Moving Pixels

Oh, I liked “TWiG” so much.  The mixed capitalization, the emasculating implications...it was just simple enough to be catchy.  Of course, I can say that now that Kotaku, perhaps the most popular gaming blog out there (and the gaming representative of the Gawker empire), has gone and co-opted it.

Now, I’m sure you could go ahead and find fifty instances of other places that had used “TWiG” as an acronym meaning “The Week in Games” before I did.  That’s not the point.  The point is, that before last night, I didn’t know of any of those, and I was much happier then.  Got any ideas for new acronyms?  FTW (For the Week)?  GTFOA (Games to Find Out About)?  Drop ‘em in the comments.  Bonus points (to be redeemed later) go to something that could be a potential internet meme.

As for this week’s games, well, it looks like a sparse week, but there are so many potential winners here that I hardly know where to go for something to highlight.  The elephant in the room is Mario Kart Wii; of all of the games coming out this week, that one’s bound to sell the most, and it’s surely yet another Nintendo-sponsored reason to own a Wii.  Still, it loses points for a) having been done before, and b) foisting the Wii Wheel upon the world.  I’m a Wii apologist, and I can admit that.  I’ll defend it to the death, insisting it’s “next-gen” (whatever that means) to my bloody death.  The habit that even Nintendo itself has latched onto of releasing plastic shells for their innovative control interface, thus removing the necessity of imagination to go with the waggle?  I taste bile in the back of my throat every time I read about one of these things.  Images in my mind of millions of Wii Wheels in landfills amongst 3rd party plastic bats, rackets, and fishing poles make me die a little bit inside.

As a rhythm game fiend, Battle of the Bands looks like fun (if a little confusing), and Square Enix is at it again, releasing The World Ends With You worldwide, to the rejoicing of millions (or, at least, thousands) who have salivated over the game for the nine months it’s been out in Japan.  Still, it’s impossible to overlook the PS2’s sole release this week: Persona 3: FES Edition.  Why, after two weeks of highlighting old games, would I choose to go that route one more time?  A number of reasons, actually:

1.  It might have the highest quality-to-sales ratio of any game released last year, aside from perhaps Zack & Wiki.  Seriously, almost nobody played this thing, and GameSpot, regardless of what you think of them, still saw fit to name it best RPG of ‘07.

2.  30 hours of brand new content.  Seriously—30 hours.  The “expanded” content of the FES edition is an entire new chapter for the game, along with a tweaked version of the original.  If you hadn’t played the original, there is officially no excuse to miss this unless you break out in hives at the mention of RPGs.

3.  You get this 70-hour beast for $29.99.  This is why the continued vitality of the PS2 is a great thing for gamers.

What are you looking forward to this week?  Are you saving your cash for GTA-day next week?

As always, the full release list can be found by clicking on that handy little “continue” link, right...there:

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“Friends are helpful not only because they will listen to us, but because they will laugh at us; Through them we learn a little objectivity, a little modesty, a little courtesy; We learn the rules of life and become better players of the game.”
—Will Durant, from The Mansions of Philosophy: A Survey of Human Life and Destiny

Welcome to Moving Pixels, the PopMatters Multimedia blog!

It has been over four years now since PopMatters started writing about games and other multimedia endeavors, a time that has seen the rise of casual gaming, a full console generation’s turnover, and the re-entry of the debate on violence in gaming into mainstream conversation. We have seen a format war fought and won, and we have seen the answer to the question of whether games can also be art shift from “maybe sometimes” to “often, yes”. Perhaps most importantly, we have seen the discussion of such questions expanded into an ongoing international dialogue via the increased prevalence of blogs and message boards as communicative vessels.

The multimedia writers of PopMatters would like to join in the discussion.

The aim of Moving Pixels is to analyze gaming in ways that go beyond the product reviews that our multimedia coverage has until now been limited to. This may include commentary on recent news stories, it may include write-ups on the latest flash games or particularly interesting websites, or it may delve into the state of the industry via the discussion of hot topics. We may even be inclined to provide alternate points of view on whatever game is being reviewed on a given day, or post a video that one of us found hilarious.

Our intent is not to take the place of the venues for gaming and internet discussion that already exist; our hope, rather, is to expand that discussion. Gaming is a part of our world, our culture, the culture of our parents and the culture of our children. A discussion of gaming does not have to exist in an insular world, it can infiltrate our books, our movies, our music. A web site can be an artistic venture, or it can serve to augment one. Most exciting of all, one gets the sense that we have only scratched the surface of possibilities in the realm of interactive entertainment and expression.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl has invaded my home in a big way, and I would be remiss if I were to suggest that, while playing it, I’m thinking of anything broader than disconnected thoughts; a typical Smash session might consist of “Runrunrun / SMASH FORWARD! / SMASH FORWARD! / jump OVER the Bob-omb / down-special / block / block / dodge / SMASH UP! / sayonara, Kirby.” Still, just because a typical game of Smash might not inspire poetry, exactly, doesn’t mean that the Smash Bros. series doesn’t shed light on interesting issues like the goodwill afforded by fanservice or humanity’s need for and gravitation toward competition. These are the types of discussions we hope to start here on Moving Pixels.

Thanks for coming by. Let us know what you think.