Monthly Archives: January 2012


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I’ve been read­ing Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland, which is a novel about many things, but large­ly about detach­ment and loss. It’s con­cerned with those things which were a part of our world, once, but are not now and can­not be again. In O’Neill’s novel we find Dutch-born Hans van den Broek in the strange and tense set­ting of New York imme­di­ate­ly post‑9/11. Like the New York sky­line, Hans is expe­ri­enc­ing the empti­ness that fol­lows loss, the sen­sa­tion that some­thing is wrong, some­thing is miss­ing. Estranged from the struc­ture and sup­port of fam­i­ly, friends, a home or a pur­pose, Hans is detached from any­thing mean­ing­ful, any­thing […]

Game Changers


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I remem­ber first hear­ing about Catherine in a short Escapist arti­cle which most­ly focused on how the game looked to be sexy and weird. Clips of bipedal sheep being evis­cer­at­ed inter­spersed with shots of a not-overdressed blonde made up most of the trail­er, and as the nar­ra­tion was in Japanese, I had absolute­ly no idea what was going on. I would prob­a­bly have com­plete­ly for­got­ten about it, but once the game came out, some months later, games crit­ics I respect and admire began to wax rhap­sod­ic about its many virtues. Catherine deals with sex, mar­riage, and rela­tion­ships, they said, and does so in a mature and […]

Catherine Chokes On Its Own Aspirations



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After 70 hours or so of play, I fin­ished the main quest line of Skyrim. By this point I had com­plet­ed the Thieves’ Guild quest line and a smat­ter­ing of other quests from all over the map. I had dis­cov­ered dozens of dun­geons, slain many drag­ons, and fin­ished more petty side-quests than I care to admit. When I decid­ed to stop wan­der­ing the map and focus on fin­ish­ing the cen­tral plot of the game, I was able to com­plete my remain­ing tasks in a cou­ple hours, kept slow by my insis­tence on play­ing as a Bosmer archer instead of using any of the many meth­ods of com­bat that ren­der […]

Skyrim is Gonzo Pornography


Bill has already intro­duced the con­cept, so I won’t tread over that ground again. Instead, here are my 2011 expe­ri­ences, wrapped up in a pret­ty Christmas bow for you! Oh, and with­in this present are numer­ous spoil­ers. I spare no secrets. Of the games that were released in 2011, I played, in rough­ly this order: Dead Space 2 Dragon Age 2 Portal 2 Killzone 3 Bastion L.A. Noire From Dust Catherine Bulletstorm Crysis 2 Gears of War 3 Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception Deus Ex: Human Revolution F.E.A.R. 3 Infamous 2 Skyrim Arkham City The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword Good lord. Games I still intend […]

Matt’s 2011 In Review



2011 is gone, and games web­sites every­where are just wrap­ping up their end-of-year lists and Game of the Year win­ners.  The Ontological Geek is no dif­fer­ent, but rather than choos­ing a Game of the Year or series of awards for the web­site as a whole, Matt and I are both going to offer our thoughts on the games of 2011, their highs and lows, dis­ap­point­ments and… appoint­ments…?  Anyway. I did­n’t play any­thing like all the impor­tant games of 2011, but I played more new games this year than I have ever in the past, so I thought I’d sin­gle out a few for awards and then break […]

Bill’s 2011 In Review