There’s a certain logic to avoiding the haters, but as a strategy, it’s utterly flawed. When you turn off the feedback, you lose the benefits as well as the drawbacks. It’s like having a sore finger and cutting off your arm. – Rob Manuel
Libraries have a PR problem – or at least that’s what they call it when no one under the age of 40 walks through the door. To bring in a younger crowd, the paper pushers have turned to tech to bring in the public. DVDs, CDs and, yes, even videogames are hitting the shelves of your local library. – Rob Manuel
In 1995 I decided to stop eating meat. I could never really quite explain why; I think it was something to do with watching a documentary where they cooked a cat and partly because I had a really crap job working for Wolves Poly and felt my life was slipping away. It definitely wasn’t anything to do with any ‘vegetarian month’. – Rob Manuel
Added to the rooster of courses, ‘Tiger Woods 10’ adds in seven new courses from the pristine Bethpage Black, home of this year’s U.S. Open, to the legendary Pinehurst. The Wii Weather Channel will even adjust the forecast to match the fairway because sometimes even the pros have to play in the rain. – Rob Manuel
Not only a great game, ‘Uncharted 2’ raised the bar for storytelling for the medium. The game treated action as a part of the overall story rather than a way to move from plot point to plot point. – Rob Manuel
Sweet, loveable, and with every click revealing a new surprise, ‘Botanicula’ creates both a wonderful world where bees and twigs play in the universe and sets up a daring story of a group of unlikely heroes taking on a tree’s last hope of survival. – Rob Manuel
More than just music, the splash of water or a lone footstep can put you in the moment. Sound is just another tool in the developer’s toolbox to draw the player further into the game. – Rob Manuel
‘Toybox’ is that kind of game that will stretch your mental capacity by doing very simple things like solving an easy puzzle of shooting aliens. You’ll just need to do everything at the same time to make it through alive. Just to make things tricky, the tasks change every week so you can’t get used to any set. – Rob Manuel
Hollywood is the kind of town that likes to make everything larger than life: movie premieres, aging actress’ lips, and murders. Actors come from all over the world to find their sliver of fame on the street of L.A. Many stars rise, but many more fall. – Rob Manuel
Bacon. Let’s talk about bacon. There’s no meat more glorious than bacon. You can add it to pasta instead of cheese. You can stick it in a sandwich, er… instead of cheese. – Rob Manuel
Look at the world of both film and indie games, and you’ll find a startling similarity between the two when it comes to creating the perfect horror story. The tricks storytellers pull to make your blood run cold never change; a creaking floorboard, the eerie feeling of being watched, wandering into a world filled with unspeakable terror. – Rob Manuel
‘Puzzlejuice’ will get your brain juices flowing as try to juggle both falling boxes and a growing list of letters to create words from. There are power ups to unlock and massive explosions that will shake your mobile device to its very core if you are quick enough with your fingers and your thoughts. – Rob Manuel
Twitch is a platform. Switch it on, and you’ll find thousands of channels of pure gameplay rolling around with people talking in the background. Dig a little deeper, and you’ll also find people talking on camera, with sets built like an actual talk show, and schedules of events posted at the bottom of the web page. – Rob Manuel
Keep it simple, stupid. Good game design shouldn’t keep you looking at the manual but should have enough depth where you feel like you bring something new to the game every time you play. – Rob Manuel
Somewhere in your house is a game that could use a good beating. Pick it up. Play to the end. Get all the achievements/trophies out of it. So you’ve maxed out all your points. Play it again at a harder difficulty. Do something. It’s startling the number of games people own but haven’t beaten for one reason or another. – Rob Manuel
‘Borderlands’ came out of nowhere to appease the gnawing hunger left behind with the dearth of quality dungeon crawlers on the market. – Rob Manuel
We need games like ‘A Closed World’ for many reasons. When you hear another developer talk about how games need to grow up, they need to tackle adult themes, and how they need to embrace that ability to transport the player into a different world, this is that game that they want other developers to make. – Rob Manuel
To figure out what people think, look at the stories that they tell. We might never get away from the image of Sheldon from ‘The Big Bang Theory’ breaking down in the middle of the store, not knowing which console to buy, but we can see in TV and movies how regular characters are more and more starting to play games. – Rob Manuel
It takes minutes to play, but ‘Unmanned’ sticks with you for long after the credits roll. As a part of a two-man team for an unarmed drone, you experience one day in the life of this man who’s tired of staring through the camera of a drone flying around the Middle East and keeping his finger on the trigger. – Rob Manuel
‘Waveform’ puts you in charge of the wavy pathway of a ship in space. Hit the good stuff and avoid the bad things. While it sounds simple, this title will keep you on your toes as you try to navigate the dark inky space. By hitting the items you want or following the correct path, you build up your combo as well as your speed. – Rob Manuel
Most of us grew up with video games in the household, either the original Nintendo in the living room or hoarding quarters for that trip to the arcade. And as time moves on, that line of nostalgia will keep moving forward where ‘Frogger’ gets replaced with ‘Street Fighter 2’ or ‘Resident Evil 4.’ – Rob Manuel
The woeful tales of ‘Super Mario Bros.’ and ‘Street Fighter’ have taught studios that merely slapping a name to a movie is not enough to bring in the fans of the franchise. Also, the way games now unfold their stories more parallels that of a movie, with characters and plot points actually meaning as much as a high score. – Rob Manuel
‘Fowl Space’ was a lovechild of boredom. While in class, two of the developers started passing designs back and forth. Somewhere in the middle of all that ink and crumpled paper, a chicken in a space helmet was born and thus we have ‘Fowl Space.’ – Rob Manuel
Sometimes it’s not always about what you can see or hear but what’s under the hood of a game that’s most impressive. Between those thousands and thousands of lines of code, magic happens. Sometimes the most amazing feats of gaming wizardry happen without you even noticing. – Rob Manuel
‘Armada d6’ proves that some of the best games out there are still being playing on your tabletop. – Rob Manuel
If you are willing to take the trip through ‘Analogue,’ you’ll be rewarded with some of the best writing in gaming today and a look into the future of what kind of meaningful stories video games are capable of telling. – Rob Manuel
I’ll be the first to admit it – after the first episode, I wasn’t sold on Peter Capaldi as the new Doctor of ‘Doctor Who,’ with the bewildered Clara following behind like a lost puppy, haphazardly flinging aggression around like cream pies in a ‘Three Stooges’ marathon. – Rob Manuel
A little light on the RPG elements but heavy on action, ‘Mass Effect 2’ was the game that created a world of characters that I actually cared about. When it came down to making those tough decisions during the final mission, I actually had to put the controller down and think about my choices. – Rob Manuel
With multiplayer, permanent death, and an ever-changing world to explore and conquer, ‘A Valley Without Wind’ might be the place you’re looking for if you need to escape the same dreary titles. – Rob Manuel
