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'Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning' Twists Videogame Tropes

Kingdoms of Amalur takes all of the principles of videogames – agency, choice, exploration, conflict – and turns them into an expansive experience of testing the conventions, and even the technical framework, of videogame fiction itself.

Games

Gun Control: The Video Game Obsession with the Sword and the Gun

The key observation to be made about the evolution of games into the violent extravaganzas of today is that, if you change the controller, you change everything.

Devon Campbell

Games

The Race for a New Game Machine: Eight is Beautiful (Book Review, Part 2)

It's not a perfect book, but those interested in the story of how the current generation of consoles came to be will find plenty to capture their interest.

Games

The Race for a New Game Machine: The Hardware/Software Conflict (Book Review, Part 1)

Concentrating on the narrative that David Shippy and Mickie Phipps tell in The Race for a New Game Machine is made difficult by a conflict in perspective.

Games

Afro Samurai

Afro Samurai would be a little too self-serious if it wasn't for Ninja-Ninja, a white-haired, impish character that can best be described as Samuel L. Jackson playing Samuel L. Jackson.

Reviews

The Maw

The only major problem with The Maw is the pacing and speed of gameplay. Unfortunately, it's a crippling sort of problem.

Thomas Cross

Reviews

Tom Clancy's EndWar

Tom Clancy's EndWar takes the premise of leading through words and literalizes the experience for the real time strategy game.

Reviews

Prince of Persia

The effort here is to provide a fantastic experience, not at all intellectual but one driven by velocity and the player's own gut.

Reviews

Midnight Club: Los Angeles

Even if you're not actually walking around on the streets or going into buildings, the Los Angeles here feels just as fully realized as New York City does in Grand Theft Auto 4.

Reviews

Call of Duty: World at War

Call of Duty: World at War's catalysts for combat personalize the brutality that the player will mete out on the Axis by dehumanizing and "othering" the Japanese and the Germans as barbarians and monsters.

Reviews

Gears of War 2

Gears of War 2 is a sequel with nearly perfect gameplay sullied by silly, derivative and downright ridiculous story and dialogue.

Reviews

Left 4 Dead

Playing as the infected and coordinating with your team as you try and stop the survivors from reaching the safe room is just as fun and fleshed-out as playing as the survivors.

Jason Cook

Reviews

Mirror's Edge

Mirror's Edge clearly treats parkour with a good deal of respect and admiration.

Reviews

Quantum of Solace

The hybridization of Quantum of Solace's first person mechanics with gameplay styles more often found in third person action titles lends the Bond game a curiously more elegant and thoughtful approach to first-person shooting.

Reviews

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Kingdoms of Amalur takes all of the principles of videogames – agency, choice, exploration, conflict – and turns them into an expansive experience of testing the conventions, and even the technical framework, of videogame fiction itself.

The key observation to be made about the evolution of games into the violent extravaganzas of today is that, if you change the controller, you change everything.

New FFXIII edition revealed

It's not a perfect book, but those interested in the story of how the current generation of consoles came to be will find plenty to capture their interest.

Concentrating on the narrative that David Shippy and Mickie Phipps tell in The Race for a New Game Machine is made difficult by a conflict in perspective.

Afro Samurai would be a little too self-serious if it wasn't for Ninja-Ninja, a white-haired, impish character that can best be described as Samuel L. Jackson playing Samuel L. Jackson.

The only major problem with The Maw is the pacing and speed of gameplay. Unfortunately, it's a crippling sort of problem.

Tom Clancy's EndWar takes the premise of leading through words and literalizes the experience for the real time strategy game.

The effort here is to provide a fantastic experience, not at all intellectual but one driven by velocity and the player's own gut.

Even if you're not actually walking around on the streets or going into buildings, the Los Angeles here feels just as fully realized as New York City does in Grand Theft Auto 4.

A defense of the narrative elements in Gears of War 2.

Call of Duty: World at War's catalysts for combat personalize the brutality that the player will mete out on the Axis by dehumanizing and "othering" the Japanese and the Germans as barbarians and monsters.

Gears of War 2 is a sequel with nearly perfect gameplay sullied by silly, derivative and downright ridiculous story and dialogue.

Playing as the infected and coordinating with your team as you try and stop the survivors from reaching the safe room is just as fun and fleshed-out as playing as the survivors.

Mirror's Edge clearly treats parkour with a good deal of respect and admiration.

The hybridization of Quantum of Solace's first person mechanics with gameplay styles more often found in third person action titles lends the Bond game a curiously more elegant and thoughtful approach to first-person shooting.