Despite no family history, my blood pressure is apparently higher than Cheech & Chong. One specialist, upon remarking that I was maybe a millimeter of mercury – maybe less – from stroking out right there on her table, opined that perhaps I am “carrying my stress wrong.”

I carry my stress in a bag. That’s how I’ve always carried it. A messenger bag, with a shoulder strap. And now every headache in my life comes equipped with a flash of fear that maybe I should clean the bathrooms and wipe the porn from my computer, so a family member doesn’t have to do it after my rapidly cooling body is found.

Games like Impire, which causes headaches, do little to ease my mind.

Saturday Afternoon.

I’m at IndieCade East, in New York City, watching Kevin Cancienne and Margaret Robinson talk about Hokra.

Hokra is one of the SportsFriends games, a local multiplayer game funded by a joint Kickstarter. It’s like a very stripped-down digital soccer game. It’s a four-player game, two players on each team playing keepaway with a with a square pixel ball. It’s basic but holds surprising depth for high-level players. It’s hard not to get enthusiastic and cheer, watching every pass, every tackle and upset and score.

Saturday Evening.

Making the rounds today is Depression Quest, a new indie, uh…

…

“game” is not exactly the word.

As I allude in the body of this column, I didn’t intend to write anything about the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary school. In fact I kind of instructed myself not to. What could I say? That I’m sorry, but I still don’t think video games had anything to do with it? Or just that I’m sorry? Nothing at all seemed best.

But in the end I buckled, I guess, though this month’s column  for the International Game Developers Association is less about Sandy Hook than it is about our society and how we react to things. I don’t know what the long-term fallout will be for the games industry; it has weathered such storms in the past. But maybe it can still be a wake-up call, about the medium’s content, and whether it’s all it can (or should) be. Enjoy!

Its name is the Logitech Extreme 3D Pro. Not an imaginative or inspiring name, not like some of its predecessors in my gaming history – Sidewinder or Magnum 6, for instance – but beggars, as they say, can’t be choosers. Starting now, I call it “Extry.” Because truncating things and then putting a ‘y’ at the end totally works for names. Like for my Loftwing in Skyward Sword, which I named “Beaky,” short for Commodore Beakington the Third. But I digress.

Extry has one very important feature that his predecessors, however beloved, sorely lack: Windows 7 compatibility.

It’s been almost a year since I first posted my early thoughts on Neverwinter, the upcoming Dungeons and Dragons MMO by Cryptic. This week, the game is rolling into beta, and some lucky folks who have been following the game got access to early launch. I was pretty excited about this game last year, and this year I finally got to play it and see if it measures up to my expectations. We also got a Q&A from some of the developers to answer any additional questions we might have about upcoming features.

My beta impressions after the jump!

There are a few games that I break out semi-regularly. I don’t have a schedule or anything, it’s just that sometimes when I’m in a certain mood, or when the weather is behaving a certain way, or what have you, certain games will call to me. One example is Defense Grid: The Awakening. If you find me playing it, chances are I’m sick or depressed. These states happen pretty often with me so I play a lot of Defense Grid, and for years I’ve been meaning to come back and write something more about it, something more than what I wrote in the review linked above, because that review just isn’t right. It isn’t right at all.

Dead Space 3 is upon us. Yes, Isaac and co. are back! And by “co.” I guess I’m referring to the dozens upon dozens of former humans who now reside somewhere in the grooves of Mr. Clarke’s stompy shoes. But this time he’s brought a friend! A friend called John ManHeroSomething. And John has stompy shoes too. Spoiler alert: in the pantheon of the greatest shooters of all time Dead Space 3 will take its place somewhere between Half-Life 2 and Daikatana.

For those who’ve read and commented on my medical adventures and subsequent musings, my thanks and an update. It’s been a little over a year since I walked out of the hospital and I can report that readers of Tap-Repeatedly know more about my medical history than the medical professionals treating me. Seem odd? Tag along on my most recent doctor visit and judge for yourself.

This has been percolating for about a week now, but it’s official - Epic Mickey creator Junction Point Studios has been shut down by parent company Disney, putting Warren Spector and about 140 others out of work. Coming as it does so quickly on the also-anticipated-but-also-sad THQ fire sale, one can’t help but feel that attrition seems awfully high for early 2013. Hopefully it’s not a harbinger of things to come.