It's all just a big game to me

Horacee Arnold Redux Kickstarter Campaign Week Three

We are in our third week of four and are not as far as we would have hoped. We are optimistic that with the help of our fans and friends we can reach our goal. To help spread the word, this week we introduce a new video for the track ‘Serengeti Minstrel’ from All Times Are In It. Here is a short clip featuring part of the video. You can see the short and full versions using the links below.…

I am very pleased and excited to announce my latest project in which I get to work with jazz drummer Horacee Arnold. If you know Horacee and his work, you undoubtedly share in my excitement and if you do not know Horacee, here is your chance to learn about the musician, the composer and the man. This short video is the first in a series to help promote the Kickstarter campaign launching very soon.

The Xbox One at One – Part Two

As with the major releases of the last year mentioned in Part One, Xbox One gamers were presented with some new installments to some favorite series as well as one excellent new title. As I have stated in the past, different gamers like different games and the list of downloadable Xbox One games below aptly proves this point. Both my eldest son and I enjoy Trials Fusion. As is often the case, I…

The Xbox One at One – Part One

It has been a year since the release of the Xbox One and it seems time to review what the new platform has offered and how it fared. The list below are Xbox One titles that my family and friends purchased and played over the last twelve months as well as their respective review scores from IGN and Gamespot. There are a many things of interest to note.  Overall, Gamespot rates games lower than…

In my last post, I mentioned that “what you get out of the experience depends greatly on what you are expecting.” I have found this to be especially true in the case of the most recent three games I purchased.

Before I buy a game I read reviews and view trailers and gameplay samples. All three of these popular games are favorably reviewed, but much like any piece of art or entertainment, the mood…

Recently, Comicon came to New York City and a group of us went to experience the event. None of us had been to a Comicon before, and although some of us have had experience with related trade shows and events, we did not really know what to expect. So many preconceptions jump out. As it turns out, many of them are accurate.

Our crew consisted of my sister, her daughter and her best friend as…

Hype and its Costs

There seems to be an established norm in the game industry that the biggest releases require not just brilliant marketing and seemingly limitless advertising budgets, but must inevitably accrue a previously unprecedented level of hype as well. Sometimes the hype is internally generated in the form of claims of “Next-Gen” or whatever and other times, it is the target audience or press that…

“Can We Kick It” Music Video

In late March, a group of friends and I shot a music video with the band 3am Tokyo for a track off of their latest album “One of Those Crazy Nights”. Their Top 40 single, “Can We Kick It?” was inspired by A Tribe Called Quest’s “Can I Kick It?” and is sung by 3am Tokyo’s leader, Picasso Brown and guest singer, Go Go Gadjet’s Jeff Tomrell.

We shot the video at the Paterson Art Factory in…

My boys are all at camp for a month, and it is the time of the year that my wife and I clean up and organize the house and yard. It has also been a while since I wrote about the latest games, many of which my sons and I have been playing over the last few months. These include Watch Dogs, Wolfenstein: The New Order and Disney Infinity. I finished the main campaign of Watch Dogs last week and…

Recent Studies & the Gamers You Thought that You Knew

A new study commissioned by the streaming video platform Twitch entitled “The New Face of Gamers,” released this week reveals some interesting facts about the gaming public. In her article, “Gamers More Likely To Be Social, Educated Than Non-Gamers,” Lisa Winter summarizes some of the key findings:

Gamers are more likely to consider family a top priority than non-gamers (82% vs 68%) as well as…

NASCAR Experience

  My apologies for the lack of recent posts. I have been busy. Luckily, some of what has kept me busy will provide material for several of my next posts so I will try to make up for lost time in the coming weeks.

I had the opportunity to drive a race car the weekend before last at Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina. Thanks to the NASCAR Racing Experience, I spent eight minutes in Jeff…

Video games are emotional. More emotional than most might expect, it turns out. True, there is always high drama in the scripts of today’s games regardless of genre, but that’s not what I am referring to. There is the excitement and happiness that you see and hear watching my boys play Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare or their newest favorite, Dungeon Defenders. And as I was recently informed by…