Welcome to casual core, a new monthly series on the games and culture of the weekend warrior. Scoff at the casual gamer stereotypes, yet you can’t devote 24 hours a day to grinding your character to godlike levels? You have war stories of your own but can’t find the time to master every FPS to spawn an Internet meme? You’ve come to the right place, friend. The unfinished game Just a couple of weeks ago, I finished The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. I watched puppet Gannon go down for the firs… Continue

Soul Edge, the seed of evil, has awoken and seeks to reassemble the pieces of its shattered form. A portentous sign, as the shards disembark on their own will, back to an inevitable destiny. Sound the trumpets and bring out the lutes; the stage is set once again for souls, swords and ringouts. The fourth installment of the Soul Calibur series dons its armor and enters the arena, egging on any challengers. Soul Calibur originally made its debut on the Dreamcast and was arguably the best fighting… Continue

It's not every day that a game you expected to be horrible, turns out to be pretty good. I will admit that my expectations for Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Conspiracy were pretty low, and maybe that's why I had such a great time with it. High Moon Studios has proven that it is possible to make a video game based off of a movie that is not only decent, but better than many of the other titles sitting on store shelves. While it's not perfect, it does show what kind of product can be released when a… Continue

Back in 2002, a game came out that was totally different than anything I had played before. It was an online only game that had some of the largest maps I had ever seen, and a plethora of vehicles to traverse them. Battlefield 1942 was my first taste of actual online warfare. While I did play Counterstrike, Quake III, and Team Fortress Classic; BF1942 was the first time that I actually felt like I was in a real war. Well, as close as a video game could potentially get you to real war. Over the n… Continue

War has changed. Everything is driven by meaningless conflict; proxy battles engulf unknown soldiers for the sake of economic stability. Nations now employ PMC's (Private Military Corporations) rather than their own armies, for lower costs. Nanomachines in the soldiers' bodies gather data relating to the battlefield as well as regulate their cognitive impulses. Now soldiers hold a key advantage as the machines keep stress and fear in check, ceasing chaos and granting total battlefield control. W… Continue