[Originally posted on PopMatters] While playing through a pre-release version Resonance for review,1 I came across a number of obstacles that I struggled to overcome. The difficult line that puzzle games have to walk is that the player must be stumped—but only for a little while. Unfortunately, given that my review was time sensitive, getting … Continue reading A Defence of the Walkthrough
[Originally posted on PopMatters] Last week, Daniel Tovrov wrote a piece for Popmatters on the cult of iconic movie “bad guys”.1 Through the characters of Gordon Gekko of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Tony Montana of Scarface, and Patrick Bateman of American Psycho, Tovrov argues that, even though these figures are cautionary tales about unchecked … Continue reading Playing the Bad Guy Feels Good
[Originally posted on PopMatters] In the weeks after the release of Mass Effect 3, the drama around its unsatisfying ending went to some interesting places. After some discussion over whether or not the ending ought to change1, the conversation muted into whether or not it should be “allowed” to change. And ultimately, the question became, … Continue reading The Undead Author: Artistic Ownership of Games
[Originally posted on PopMatters] Much of the discourse from proponents of the “video games are art” position is centered on the medium’s interactivity as its distinguishing advantage. Audience participation, as it were, is the reason why games exist. No other mode of storytelling so often depends on the actions, reactions, and experiences of its audience … Continue reading To Play or Pause
[Originally posted on Joystick Division] For the last week or so, Joystick Division has been having a pseudo-conversation about the value of story in video games. While I think most of us here put a fairly high value on what games have to say, it’s relatively to consider storytelling so heavily. Nobody questioned the value … Continue reading What is a Videogame?
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