Can Gen X parents bond with the newest generation of gamers given the ways that cooperative gameplay has changed over the years?
No one needs to convince kids to play video games. The Millenials are a group that easily embraces the medium of video games. But since there are quite a few 30-somethings that play games targeted towards mature audiences, there isn't necessarily a clear bridge between the games that we like to play and the ones that our kids are playing. Worse, most modern multiplayer games are not designed to play alongside a small human in…]]>Brütal Legend might actually be the best use of Jack Black yet, affording him a starring role that caters to his comedic roots and sensibilities while allowing everything around him to be more over the top than he is.
Long a hero to gamers familiar with his seminal LucasArts PC titles, developer Tim Schafer's first foray into console gaming came in 2005 with the wildly creative Psychonauts. The main conceit of platforming inside the minds of other characters in order to combat physical representations of emotional issues or memories was immensely enjoyable for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the thoroughly unique presentation and gameplay elements of each level. Further,…]]>Despite being a simulation of dictatorship, Tropico 3 is largely about questioning authority.
In Tropico 3, you take on the role of a Latin American dictator on a fictitious island in the Caribbean. Sounds like fun, right? Well, as anyone who likes to play god in simulation games by taking on the role of managing cities, zoos, movie studios, or amusement parks can tell you, doing so is generally a fairly complex undertaking that generally tests your own abilities in administrating but rarely tests your authority. Despite being…]]>If you’re going to claim that a game is about observing animals and taking pictures, there are certain things a person is going to impulsively want to do.
In a game, there is always a difficult balance between meeting expectations about the experience that it is claiming to give us and handling the technical realities that hold it back. If you’re going to claim that a game is about observing animals and taking pictures, there are certain things a person is going to impulsively want to do. Get close to the animals, be able to sneak around to get clever shots, explore a…]]>It is as if a Saturday morning cartoon had been spun through some kind of faux-intellectual blender.
Tornado Outbreak is a game that feels strangely, exuberantly inadequate. It plays like some kind of odd take on the (admittedly already odd) Katamari Damacy franchise and is possessed of a bizarrely out of place tone. Or, it could be a completely brilliant and subversive tone. It is hard to say which one is accurate after playing through the game’s smallish campaign. In Tornado Outbreak, you play as a Zephyr, taking on the role of…]]>The more blood there is in a game, the more unrealistic it becomes; it ceases to have any real meaning and becomes a joke.
Whenever a critic of the gaming industry starts to decry the level of violence in games, the response is generally the same. It's standard to point out that violence in games pales when compared to the more explicit violence and gore in movies. While that may be true when comparing a game like GTA IV (the mass media's favorite whipping boy) to a movie like Hostel, it doesn't hold up for games versus movies in…]]>NHL 2K10 feels like a game made by people who have never played the game of hockey or even watch much of it.
In 2009, to make the grave mistakes that 2K Sports’ NHL 2K10 does is unforgivable. One example that typifies the game’s myriad problems is in one of the basics of the game of hockey: line changes. When attempting to change lines on the fly during the flow of play, you are presented with your various line options and each one’s corresponding button. Unfortunately, one of the lines is associated with the pass button, and when…]]>The game is less interested in presenting a building simulation (as the previous games in the series were) as it is in presenting a world of mystery where persistence, not problem solving, is key to resolving a mystery.
There are also a few badly-scared champions of the formal or the classic mystery who think no story is a detective story which does not pose a formal and exact problem and arrange the clues around it with neat labels on them. Such would point out, for example, that in reading The Maltese Falcon no one concerns himself with who killed Spade’s partner, Archer (which is the only formal problem of the story) because the…]]>The biggest disappointment about the game is how much it fails to actually be an engaging Home Depot commercial.
Making a video game that advertises a product is nothing new. Whether it is being released to support a movie or build on a successful IP, games that are little more than glorified advertisements for other products have always been around. Eventually people started to notice the effectiveness of these games for spreading brand awareness and you began to see products like Burger King’s Sneak King that built on their bizarre mascot. To my knowledge,…]]>Forced retirement is a lot better off than the dishonorable discharge many face under DADT, and the gap in pay and benefits is huge.
We should all just be plain ole Americans, right? And we could all just get along because we all have the same fair chances, right? Just consider how many men and women in service suffer in silence. In his interview given to YouthRadio.org, young veteran Joseph Christopher Rocha comes out about how during his Middle East war tour, he suffered everything from “being duct-taped and locked in a dog kennel to being forced to simulate…]]>As much as is possible in this cartoony world, it's difficult not to sympathize with Bowser.
It seems quite common that there are overall fans of a particular medium who have certain genres they've never quite gotten a handle on. Perhaps it's a music fan who seems to like everything except for jazz, or a film connoisseur that doesn't quite see the appeal of gangster movies. Personally, despite my affection for video games at large, I've rarely been swept off my feet by a traditional RPG. I never really had the…]]>Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 is one of the first games in which immersion is actually a strike against it.
This review contains mild story-related spoilers. There's a moment toward the end of Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 in which Sonia, the in-over-her-head stereotypical female who constantly insists on tagging along and being captured by baddies (a completely unnecessary subplot to an appropriately epic primary narrative) can't help herself anymore and leaps into a hug with her (and our) hero, Ryu Hayabusa. Ryu is taken aback by this sudden infringement into the personal space that he…]]>Unlike the radical individualism that marks and perhaps romanticizes the protagonists of Grand Theft Auto, Saint's Row succeeds in creating a positive response to the Saints through their representation of them as a gang of slightly more thoughtful, slightly more opened minded thugs.
Most games based on the Grand Theft Auto formula of creating an open world, in which a player in the form of a criminal is allowed free reign to explore and dominate a world, have a tendency to attempt to distinguish themselves from this forerunner in some fundamental kind of way. Games like The Godfather or Scarface have attempted various ways of changing up the open world formula by grafting area control and economic development…]]>The game is clearly written by someone who thinks that they’re producing a TV episode or book.
As games begin to come into their own, people who specialize in producing dialogue and narrative that works well for the medium are becoming more prevalent. There are certain tropes, such as the story progressing in different ways based on player input, that you just need practice and experience before you can really write well. Expectations vary for this, a linear sequence of cutscenes mixed up with gameplay is still a fun way to play,…]]>I couldn't help but notice that one puzzle in which you must fit four different shaped blocks in four identically shaped holes in order to open a door was eerily similar to a Fisher-Price puzzle that I once solved at age four.
When making Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, developer Vicarious Visions seemed to have the old adage “if it ain't broke, don't fix it” in mind. However, they probably should have considered another: “Familiarity breeds contempt.” The sequel to Raven Software's 2006 action role-playing game is so slavishly devoted to keeping things pretty much the same that its sequel borders on expansion pack material or, at the very least, resembles something like an update similar to what…]]>Dead Space: Extraction breathes new creative life into what was one of the most derivative genres in gaming, the "on-rails shooter," turning it from a mindless virtual shooting gallery into a valid avenue for storytelling.
Dring the build up to the release of Dead Space: Extraction, developer Visceral Games never described their game as a "rail shooter," which is a kind of shooter, typically in first-person, in which the player doesn't have direct control over their avatar, who instead moves along a set path as if on rails. The term has long been associated with arcade shoot-‘em-ups to differentiate these two different types of games. Dead Space: Extraction, though, had…]]>We may have to reconsider who we are as we play out the sexual experiences of someone else.
Only one thing could've dragged me away from the soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window.--Ralphie, A Christmas Story (1983), MGM/UA Entertainment Much like the “major award” won by Ralphie's father in A Christmas Story, contemporary video games with “the snap of a few sparks, and a quick whiff of ozone” tend to offer rather ideal, if incomplete images of lurid matter to their audience. Indeed, sexuality tends to get treated in one…]]>You can drive as messily or cautiously as you want, and the game will reward you. It goes a long way toward making the game feel like your racing experience.
The Need for Speed series has been the home to great games, good games, and absolutely awful games. It’s also the first title (that I ever played) that introduced the aggressive AI driver, in the form of a police car, designed to take you down at all costs. Since the arrival of Hot Pursuit on the scene, Need for Speed has struggled to reattain its brilliance. Porsche Unleashed was a fun racer, but the hemmed…]]>Trine is a platformer of obligation.
There are myriad reasons to recommend Trine. It's beautiful, for one. Playing through Trine is like gazing at a gorgeous oil-painted landscape that just keeps moving, keeps developing, and keeps finding new ways to make your jaw drop in silent awe. Few games have been produced that have this sort of richness of color and aesthetic, enough so that one would almost rather watch than play simply so that the details of it all won't…]]>Summary: Early this week, our Moving Pixels writers decided to play a game of telephone. Leading off with some observations about considering whether or not the idea of “ganking” can be applied to single player experiences, L.B. Jeffries began a discussion that has considered what rules mean to players. G. Christopher Williams continued this discussion that has focused on the differences between playing and gaming and what limits we may want to place on ourselves as players of games. Nick Dinicola concludes our series today with some final thoughts on whether or not we can earn the right to gank the system.
Over the past week on Moving Pixels, L.B. Jeffries and G. Christopher William have written about system gank in games, a term that describes “a situation in which a player is still operating legitimately in the confines of the game but has broken the system.” They wrote mostly about the negative consequences of “breaking the game,” but I think ganking the game can be a good thing, at least in single player games. On a…]]>If any pleasure is to be derived from Fatale, it is likely the pleasure that one derives from the activities of looking and observing, which is in itself a problem if it is about Salome. The Biblical story indicates that being looked at and observed is the catalyst for potential nastiness and ultimately an ending.
This review contains some spoilers. This is not a game. You will die. But that should go without saying, since you should know what you're getting into in the first place with a game whose subtitle indicates an interest in “exploring Salome.” The story of Salome and her connection to the execution of John the Baptist already suggests the terminal as a theme, both in its biblical version and its revision by Oscar Wilde. However,…]]>This week our Moving Pixels writers decided to play a game of telephone. Leading off with some observations about considering whether or not the idea of “ganking” can be applied to single player experiences, L.B. Jeffries began a discussion that has considered what rules mean to players. G. Christopher Williams is now continuing this discussion by considering the differences between what we mean by playing and gaming and how those ideas relate to rules and the freedom of violating them. Nick Dinicola will conclude our series on Friday, so please do stop by for the discussion's conclusion.
In yesterday's Moving Pixels Column, L.B. Jeffries considered the concept of “ganking”, a term commonly applied to multiplayer gaming experiences and how the problematic concept of players finding loopholes to circumvent rules in a game might additionally apply to single player experiences. Jeffries began his essay with a kind of real life example of how a system might be “ganked”, which I guess is a good enough place as any to respond to some of…]]>A player can make mistakes with dire consequences that are absolutely irreversible.
Demon’s Souls is without a doubt one of the most vexing, frustrating, exhilarating, unique experiences that it has been my pleasure to play through this console generation. The tenacity of Japanese developer From Software and its publisher Atlus has resulted in the creation of a game that perfectly idolizes the design philosophies of the Japanese Role-Playing Game and retains the infamous staples that have led gamers to both attraction to and repulsion from the genre.…]]>Throughout this week, our Moving Pixels writers decided to play a game of telephone. L.B. Jeffries will be leading off our discussions with some thoughts on “system gank”. G. Christopher Williams will be continuing this discussion on Tuesday, and Nick Dinicola will conclude our series on Friday. So, please do stop by throughout the week as our discussion evolves.
One of the curious tenets of a rule or law is that people have to want it to exist. If nobody thinks a law should be obeyed or has an interest in its sustained enforcement, then it ceases to function. Need precedes Rule. Unfortunately, while this sounds nice in theory, in real life it rarely works out so neatly. Politicians will often posture and gain attention by creating poorly designed laws or without really thinking…]]>Super Metroid is unique in that it is the only game in the series that addresses something distinctly female about Samus besides her looks: motherhood.
Ray Huling pointed out in an article for The Escapist that the only thing that video games rarely borrow from the film Aliens are the motherhood themes ("Woman, Mother, Space Marine", 18 November 2008). The tough image of space marines, the indomitable alien force, or the barren sense of isolation have all been incorporated into various titles. But the theme of being a mother, particularly one that is driven to action in defense of her…]]>Stop me if you've heard this one before: a guy with a robotic arm, a sexy lady ninja, and a giant robot that never talks set off on a trip to beat the crap out of hundreds of robots.
The brawler is a genre that strikes a balance between highly repetitive gameplay and variety. Players learn the nuances of a character’s moves, usually quickly if it’s a simple system, and then engages that basic technique in a variety of situations. Epic boss battles, strange puzzles, and QTE sequences are all mixed into the fold to keep a steady pace of brawling with enemies that drives the game forward. Missteps in the genre tend to…]]>The most interesting addition to the racing formula is the rewind ability.
A racing game is about balancing the desire to slam the gas and rocket ahead at full speed while knowing when to cut off that wonderful feeling in time to make a tight turn. Wait too long, and you’ll be spinning out or worse -- just another another wreck to dodge. Sometimes additions can be made to the formula like Burnout: Paradise’s open city or Mario Kart’s power-ups, but the core design is still about…]]>The advertising may be selling itself rather than the product.
Yeah, I know. Sex sells. Indeed, when I teach advertising analysis as an exercise in practicing interpretation and evaluating rhetorical techniques in my freshmen composition classes, I often have students that astutely point out this phenomenon. I do like to point out that selling a product via sex, though, can be a relatively more complex process than that two word phrase might otherwise imply. Once we begin comparing advertisements targeted at different types of audiences…]]>Spook Country is about America’s loss of innocence, its various ways of remembering the past, and an attempt to find a way of reconciling those memories with the present.
William Gibson was born in Conway, South Carolina and raised in the Virginia portion of Appalachia. His initial claim to fame is coining the term "cyberspace" in his novel Neuromancer eight years before the internet came into existence. The book is a complex discourse on the clash between humanity and technology. His latest books have continued to tackle this existential crisis by setting it in a modern, post 9/11 America. To describe our modern world,…]]>Seen in retrospect, a Persona title stripped of its highly acclaimed social link gameplay is a soulless, characterless, frustrating, and (quite frankly) often boring experience.
Re-releases such as Shin Megami Tensei: Persona often have many reasons for reappearing after years in the wilderness. It might be to make a quick cash-in, to further establish a brand and grow its audience, to build hype for an upcoming new release, and finally, for many such as myself who missed out the first time, to play catch up. As I was only eleven at the time of the original release on the PSX…]]>Treasure on the Tracks is the type of game that allows us to remember the good old days of adventure gaming while simultaneously reminding us that adventure for the sake of adventure can be a pretty hollow experience.
When Nintendo released the Nintendo DS and the Wii, there was an entire faction of PC gamers who instantly saw a tremendous set of possibilities. These were gamers who had assumed that their favorite games had been abandoned with the rise of console gaming, gamers left behind by a tidal wave of twitchy multiplayer shooters, sports games, and Guitar Hero. These are the gamers weaned on LucasArts, the gamers who worship at the altar of…]]>It as if Wet seems to apprehend the language of the exploitation cinema that it apes, but it is questionable whether it truly comprehends that language.
I deeply admire the audacity of the title of Bethesda's Wet. “Wet” refers to the protagonist, Rubi Malone's, occupation as assassin (skilled at such “wetwork”) and also implies a less than subtle bit of sexual innuendo. Given Wet's overt exploitation cinema influences, the ability to work that genre of film's two dominant interests, violence and sex, into just one three letter word is pretty clever. -”Elegant Tramps: The Bodies of Lara Croft and Rubi Malone”…]]>The complicated reactions that gamers have to Lara and Rubi might suggest that their representations are, well, at least somewhat complicated.
I deeply admire the audacity of the title of Bethesda's Wet. “Wet” refers to the protagonist, Rubi Malone's, occupation as assassin (skilled at such “wetwork”) and also implies a less than subtle bit of sexual innuendo. Given Wet's overt exploitation cinema influences, the ability to work that genre of film's two dominant interests, violence and sex, into just one three letter word is pretty clever. Character concept art for WetCuriously, though, despite the come hither…]]>The fundamentals of Bust-A-Move have yet to wear out their welcome, but it might serve future titles well to explore ways in which to present those fundamentals in a fresh context.
All game genres have examples of properties with such strong fundamental mechanics that they can be endlessly tweaked and repackaged. Even so, drawing from the well of a successful concept too frequently can certainly cause it to lose its luster. The Tony Hawk franchise, for example, clearly comes to mind as a series in which interest has waned, largely due to overexposure. The wonderful mechanic of taking the balance and guesswork out of the simplest…]]>