Side QuestHey there,
I’m Hagen McMenemy, a lover of the video game media that is setting out to be one of the voices providing in-depth analyses and critiques of video games that eschews the hype and inflation from major media outlets.
To me, video games are a form of art and should be approached as such. I believe that like any art form, video games deserve to be analyzed and enjoyed with a thoughtful approach. While typical video games reviews that look to judge a video game on objective metrics as a product are useful, that is not my goal.
I’m a native of Alabama currently living in Detroit with my cat Dusty.
When not playing or writing about video games, I work as a technical writer for an SEO Firm.
For half a decade, I resisted diving into Red Dead Redemption 2, troubled by the circumstances surrounding its genesis. Learning about the reports of labor exploitation and crunch leading up to its release left me deeply disheartened by the working conditions endured by its developers. Despite my lingering reservations, I eventually found myself pulled towards […]
“And thus did our journey begin…” You’re a wide-eyed, adventurous youth, that sees the world through a vision painted in vibrant hues of wonder. It’s your friend’s birthday, and the stars align as you, along with two others are going to spend the night at his home. The thrill is palpable because it’s the first […]
Once, there was an explosion, a bang that gave rise to life as we know it. And then came the next explosion. An explosion that will be our last. Those words from the opening of Hideo Kojima’s epic, Death Stranding, sat in the back of my head for the nearly 70 hours I spent playing […]
Every part of Sable tells a story. Its characters, its locales, its music, its art direction. There’s nothing in this game that is separate from its narrative. I first saw gameplay of Sable years ago and was immediately captivated by its Mœbius inspired art direction. Developers Shedworks kept relatively quiet in the years leading up […]
All Monster. No Hunter. I like Monster Hunter. I’m not the most diehard fan of the series like so many people who have played the almost dozen iterations of the title. But I have played a handful of games in the series and enjoyed all of them to various extents. I started with the Freedom […]
The Template Strikes Back When “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” launched in 2017, it was a refreshing take on the open-world action genre of video games that was so popular during the eighth generation of consoles. Many of the single-player titles released sought to emulate the success of “Grand Theft Auto,” “The […]
Virtual Reprieve During the Most Cursed Year I don’t really need to explain what I mean with that subheading: 2020 has sucked. Life in a dystopia was already bad enough for most working class people, but the combination of a recession exacerbated by a global pandemic sets this year apart from others in recent memory. […]
Are Video Games Art? Are video games art? It’s a debate that has persisted since video games first evolved beyond their infantile beginnings. Hell, we still haven’t even agreed on what makes art… art. It means many things to different people, and this only inflames the discussion surrounding the validity of video games as artistic […]
I played Silent Hill 2 when I was a wee lad and it was a pretty frightening experience since it had an oppressive atmosphere and spooky oggaboogas. Knowing that a dedicated team of fans was working on the Enhanced Edition that fixes a lot of the issues with the PC version and makes it run […]
Resident Evil 2 was one of the best games of 2019. It was an engrossing remake of the survival horror classic that managed to not only modernize the Playstation 1 classic, but also brought all of its idiosyncrasies without altering them in a way that changed its oppressive tension. It featured an intricately layered hub-area […]
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