Dale Weir's blog

Saw the promotional trailer for this mash-up called Fistful of Rupees and I thought that while it looked interesting, it would be as forgettable as The Legend of Zelda fan-made video tribute things tend to be. However, having seen all three parts to the "film" I have to say this effort is surprisingly good on many levels—the acting is surprisingly good, the action is surprisingly good and the production quality is surprisingly good as well. Never thought I'd want a Zelda game based on a Spaghetti Western until now.

The Extra Credits guys tackle how gamers can affect political change. They even get a game-playing Congressman—didn't know any actually existed—to offer some advice.

Hiroshi Yamauchi (former President of Nintendo of Japan) once famously said that "gamers like to sit alone at home playing dark, depressing games?" Yamauchi was criticizing the industry and even gamers at the time for embracing dark, gritty, CGI-heavy, and mature-oriented games over the more cheerful, family-oriented titles. He felt that it was making games less inclusive and too much like movies. But his words were largely dismissed as the ravings of an old exec upset that fewer people were buying games on his platform. Extra Credits is taking a similar tack, only it makes a better argument than Yamauchi.

The Dorkly guys look at the tough position the Dark Knight would find himself in should he have run into Occupy Wall Street.

The guys at Extra Credits look at something that you've probably never heard about: we are running out of bandwidth. All of those videos of cats being adorable and marathon sessions of Angry Birds and Call of Duty are taxing the current bandwidth sources leaving us in need of more sources or risk running out in a couple of years. It may not seem applicable to gamers, but just watch the video and you'll see that this could be an issue especially with newer game consoles and game-playing media devices coming online at about the same time.

You probably never thought about it this way, but while playing The Legend of Zelda, you were going into boss fights at a severe disadvantage. Not only were you probably low on health, but you had to deal with that incessant chiming. Dorkly shows us how Link should have used it to turn the tables.

Mario and Luigi have been busy the last couple of years. The 3DS has been crammed with all sorts of Mario-themed adventures from Mario Kart 7 to Super Mario 3D Land to Mario Tennis: Open—Luigi has even gotten his own sequel this year. Needless to say, the Mario Brothers are busy. But even so, does that make it okay to leave their other less-talented brother behind to man the shop. Doesn't he deserve some of the glory?

With so many platforms and the influx of new funding sources, Indie game development is looking like a surer bet than it ever has. However, as the guys at Extra Credits repeatedly point out in this video, once you actually attempt it, you might have to temper your expectations.

You wouldn't know it to look at him, but Max Payne does take days off from being Max Payne—at least he tries to.

Recently released Half-Life concept art is rumored to belong to the very long-awaited Half-Life 2: Episode 3. The Internet briefly caught fire before the denials came down from Valve. Going by Dorkly's Half-Life spoof, whenever a sequel to the episodic games does come, Gordon Freeman is likely to remain a silent character.