andPOP - Pop Culture With Substance

I am a..ninja

Hi everyone, my name is April Apoong and I’m the new intern writer at andPOP.com. Yes, I am their first female game reviewer. I am currently pursuing creative writing at a Post Secondary level and reviewing and writing about games was a natural choice for me. Trust me, I’m no pushover, have you finished Tenchu Wrath of Heaven on the highest difficulty 100 percent? Ever gone on a 30 to 1 winning streak in Dead or Alive 2? Well I have! For these reasons and more I am bringing my zany writing talents to the shores of andPOP. So prepare to see some well written unapologetic video game centric works of literature.

Hey, doesn't that cloud look like... a person being impaled?

A Movie You Can Control: Cinema’s Effect on Video Games

Ever been watching a movie and wished you could tell the actors that what they’re doing is stupid?  That you have a much better plan that would totally work, and if they would only do that instead, maybe the zombies wouldn’t eat them, or the comrade that was clearly going to inevitably betray them wouldn’t get the chance?  Well I have.  But with the advent of video games in recent years that seemingly make a conscious effort to mimic the pacing and immersive experience of a film, it’s almost like we have the ability to watch a movie that we’re also able to play through and control. For a classic narcissist such as myself, this is clearly the greatest thing to happen to video games since the B-button. READ MORE »

Swords and Shields, or Cyborgs and Clones?

When you’re walking down the aisle in the store, shopping for a new game, do you pick up Oblivion or Fallout? Are you looking to fly a dragon or a hovercraft, swing an axe into someone’s face or kneecap them with a laser pistol? This week our big question is… fantasy vs sci-fi?

I myself am not really sure which I prefer. I was at Games Day Toronto 2009, which showcases the tabletop wargame Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 (and also the MMORPG Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning), I find myself to be drawn to both equally. So to put my personal curiosity to rest, and hopefully provide some entertainment in the process, here’s my List of Why Sci-fi is Better than Fantasy (or vice versa). Enjoy! READ MORE »

Today boys and girls we will look at an issue that has been debated by almost every games media outlet.

It’s an issue that’s very complex and honestly deserves to be dissected by a careful assessment, backed by numbers, by a group of very well informed analytical minds in the industry.  Only then can such an issue be solved.  Assuming there is a possibility of a solution.  What am I babbling about, you ask?  The Wii and its hardcore following.

Notice I said hardcore following, not titles. READ MORE »

CHEATS – The Gamer’s Moral Compass

Up, Up, Down, Down, Up, Up, Up, Up.  And all of a sudden, I can level select in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 on my Sega Genesis.  So what if I don’t earn my way to the Ice Cap Zone?  I’ve played this game 50 times already – it’s been done.  But you’d never catch me sprinting through GoldenEye or Quake with God Mode on – ruins the game for me.  So my cheating in games is based on convenience and sportsmanship (after a fashion).   But am I the rule, or the exception to it?

Cheats and secrets have been around in games since 8-bit systems.  I really wouldn’t be surprised if there was a cheat to make your Pong paddle bigger (and I’m not referencing the herbal medicine junk email we get every day).  Back on the Genesis and NES/SNES, we had Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat codes to unlock characters, and Battletoads, Sonic and many other codes for level selection.  Later, on platforms like the N64, Playstation and PS2, codes became a way to unlock secret features of the game, features that you couldn’t unlock without the codes.  A great example of this is Star Wars: Rogue Squadron for the N64, which had a code to unlock the Naboo starfighter from Episode I.  However, LucasArts only released the code after the movie had been released in theatres – so noone was unlocking that baby by accident a few days before opening weekend at the box office.  Cheats and secrets are still a big part of games, but as the core gamer demographic grows out of the desire for codes (and more importantly, grows out of hard-core gaming into casual gaming), these become more rewards than hustles.

READ MORE »

Poet? Warrior-king? Egomaniac? If any of these words describe you, then we have something in common.  This is good news, because I’m going to be writing for our new blog!

I grew up playing video games, like a good chunk of the men in my age group. That’s not to say I huddled in the basement with a controller 24/7, just that I enjoyed the classics growing up. I owned a Sega Genesis (and later a Sega CD) and for the cost of a kiss or two, I had frequent access to my neighbour’s Nintendo. She was Player 1. Not much has changed in my love life since then.

My brothers and I used to rent games from a small, family-owned video store not too far from our house. Which meant that for 2 dollars we could play a game for a week, and if we got bored of it there was another one next week. We only owned 2 games – the ones that came with the system. My parents were good with money. READ MORE »

Hey andPOPpers, Josh here (senior gaming editor), chances are if you’ve read a game review on this web page in the past two years, it was written by me. We’re going through some big exciting changes on the gaming front at andPOP, we will be adding more content, more articles, more reviews, contests, interviews, and many more surprises over the next few weeks and I just wanted to get things rolling with what I hope to become a weekly blog.

I guess I would start by telling you all a little bit about my gaming habits. Ever since I was a wee young child I grew up with some form of video game controller in my hand, whether I controlled a pong paddle with it or a horde of orcs I have always enjoyed playing, and try to get as much gaming in daily as humanly possible. From Atari to Xbox 360, from action games to real time strategy games I love everything gaming represents. Whether you play to escape reality or due to being on house arrest, video games have the ability to entertain, educate, and bring people from all over the world together in this fast growing hobbyist lifestyle. My objective, my goal is to create some form of communication with the readers through this blog, and of course, to vent. After all, isn’t that what blogging is really all about?

So this week is the potential return of the greatness that is E3. Yes, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, the largest North American video game trade show of the year is taking place between June 2 and 4 in LA and I am stuck here, missing out on my dream gig for a third straight year. That being said however, I’m not OVERLY depressed, because we will be having updates posted throughout the week with regards to the biggest stories, the newest news, and the most embarrassing letdowns as the show progresses!

So there ya go, the first of many blogs to come from the gaming side of things. As we ramp up and revitalize the gaming section we are always open to suggestions. If you have anything you think should be here but isn’t, feel free to leave a comment and we’ll see what we can cook up.