Tuesday, October 25 2011
Other Princesses, Other Castles: The Problem with Playing Romantically in Video Games
The insensibly repetitious nature of romance present in both video game plots and in their mechanics leads to all too familiar storytelling.
Friday, September 23 2011
Scary Transmedia Synergy Within the ‘Gears of War’ Universe
Perhaps in this age of serialized television, franchise-driven films, and transmedia everything, the very idea of a stand-alone product is antiquated.
Friday, September 2 2011
Thematic Confusion in the Branching Narratives of Video Games
Maybe David Cage of Quantic Dreams had the right idea when he suggested people play through Heavy Rain one time only. After all, you can’t recognize the inconsistency of branching plots if you only see one of them.
Friday, July 15 2011
Collaborative Conflict in ‘Mass Effect’
Gaming is a process of collaborative storytelling, and as I tried to write conflict into the story of Mass Effect, I ran into conflict with my writing partner, Bioware.
Wednesday, June 22 2011
Watching As Gameplay: ‘L.A. Noire’ Merely a Visual Novel?
Watching becomes a rather central and active occupation in most games and very often requires more time than “doing something”.
Tuesday, May 3 2011
Let’s Play: Interactivity by Proxy in a Web 2.0 Culture (Part 4)
The ways gamers customize their gameplay and then document that play has the potential to significantly affect how certain titles and their surrounding culture of players are perceived.
Wednesday, March 31 2010
An Intimate Moment With the Computer
I cared about GlaDOS only because she was the one directing me. Oh, and then I really cared about her because she wanted to kill me.
Thursday, January 28 2010
Things to Know from Mass Effect: Ascension That Make Mass Effect 2 More Interesting
Friday, June 26 2009
Consequence Without Morality
Consequences are better represented through story than karma systems.
Tuesday, May 6 2008
Zarathustran Analytics in Video Games, Part 5: The Four Forms
L.B. Jeffries continues the Zarathustran Analytics series, putting together his pillars of game design and calling for sense in classification.
