ditched BioWare's long-since antiquated aurora engine in fav...

In the 2000s, BioWare were the undisputed kings and queens of the Western RPG. They were a company I had grown to love back in the Baldur's Gate days, and I regularly visited their official site and forums to keep myself apprised on the latest rumors and tidbits about the next big adventure I could ...