Alex Jackson
GamingBolt
Calgary, AB, Canada
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Past articles by Alex:
7 More Times Gamers Got Caught Cheating
Following two previous lists where we highlighted hackers, dimwitted cheaters and poor sportsmanship, we’re going for one more victory lap, because who doesn’t like a little schadenfreude sometimes. Some of these highlight specific gamers, some of them specific times games cleverly called out those who dared to cheat. But we hope you’ll find them all funny. Share your favourite examples in the… → Read More
All Boss Fights In Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater Ranked
We’ve heard you loud and clear- here at GamingBolt, we don’t talk about Metal Gear Solid quite enough on our lists. But can you really blame us for celebrating the series when the mind of Hideo Kojima has given our shared pastime some of the most memorable and unique boss fights and moments in the entire medium? Metal Gear Solid 3 is a fan favourite, and Snake Eater still plays like a dream, So… → Read More
Shinobi – What The Hell Happened To It?
Back before Tide Pods were the cool way to rebel against your parents, we all had that rude, crude speed dude, Sonic the Hedgehog. The too cool for school blue blur rocketed Sega and the Genesis to the top of the world for several years, but his success makes it easy to forget the many other premo series that Sega had in their stable back in their prime. Sonic may have had the spotlight and Alex… → Read More
Burnout – What The Hell Happened To It?
When you google “Catharsis in video game form”, one of the first results turns up the storied Burnout series. Exploding onto the scene back on the PS2 in 2001, the series started fairly underground before really picking up speed when EA picked it up. Oh, uhhh… spoilers? What originally set, and kept Burnout apart from their competition throughout the entire run of the series was how they turned… → Read More
F.E.A.R. – What The Hell Happened To It?
Some of us get the most fun out of drastically different genres, and for different reasons. The joy of skipping across the Mushroom Kingdom, or making an evil doctor release the Chaos Emeralds can inspire very different feelings from ripping and tearing demons or weaving through traffic in Paradise City. The human brain is a strange thing, and we even seek out thrills and adrenaline rushes from… → Read More
15 Reasons Why It’s So Difficult To Develop A Great Superman Game
Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! No, it’s a plane! Wait, it’s another glowing review for the latest PS4 darling, Spider-Man! The talented people over at Rocksteady took a DC Icon and managed to create one of the best series of the last decade out of Batman, and managed to pave the way for Spider-Man by showing that superhero licensed games didn’t have to suck, or be a one-in-a-million fluke… → Read More
15 Strangest And Impressive Video Game Records
You gotta respect the kind of effort that goes into being the best in the world at something, and that kind of effort certainly deserves recognition. The kind of people who can organize the world’s largest tournaments or can say they’ve played the longest gaming session ever recorded are certainly something. We’re not here for those ones. We’re here to talk about some of the stranger ones, so… → Read More
15 Video Game Heroes Who Became Villains
You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself quote The Dark Knight too many times. In order to be relatable, we need to see our heroes struggle, just like we do in our day to day existences. No victory could be felt without failure. Sometimes however, that victory can come at a cost, or the best intentions lead a good person in a very different direction. These fallen heroes and… → Read More
The Surge: The Good, The Bad And The Augmented DLC Review – Little More Than A Flicker
When The Surge launched back last year with its robotic take on the Souls formula, the good folks at Deck13 did what amounts to what we felt was mostly just an OK take on the popular action RPG formula. We got to check out a bit more of the world of The Surge last year with A Walk in the Park finally allowing us the catharsis of destroying those creepy mascots that scarred us as children, and… → Read More
14 Video Game Universes That Are Likely Connected
Since the dawn of recorded history, when The Jetsons met The Flintstones, crossovers have been some of the most celebrated events in media as a whole. Gaming is of course no exception to that rule, with some very beloved titles revolving completely around the idea such as Marvel VS Capcom and of course, Super Smash Bros. But, if we wanted to take this to the logical extreme and consider any… → Read More
15 Video Game Scientists That Will Give Players A Hard Time
When you’re aiming to be a villain, or even just a major character in a video game, it really doesn’t hurt to have a doctorate in something. There’s quite a number of madcap doctors and evil professors running around in the gaming space, and unfortunately they’re out to screw you over a lot of the time, villain or not. The hypocritical oath to do no harm doesn’t mean much when you’ve got a world… → Read More
14 Times Video Games Blatantly Cheated With The Player
Though we live in a world where Deep Blue can win against a Chess Grandmaster, the fact remains that the computer is inherently never going to be as good as a human player who understands the systems of a game. They are fundamentally handicapped by their nature, so game AI cheats far more than we think in order to close the gap. A good game will never let the player see this, since nothing… → Read More
15 Easy Video Game Bosses That Are Shockingly Set In Difficult Levels
Your blood is pumping and your heart is pounding fast in your chest. You’ve been at this particular stretch of the game for the last week, struggling to overcome the challenges in front of you and excited to see how it will all wrap up. Sometimes, that all ends with a climactic boss battle while really makes you feel good about becoming better than you were before. And then sometimes, it just… → Read More
15 Disturbing Game Over Screens You Absolutely Need To See
In general, one of the last things you want to do in a video game is die. It stops forward momentum, forces you to retread ground and in the terms of a difficulty spike, can become somewhat annoying. While games as a universal whole need some challenge pushing back against the player and death isn’t going away, some games take the chance to make that failure state, that game over screen a part… → Read More
Starfield Teaser Trailer Analysis: What Does It Tell Us?
Bethesda, one of the original “When it’s done” studios revealed officially what we’ve known for so long this past E3 when we saw the teaser for Starfield. The first new IP creation right out of Bethesda in nearly a quarter of a century is expected to take their fans to brave new frontiers beyond the furthest stars. While there’s a ton of potential for the game, it might as well be as out of… → Read More
15 Great Games That Lacked A Proper Final Boss Fight
You’ve vanquished the creatures of the night, prevented a secret society from enslaving humanity, and barely averted nuclear war from breaking out worldwide. Congratulations never feel quite earned however until you’ve taken down the big bad responsible for the whole ordeal. The final boss fight has been a staple ever since video games began to have endings at all with King Koopa holding the… → Read More
NASCAR Heat 3 Review – Making Progress On The Inside
I’ve historically been rather disappointed in the efforts of the team at Monster Games and their efforts to bring a truly great NASCAR game to the masses. I don’t think I’ve been too harsh, since the last several titles in the series have had some pretty serious issues that made them a total drag to play. The titles felt like they were serving neither a hardcore simulation audience nor an arcade… → Read More
14 Video Game Bosses Who Will Defeat Players With Their Own Abilities
A gigantic titan? An enormous robot? Flying after an escaping mad scientist? yawn! Ok, boss battles can take the form of nearly anything in video games, and their status as climactic set pieces in most games make them some of the most memorable parts of our favourite titles. But the kings of kings, the ones who we remember months and years after we finish the game, are the dopplegangers. Those… → Read More
15 Undercover Video Game Characters That Betrayed The Player
Can you ever really know another person? What drives you to get out of bed every morning might not mean anything to another, and the ideals of yourself don’t translate over to the truths of another quite so flawlessly. Such is what happened with the characters we’re going to explore in this list. Some of these characters transcend being characters and become people because their values cause… → Read More
15 Boss Fights In Video Games That Were Almost Hopeless
What’s a good climax without a little bit of tension? There has to be moments where the protagonist is at least challenged, otherwise you just have One Punch Man. These moments often work exceptionally well in video games due to the personal investment players feel in the goings on, and how they strip away the power fantasy that players have slowly been growing into with the player character… → Read More