Gaming off the Beaten Path

  I've talked about "random shareware" quite a bit in the past. Those demos that everyone in the 90's seemed to have installed on their computers without any knowledge of how they got there. It's finally time to talk about the game that, for me personally, epitomized that phenomenon. I had absolutely no idea how the first episode of Heretic ended up on my computer back in the day, but I can tell you for a fact I played those levels over and over again. As is apparent to anyone who follows my content, I am a huge fan of Doom. But I've always been more of a fantasy nerd than a sci-fi nerd. So now you are telling me there's a game that's basically Doom but in a fantasy setting? Sign me up! It's funny how things come full circle, the mystery of how Heretic got on my computer has been in the back of my mind for longer than it probably should have been. Yet thanks to the research I've done for this post, I think it is close to being solved. Whenever ...

  Quick, what's the first brand you would associate with a video game? Would it be a major media franchise? There are tons of those, name a media franchise and it's had a video game made about it. Would it be a food company? That's been pretty common since the early days of gaming. A consumer goods company? Depending on the game, it could make sense. Maybe a sports league or wrestling promotion? Hell, that may be the most common situation you see, there's a new NFL, NBA, NHL and WWE game every year.  At this point, many video game franchises have become brands themselves. Mario, Sonic, Resident Evil, Street Fighter, and a host of others are essentially brands of their own at this point. Look, video games are, were and always have been great opportunities for branding, at least when the branding makes sense. But sometimes, you still find games featuring brands that shock you. If you asked me "which brands do you think would best lend themselves to video games?"...

I know I've been covering a lot of newer games recently, but I'll get back to the old school stuff soon. I guess Bulletstorm is almost 10 years old and I've covered 7th generation games before, so it still fits, right? Besides, this week's entry feels very timely and it's a logical continuation from some of the other stuff I've covered recently. In case the title didn't make it immediately apparent, Bulletstorm is a first person shooter, released originally for the PS3 and XBox 360 in 2011. I myself played the "Full Clip Edition" on the PS4, one of the many PS Plus games I downloaded yet never touched. But having just come off my playthrough of Goldeneye, I wanted to sink my teeth into a modern FPS as something to compare it to. Just as Goldeneye featured all the hallmarks of 90's FPS', Bulletstorm was a quintessential modern take on the genre. However, it also called to mind my review of Hollow Knight, as it also aped several film tropes. ...