April 2013
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I have a new weekly column on SideQuesting
I’ve started a new weekly column over at SideQuesting. This week it’s all about BioShock Infinite’s use of violence, and why I think it’s important to it and games in general.
Here’s an excerpt:
I don’t think that’s the story Irrational Games wanted to tell. I believe in some ways, or at least for a short time, the violence in BioShock Infinite communicates how...
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Thanks, Ebert
A few years ago, I felt it important to stand up for video games. It was a time when I had to make an important decision in my life. I had to choose whether or not I wanted to write, and whether or not I wanted to write about video games. It was a time to put my foot down and make a future career choice, to begin my training.
This spark came from the comments of Roger Ebert, a name I’d heard...
March 2013
4 posts
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Analysis: Ridiculous Fishing's three-step gameplay...
1. The Descent The player casts her or her line and the first step of Ridiculous Fishing’s three-step gameplay loop begins. As the line descends, the player dodges left and right to avoid fish and other sea creatures. Once a fish or creature touches the hook, the line begins to ascend to the surface. The chainsaw allows the player to descend faster, and to destroy fish or creatures that would...
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On Dark Souls' Lore
One of the many brilliant things about FromSoftware’s Dark Souls is its ability to please different types of players. For those who seek punishing, third-person, action games, Dark Souls offers that. For the friends who want to play together in co-op, Dark Souls offers that. And for those looking for a strong player-versus-player experience, Dark Souls offers that too. But Dark Souls doesn’t...
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Tomb Raider: The Lost Revelation
dzelli:
Lara Croft was once seen as an icon, a fine example of strong female characters in gaming. As time’s gone on however, she’s fallen out of favour with the public and her fans.
Often reviled for her large breasts within the gaming community, are we judging Lara solely based on the very stigmas she ventured to escape in her debut instalment?
Read More
Daniella Zelli’s external...
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SimCity tests Polygon's dynamic review score
Gaming website Polygon published its review of Maxis’ city-building game SimCity Monday, March 4, a day before it released to the public. The game was scored a 9.5 out of 10, on a 20-point review scale. At the bottom of the review, where it provides a link to its review policy, Polygon included a forum post written by reviews editor Arthur Gies where he details the context of the review. ...
February 2013
1 post
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Non-disclosure agreements hurt games reporting
Image credit: The Penny-Arcade Report (from a related post you should read!)
The press can’t tell you that Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flags is the next title in Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed franchise because they’ve signed a non-disclosure agreement with the publisher to keep quiet. They did not, however, sign a contract to avoid thoroughly reporting on the images...
January 2013
3 posts
I've never watched a company die
I’ve never watched a company die. I’ve read about it in a Game Informer, or an EGM, but I’ve never witnessed the buildup to a video game company’s death. Now I report on the games industry. I don’t get paid to do it, but I act with as much professionalism as possible when covering a story. I write about stuff that I’ve seen time and time again. Release dates, cancellations, delays, and rarely,...
March 2012
1 post
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The Sunday Three 3-4-12
I started the week off reading this excellent piece by Eurogamer’s Simon Parkin about his meeting with the father of Final Fantasy Hironobu Sakaguchi. Parkin’s writing style consistently makes me jealous of his talent. Read it, it’s a fun one.
By the end of the conversation, this treasure trove of anecdotes and facts feels almost untouched. Worse, when prompted by the Nintendo...
February 2012
10 posts
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The Sunday Three 2-26-12
The Sunday Three is a collection of stories that I curate out of a pile of articles from around the internet I read every Sunday morning.
Eurogamer’s Damien McFarren travels through the rise and fall of Sega with the help of Scot Bayless, a former Senior Producer at Sega of America. He details the company’s missteps and blind confidence in the Mega-CD and the 32X.
...
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"A great game can have a middling or nonsensical... →
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"While the impact of tech is undeniable, I see a... →
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"But even if this were a valid criticism,... →
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"Chased by a monster spouting profanities at me... →
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"History has shown that some of the best movie... →
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"That particular mixture of naivety and... →
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"Cold water? You've lost your edge. Your OS is... →
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"What I discovered was that the quality of the... →
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"It is a pretty cool Petri dish for human... →
January 2012
13 posts
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"I suppose what I really want is some sort of... →
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"Failure is a deeply bitter thing to swallow. But... →
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"I'm more hesitant to throw things in [laughs] ...... →
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"Watching the opening cutscenes, seeing lasers... →
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"Which is to say: The mission is scripted to make... →
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“Coordinating it all is like teaching elephants to... →
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Self promotion: Duncan Harris
I had a chat with Duncan Harris of Dead End Thrills about the struggles of games photography.
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Take the time to read Patrick Klepek's...
Giant Bomb’s Patrick Klepek had a lengthy, but insightful conversation with BioWare’s Manveer Heir on the state of gaming journalism, reviews and criticism specifically.
It’s an excellent read even if you aren’t a writer, it’s not often we get to see what the developer thinks about how their game is received and portrayed to their audience.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
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"As a result, and long before I became just one of... →
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"Three brands dominated their school supplies and... →
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"The design challenge was to find a way to allow... →
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"We, the fifty or so soldiers defending that... →
A grand, tragic story of one Planetside faction’s last stand.
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"we socially dictate such a fine line between... →
December 2011
23 posts
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"Actually, writers do not have work-life balance.... →
Leigh Alexander examines the life of a writer in a brutally honest fashion. I love it.
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"But at the same time, I'm so burnt out and tired,... →
Simon Parkin’s interview with Phil Fish (Fez) brings to light the hardships indie game development can entail.
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"After spending the last three years of my life... →
Patricia Hernandez finds herself in Catherine’s protagonist, causing memories she avoided revisiting to creep back into her conscious.
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"Rather than get lost in the rhetoric of, 'Oh the... →
This interview with Douglas Wilson (B.U.T.T.O.N., Johann Sebastion Joust) is a very interesting look into how he sees game development.
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"As has been widely reported, it has cost EA... →
Dan Grilliopoulus examines Star Wars: The Old Republic and what it means for the future of MMOs.
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SOPA and you →
Kirk Hamilton sifted through the internet to help those that don’t quite understand the importance of SOPA.
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"There's a difference between a lie meant to... →
David Jaffe responds to Matt Leone’s 1UP article about lying to the media.
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Giant Bomb's Jeff Gerstmann and Alex Navarro...
Going out of your way to talk about how much you play [games]—and this extends to the host being consistently billed as a “huge gamer,” too—makes you look like you’ve never played one in your life.
Jeff Gerstmann explains why our expectations for the VGAs are a little far-fetched.
It’s not just disrespectful, it’s downright antithetical to the very...
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"To be honest, it can be frustrating to work in an... →
Tiny Cartridge has a chat with Mark McDonald and Jon Ricciardi of 8-4 Ltd. where they discuss Nintendo’s strength in localization.
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"He called his company, which he ran out of his... →
Stephen Totilo examines the life of a young Tim Sweeney and how his passion for tinkering got him into games.
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Jason Schreier's open letter to the Spike VGAs →
