Rec Room

Review: Borderlands

Gold rush
It’s tempting, and easy, to describe Borderlands solely via comparisons to other games.

By MITCH KRPATA | November 04, 2009

Jason returns

Publisher stuffs game-fixer Tim Donaghy's book idea; Antoine Walker's broke
As next week will feature a Friday the 13th, it’s time to check in on the NBA’s very own Jason, Tim Donaghy.

By MATT TAIBBI | November 04, 2009

Childhood memories, improved
A Boy and his Blob got its start as a 1989 Nintendo game designed by David Crane, who also designed Pitfall! . This 2009 remake features Miyazaki-inspired art and cel-shaded animation, giving the maps a storybook quality. Unfortunately, the story itself still leaves much to be desired; no further complexity has been layered onto the 1989 game’s backstory.

By MADDY MYERS | October 27, 2009

Review: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

A real treasure
Nathan Drake walks like a man. Not so much in a macho, John Wayne kind of way — though there is plenty of that in him — but as if he were a real person occupying physical space.

By MITCH KRPATA | October 21, 2009

Review: Brütal Legend

Brutal is one way to put it
The cover of Brütal Legend sports an interesting detail.

By MITCH KRPATA | October 16, 2009

Review: Scribblenauts

The pen is not so mighty
If knowledge is power, and words are the vessels for ideas, then the appeal of Scribblenauts is easy to understand.

By MITCH KRPATA | October 07, 2009

Holy landscape!

Ken Burns worships America's spiritual resource
At its core, Ken Burns's PBS 12-hour epic The National Parks: America's Best Idea (nightly on WGBH Channel 2 at 8 pm, from September 27 through October 2) is a selective, initiative by initiative, advocate by advocate, chronicle of the evolution of the National Parks system and the changing roles protected lands have played in American culture since Congress validated Yosemite in 1864.

By CLIF GARBODEN | September 24, 2009

Are you ready for some Footballz?

Ha-Ha Huddle Dept.
These days, thanks to Internet-related information overload, football fans are more educated than ever. So why, exactly, do we need idiotic TV commentators telling us what we already know about how talented Drew Brees and Adrian Peterson are, or that the game all comes down to turnovers?

By RYAN STEWART | September 17, 2009

Big sleepy

Bored to Death brings a stoner PI to HBO
If television is indeed a reflection of society, then to judge from what's on the screen these days, we're all surrounded by people leading seedy double lives.

By RYAN STEWART | September 16, 2009

Delay of game

With some big names shelved, 10 releases to watch for this fall
Splinter Cell: Conviction , BioShock 2 , Heavy Rain — these are just some of the eagerly awaited titles that won't be coming to your video-game console this fall.

By MITCH KRPATA | September 15, 2009

Lightning dolt

Did Shawne Merriman take his shot at love?
Outstanding story out of San Diego last week, where terrifyingly stone-headed Chargers linebacker Shawne "Lights Out" Merriman was detained by police after similarly dumb-as-crap semi-famous bisexual reality-show skank Tila Tequila accused him of choking and restraining her in his apartment after an argument.

By MATT TAIBBI | September 16, 2009

Game Review: The Beatles: Rock Band

Don't meet the Beatles — be them
Can we agree that the music-game market is saturated? To stand out in this crowd, you'd need something special. You'd need the Beatles.

By MITCH KRPATA | September 09, 2009

Review: Batman: Arkham Asylum

Joker's wild
Although Heath Ledger fully deserved the Oscar he won (posthumously) for his portrayal of the Joker in The Dark Knight , a less heralded actor had staked a claim to the character years before. On Batman: The Animated Series , Mark Hamill brought a fearsome edge to the role that outstripped any previous dramatic effort.

By MITCH KRPATA | September 01, 2009

Review: Shadow Complex

A dizzying descent down the rabbit hole
In games, a cave is never just a cave.

By MITCH KRPATA | August 25, 2009

West coasting

Is Project Runway walking in circles?
As I watched this season's 16 Project Runway hopefuls squinting into the setting sun during their champagne reception atop the Title Guarantee Building in Los Angeles, it was hard not to view the scene as a sad little metaphor for the state of the show. What's supposed to feel like the beginning of something new sure looks a lot more like the end of something old.

By MICHAEL BRODEUR | August 26, 2009

Crossword: ''From A to B''

It's a short trip
It's a short trip

By MATT JONES | August 19, 2009

Our Don Drapers, Ourselves

The Mad Men mystique
This Sunday is the premiere of the third season of Mad Men (AMC, 10 pm), the Emmy-winning show that made fans of good television have to figure out where AMC was on their basic-cable schedules.

By GUSTAVO TURNER | August 12, 2009

Going streaking

Snapping out of the annual NFL training-camp lull. Plus, Plaxico Burress gets his.
It has been an unusually quiet week or so in sports crime, which is perhaps not unexpected, since this is the one time of year when the most arrest-prone class of athletes in America — NFL players — are sequestered in training camps and usually too dog-tired from two-a-days and running suicides to bother to punch out bar skanks or kick in police cruiser windows.

By MATT TAIBBI | August 12, 2009

Review: 'Splosion Man

Blowing up Xbox Live Arcade
Perhaps no platform has more consistently delivered solid indie titles than the Xbox 360, whose Live Arcade now offers hundreds of selections, from high-definition updates of the classics to forward-thinking boutique games.

By MITCH KRPATA | August 11, 2009