This weekend, I'll be nominating 25 games for a master ballot of the best games of the decade. It's harder than I would have expected. For one thing, there's a lot I haven't played. Looking through some lists on the interweb, I see possible contenders like Silent Hill 2, Eternal Darkness, and Beyond Good and Evil, and feel like I dropped the ball. (To be fair: I was dead broke during those years.) What's even crazier is how long a decade is. They were still releasing N64 games in the year 2000! That's also the year Deus Ex came out. Seems wrong, doesn't it?
-As a farewell to Hit Self-Destruct, Ben Abraham rounded up some tributes to Duncan Fyfe and posted them on Critical Distance. Part 1 has entries from L.B. Jeffries, Matthew Gallant, and me; part 2 features Nels Anderson, Eric Swain, and Ben Abraham; part 3 has Michel McBride-Charpentier, Michael Abbott, and Alexander Peterhans. Some wonderful observations here about Duncan's work. It's too bad that he died. (Oh, he only quit blogging?)
-Simon Parkin has written the definitive piece on Tim Langdell, the litigious head of alleged software publisher The Edge, a company that hasn't released a new game in almost 20 years but has made a healthy business in suing other people who use the word "edge" in their products.
Ironically, Langdell has a seat on the board of the International Game Developers Association. Corvus Elrod has been leading a charge to have him removed. The extent of my knowledge of the entire situation is limited to what you're reading right here, but it certainly seems like a hell of a drama. I'll be interested to see how it unfolds.
-Elysium at Gamers with Jobs makes a point I sometimes try and fail to: good graphics are an important part of a game. The issue isn't technology, it's imagination. Creative and inventive art direction is an asset for any game. As Elysium says, "Dazzle me, game developers and art designers. Show me something I’ve never seen before, whether set in the scale of the galactic or mundane. Stop wasting time seeing if you can pack a few dozen more polygons into the architecture of a bus stop and instead paint the unexpected." Games can show us new worlds in a way that books and movies never could. Why don't they?
-There's a bonus track for fans of the Big Red Potion podcast I was on earlier this week, in which we muse about the rigorous standards of secrecy regarding upcoming video games. It is pretty surprising -- video game companies guard their secrets better than the government does.
-Given the news of a gunman targeting women at a Pennsylvania gym, Brinstar's post about misogyny in gamer culture was especially timely. For reasons I don't understand, a large number of people in this country believe that there's no such thing as bigotry in any form, but if there is, the only victims are white men. (Many of these people are United States senators.) The level of hostility toward women and minorities in this country is shockingly high, all the more so because the perpetrators act so aggrieved. They actually get mad at the real victims of discrimination.
You know what else is bullshit? I go to the Huffington Post, where they've been following the Pennsylvania shooting pretty closely: "PA gunman targeted women," "PA gunman left behind online diary detailing hatred of women," etc. They helpfully linked his diary, too, in which he discussed in detail his desire to bed 20-somethings, and his frustration that he couldn't, which logically meant that he had to kill them. (And then ended up killing a few 40-somethings instead.)
To the right on the HuffPo homepage, in the "most popular" box, was a headline trumpting "Vanessa Hudgens NUDE pictures!" Vanessa Hudgens is the 20-year-old star of Disney's High School Musical films. No, we're not sending mixed messages or anything.
Do I have a solution? No. This world is completely fucked. If I ever have a daughter, I'm going to feel so goddamn guilty for what she'll have to go through. [/soapbox]
Showing posts with label Gamers with Jobs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gamers with Jobs. Show all posts
Friday, August 07, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Friday afternoon tidbits
Because I didn't learn my lesson last time, I'm going hiking again this weekend. Presumably there will be no waist-deep snow to wade through at this time of year, unlike the last time. If I don't come back, tell them I was cool.
-Duncan Fyfe's farewell tour at Hit Self-Destruct (which is total bullshit, by the way) includes a penetrating look at the state of games journalism. His conclusion: It's much better than it was, but there's always something tragic about growing up. No one really sees working for a game magazine as akin to landing a job in the Wonka factory anymore. That makes for better writing. Isn't it also a little sad?
Duncan talked to a few excellent writers for this piece: Simon Parkin, Kieron Gillen, Nick Breckon, and Chris Remo. I'm in there too, for some reason. When Duncan first asked me about my career high points, I wouldn't have expected that one of them would be seeing myself mentioned in the same breath as those guys.
-The announcement of the Rock Band Network is further evidence that Harmonix isn't just fumbling around in the dark. Rather than forcing people to use in-game samples, they're giving musicians the tools to import their actual music into the game. Kirk Hamilton has a good take on what this means from the musician's perspective. You have to wonder how they'll handle the inevitable flood of submissions. Good problem to have, I suppose.
-The latest edition of the Brainy Gamer podcast features an interview with Clint Hocking, plus a round-table discussion about game design with Hocking, Manveer Heir, and Borut Pfeifer. All three guests have some terrific insights into game design, which comes as no surprise. It's great to hear the perspective of the people who make the games. That's something the broader public -- myself included -- doesn't make enough of an effort to do.
-More reasons never to have kids, from Julian Murdoch at Gamers with Jobs. What I mean by that is: I can't risk somebody melting the ice around my heart!
-Anybody notice that PixelVixen707 hasn't posted since the book came out? Guess the marketing budget's tapped.
-Duncan Fyfe's farewell tour at Hit Self-Destruct (which is total bullshit, by the way) includes a penetrating look at the state of games journalism. His conclusion: It's much better than it was, but there's always something tragic about growing up. No one really sees working for a game magazine as akin to landing a job in the Wonka factory anymore. That makes for better writing. Isn't it also a little sad?
Duncan talked to a few excellent writers for this piece: Simon Parkin, Kieron Gillen, Nick Breckon, and Chris Remo. I'm in there too, for some reason. When Duncan first asked me about my career high points, I wouldn't have expected that one of them would be seeing myself mentioned in the same breath as those guys.
-The announcement of the Rock Band Network is further evidence that Harmonix isn't just fumbling around in the dark. Rather than forcing people to use in-game samples, they're giving musicians the tools to import their actual music into the game. Kirk Hamilton has a good take on what this means from the musician's perspective. You have to wonder how they'll handle the inevitable flood of submissions. Good problem to have, I suppose.
-The latest edition of the Brainy Gamer podcast features an interview with Clint Hocking, plus a round-table discussion about game design with Hocking, Manveer Heir, and Borut Pfeifer. All three guests have some terrific insights into game design, which comes as no surprise. It's great to hear the perspective of the people who make the games. That's something the broader public -- myself included -- doesn't make enough of an effort to do.
-More reasons never to have kids, from Julian Murdoch at Gamers with Jobs. What I mean by that is: I can't risk somebody melting the ice around my heart!
-Anybody notice that PixelVixen707 hasn't posted since the book came out? Guess the marketing budget's tapped.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Friday afternoon tidbits
I've been playing inFamous, and will continue to do so this weekend. So far, I'm not terribly impressed, more for reasons of concept rather than execution. But that will all have to wait for the review! Let's get to some links.
-Seth Schiesel had a nice write-up about Dan Aykroyd and the new Ghostbusters game in the New York Times. What I liked about this piece was that it wasn't just about the video game: it covered Aykroyd's biography, the history of the Ghostbusters franchise, and the new game, and made it all of a piece. Just a good piece of journalism here, and not specifically "games" journalism.
-Matthew Gallant takes a look at the approaches some games take toward guiding the player's eye, and focuses on the masters of the craft, Valve Software. I always knew I liked that aspect of the Half-Life games, but I never knew why until I played through Half-Life 2: Episode 1 with the commentary on. One of the developers explained how they put an enemy on a platform who started shooting at you, so you'd turn in his direction just in time to see some kind of massive ship fly up out of the water. They play you like a fiddle, Valve Software, but their real trick is convincing you that you're the one who makes everything happen.
-Another week, another great read from Jeremy Parish. He reminisces about the "noble failure" of the horizontal pan in Super Mario World. As usual, Jeremy's scholarship is immediately challenged by pedantic commenters. It's true, though -- the shoulder buttons were a great idea, even if it took people a little while to realize why. The same thing happened with the Nintendo DS. For the first year, no one -- gamers or developers -- knew what to make of the touchscreen. These days it's hard to imagine how we ever played portable games without one.
-Gamers with Jobs is looking for writers. They're one of those sites that often gets overlooked when we decry the lack of an outlet that consistently publishes thoughtful, mature game writing. They've been doing it for years! I can think of several bloggers who'd fit in well there.
-Yep, I'm skeptical about Tony Hawk's Ride, too. It's easy to point to the success of peripheral-based games like Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and Wii Fit, but I don't think the lesson to be drawn from those games is that consumers like expensive software that requires extra hardware to play. I would love for this game to work, though.
-Seth Schiesel had a nice write-up about Dan Aykroyd and the new Ghostbusters game in the New York Times. What I liked about this piece was that it wasn't just about the video game: it covered Aykroyd's biography, the history of the Ghostbusters franchise, and the new game, and made it all of a piece. Just a good piece of journalism here, and not specifically "games" journalism.
-Matthew Gallant takes a look at the approaches some games take toward guiding the player's eye, and focuses on the masters of the craft, Valve Software. I always knew I liked that aspect of the Half-Life games, but I never knew why until I played through Half-Life 2: Episode 1 with the commentary on. One of the developers explained how they put an enemy on a platform who started shooting at you, so you'd turn in his direction just in time to see some kind of massive ship fly up out of the water. They play you like a fiddle, Valve Software, but their real trick is convincing you that you're the one who makes everything happen.
-Another week, another great read from Jeremy Parish. He reminisces about the "noble failure" of the horizontal pan in Super Mario World. As usual, Jeremy's scholarship is immediately challenged by pedantic commenters. It's true, though -- the shoulder buttons were a great idea, even if it took people a little while to realize why. The same thing happened with the Nintendo DS. For the first year, no one -- gamers or developers -- knew what to make of the touchscreen. These days it's hard to imagine how we ever played portable games without one.
-Gamers with Jobs is looking for writers. They're one of those sites that often gets overlooked when we decry the lack of an outlet that consistently publishes thoughtful, mature game writing. They've been doing it for years! I can think of several bloggers who'd fit in well there.
-Yep, I'm skeptical about Tony Hawk's Ride, too. It's easy to point to the success of peripheral-based games like Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and Wii Fit, but I don't think the lesson to be drawn from those games is that consumers like expensive software that requires extra hardware to play. I would love for this game to work, though.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Gamers with Jobs fillets Gamespot
I don't read Gamers with Jobs enough. A couple weeks back, they posted a satirical memo from an unnamed video game review site to its employees. It's pretty hilarious the whole way through, but this excerpt in particular gave me flashbacks to every glowing Mass Effect review I saw:
It is important to set aside personal preference, and be able to specifically and adequately demonstrate in an objective and quantifiable manner when a game is not fun. Do not be snide, sarcastic or unprofessional in your arguments, and remember to highlight what is fun about a game first. This is what readers want to know, and they will respect what isn’t said more than a caustic and unfair analysis. For example:
Game X is terrific fun to play from start to finish. It is an action packed, third person adventure through the gritty underbelly of the modern crime world as well as a nail-biting sci-fi shooter. The controls may take some getting used to, but once it becomes clear what the designers intended by using the function keys as the primary form of movement, you’ll wish every game used the scheme. While aiming in Game X can be difficult for those who aren’t very good at shooters, the method does a good job of recreating a real-world response to an alien shootout.
Dead on.
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