Michelle Balsan

Michelle Balsan

Matrarch
Bio:
Michelle is the Assistant Manager of the Newshounds at TrueAchievements and has been a member of staff since 2010. When not contributing to gaming websites, she makes her living as a mild-mannered librarian. She can be compelled to play just about anything if there's a co-op component, and has been playing games with friends and siblings since the Atari 2600. As it's reportedly healthy to have hobbies outside of gaming, she also roots for some of the most difficult sporting franchises to root for, the New York Mets and New York Jets, but offsets that by rooting for the New Jersey Devils. She's also seen pretty much none of the movies you have, but she's working on that.
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Latest news by Michelle Balsan
TA PAX East Roundup - Part Two

Day two of PAX East had us more indie-focused as we trekked down to the indie megabooth. One of the notable things about PAX is that every year has seen growth in the number of independent games that take up space on the showfloor. With developers and publishers from around the world gathered to sho

Posted 8 years ago

TA PAX East Roundup - Part One

For many, many years, if gamers wanted to get to a convention that covered gaming, they would have to be a member of a media outlet to gain access to E3. Thankfully for the majority of gamers who don't have that designation, the folks at Penny Arcade saw it fit to launch the Penny Arcade Expo, or PA

Posted 8 years ago

ALIEN Invades Pinball FX 2

It's been a couple of months, and you've probably had your fill of the Star Wars tables for Zen Studios' Pinball FX2, so you'll be happy to know that a new DLC pack for the game has been revealed. Bringing along with it three new tables, the upcoming "Aliens vs. Pinball" expansion honors t

Posted 8 years ago

Gear Gauntlet Release Date and Price Revealed

Often, when an achievement list is scanned to the site, we know that the release is coming fairly shortly, and such is the case for Drop Dead Interactive's Gear Gauntlet. In the game, there is no world to save or greater goal - the player's only task is to survive. This sounds easy, but it's unsurpr

Posted 8 years ago

Soda Drinker Pro Gets a Release Date

Nearly two years to the day since it was initially revealed, Will Brierly's Kinect-enabled, thirst-quenching simulator, Soda Drinker Pro, finally has a set release date. We know many of you are excited and can't wait to know when you can begin downing carbonated beverages as if it were your job, but

Posted 8 years ago

Enter the Wasteland Workshop in New Fallout 4 DLC

With the release of Fallout 4's first DLC, Automatron, already behind us (and our own review of it published for your perusal), Bethesda has revealed details about the upcoming second DLC expansion, Wasteland Workshop. In "Wasteland Workshop", players will be able to design cages and then set them a

Posted 8 years ago

Planar Conquest Introduces Itself

Wastelands Interactive took the commentary about their Worlds of Magic seriously and are aiming to improve on that model with their newest project, Planar Conquest. The developers consider the game a 4X project, meaning players will get to "eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate" as they learn th

Posted 8 years ago

Riptide GP Renegade Takes the City By Night and Day

If you're a fan of wave racing, Vector Unit's announcement that they would be developing their racer, Riptide GP: Renegade, from the ground up for modern consoles was undoubtedly an exciting one. Today's update on the game brings three brief trailers showing off three of the game's levels.

Posted 8 years ago

Glitchrunners Shows Off Some Screens and a New Trailer

During E3, Torque Studios revealed that their unique action title, Glitchrunners, would be coming to consoles. In the game, players can take the role either one of the four available Glitchrunners or the Architect, who is responsible for bending the world to their whim in order to stop the Glitchrun

Posted 8 years ago

Kingdom Come Delivers Another Pair of Videos

The vids just keep on coming for Warhorse Studios' Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Looking to deliver even more information than we received with the relatively brief beta trailer, we now have a video showcasing over one hour of livestreamed beta footage. link hidden</sp

Posted 8 years ago

More news by Michelle Balsan
Latest reviews by Michelle Balsan
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime Review

When Asteroid Base first showed off their ID@Xbox offering, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, at E3 last year, it was a little hard to know what to expect from the title. What we did learn at the time

Posted 9 years ago

Q.U.B.E. Director's Cut Review

Everyone loves a good puzzle. Really, we do. There's certainly something to be said for the frustrations they present - those moments when you realize something simple was made difficult because you

Posted 9 years ago

No Time to Explain Review

Imagine the following scenario: It's a (possibly) beautiful (maybe) Spring day, and you're doing exactly what it is you always choose to do on a (possibly) beautiful (maybe) Spring day - sit at home

Posted 9 years ago

SteamWorld Dig Review

Like many games to come to Xbox One via the ID@Xbox initiative, Image & Form Games’ effort, SteamWorld Dig, originally made its home on another platform. Unlike many of those titles, which maybe only

Posted 9 years ago

Mega Coin Squad Review

Chances are, if you don't really pay attention to mobile games, you haven't yet heard of Big Pixel Studios. They've found success as the developers behind hit iOS titles such as Land-a Panda, Piyo Bl

Posted 9 years ago

The Consequence Review

Please note that while every attempt is made to present this review free of spoilers, the events in "The Consequence" do take place concurrently with those in The Evil Within so it may include topic

Posted 9 years ago

Tower of Guns Review

When we tend to think of the games we love, we often don't think of the massive amounts of people behind developing them. After all, game studios will sometimes swell to hundreds of members to meet t

Posted 9 years ago

Jet Car Stunts Review

Unless you're a Windows Phone owner (and perhaps even if you are), chances are that Grip Games' Jet Car Stunts didn't really come to your attention until a port of the game was released on Xbox 360 i

Posted 9 years ago

The Assignment Review

When Tango Gameworks and Bethesda Softworks released their Shinji Mikami-helmed survival-horror title, The Evil Within, in October of last year, the most pressing question was whether or not the game

Posted 9 years ago

Blue Estate Review

As a genre, the rail shooter has not seen a whole lot of representation over the last couple of generations. In fact, a quick look at the genre list will reveal only 15 games fit that category. The m

Posted 9 years ago

More reviews by Michelle Balsan
Latest editorials by Michelle Balsan
TA Top 5: Achievement Types That Ruin Good Lists

As we enjoy the Memorial Day weekend here in the States, there are some of us that will be dedicating a little bit of our extra free time to the pursuit of Gamerscore (so long as we’re not in a food

Posted 9 years ago

Achievement Preview Spotlight: Geometry Wars³

When Bizarre Creations was shuttered in 2011, the question as to what would become of the franchises for which they developed titles, such as Project Gotham Racing and its mini-game off shoot, Geomet

Posted 10 years ago

TA Top Five: Special Editions

Chances are, among those of you that are reading this, that at least some of you are collectors. We don't mean only the type of collector that acquires a massive backlog of games (guilty!), but those

Posted 10 years ago

TA Top Five: Sound Effects

Many of us have that friend (or maybe you ARE that friend) who has some instantly-recognizable video game sound as their text messaging tone. The amazing thing about hearing that coin noise from Supe

Posted 10 years ago

APS: Dance Central Spotlight

While the new Kinect with Xbox One has seen some love since its release, many feel that it hasn't had that 'it' title. One of the titles looking to pick up that mantle is Dance Central: Spotlight, th

Posted 10 years ago

TA Top Five: Jaw-Dropping Moments

Ever had that moment in a game that just completely left your jaw on the floor? That made you think "I thought I had seen it all, but wow, they got me!"? Well, so have we. This week's TA Top Five aim

Posted 10 years ago

TA Top Five: If I Could Fix Just One Thing...

A little under two months ago, the next generation of gaming leaped onto the scene as the Xbox One and its PlayStation counterpart were released to the masses. Over that time, gamers the world over h

Posted 10 years ago

TA Top Five: Co-op Games

For many of us who grew up playing games before the internet was so readily available, a big part of the fun of gaming was having some buddies over (or maybe making peace with your siblings) and spen

Posted 11 years ago

More editorials by Michelle Balsan
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