"Where is all the good writing about games?"
…state of VR at this point in its history – the process of getting used to an unfamiliar place.
“While our personal values play a factor in our satisfaction, how we act in games has more to do with how we view ourselves and our impact in the real world, rather than arbitrary adherence to rules and social order for their own…
…with that, we now continue with our regularly-scheduled programming.
Two pieces represent two very different approaches to writing about violent emotions in games.
Continuing the theme of violence,…
…of the round table we encourage you to leave a comment on a blog to which you respond with a link to the response piece and give the original writer a ‘right of reply’. Keep the conversation going!
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…demonstrates this with a level analysis from Metal Gear Solid.
“The concept of prospect and refuge is broadly applicable in level design, but relatively few game designers have to understand it in detail. The div[id]ing line between those who do and those who don’t is almost always genre.” Three pieces seem to indicate that we don’t really know very much about player interaction, shining a light on something that makes this medium dark and mysterious.
Occult
…make the impact of its environment upon it and the personality of those who put it to use immediately visible by reflecting what we do to it back at us.”
Two authors, looking at very different games, make connections between depictions of mental illness, trauma, and the supernatural.
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…those which are, how they are being represented or misrepresented.
…
…time to examine a slightly older one here. Of the game he notes,
I would place the introduction of inFamous as one of the better opening levels in open world gaming. I say this because it sets the stage to not just for the game, but also more importantly for the milieu.
Swain follows on with two other posts about the game, focussing on ‘The propaganda of inFamous’ and ‘The morality of inFamous’ respectively.
On the back of rumours about an “Apocalypse Now” game possibly in development, Mike Dunbar at the RRoD blog says “That’s…
…Stars for the NES and to think about the smooth swing of the bat, the greenness of the field, the beauty in the curve of a pixellated pitch? What if, in returning to Final Fantasy XIII, I spent more time taking a walk, either skirting the enemies in my path or even pausing just to admire them? How about if in Kane & Lynch 2 I had dawdled along in the restaurants and alleyways to look more closely at the world, to resist the impulse to progress, to run forward only to hide behind another pillar, shoot another head as…
…social structure. Though the narrative briefly switches back to Zidane, we seamlessly soon get inside the rusty shoes of another character, Adelbert Steiner, the noble Knight of Alexandria, and the Captain of the Knights of Pluto, who initially harbors a different agenda (i.e. viewpoint) that goes against Zidane and Garnet’s.
Apparently that post about Minecraft-as-evangelical-Christian-game from a few weeks back was a parody (Poe’s Law strikes again!) but this one is allegedly more legit: Aleksandar Vidakovic of CoderGames writes about ‘Minecraft harmony and the joy of creation’ [mirror].
And lastly for this week, if you’re at all…
Another week, another This Week In Video Game Blogging, done by yours truly, the master of the shotgun style of aggregation.
We begin at Popmatters Moving Pixel’s blog where early in the week Kris Ligman finishes the sites set of posts focusing on the amateur game Dungeoneer by looking at player guilt. G. Christopher Williams declares “Everybody wants to Own the World.” Jorge Albor looks at civic education games and how Mass Effect 2 may have one-upped them on their own turf. And finally Nick Dinicola explains how the tension of Metro 2033 comes from the contrasting the
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