Earlier this week I celebrated my twenty-fifth birthday and, while I don’t want to get too shmlatzy about the whole ordeal, the day was marked by that same arbitrariness/ceremony/ennui that all birthdays come with after puberty. I’m an adult. I have been for a few years now. But now it’s starting to hit home a … Continue reading On “Grown Up” Games
True to their modern business model, Square-Enix has re-released a beloved classic in the form of Final Fantasy VII for PC. The PC version of the game will include new achievements and…that’s about it. As annoying as it is to see a game from fifteen years ago paraded like a company’s proud new accomplishment, ultimately … Continue reading One of Many Looks Back at Final Fantasy VII
[Originally posted on PopMatters] When I was growing up, there was no need for the “J” in JRPG. There were RPGs from Japan, many of which featured similar conventions and drew from many of the same tropes, but only recently has the JRPG become a genre of its own. And for Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, … Continue reading Finite Fantasy: The Problem with JRPGs
[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?
[Originally posted on Joystick Division] With Mass Effect 3 just a few months away and Dragon Age 3 officially announced, not is as good a time as any to talk about Bioware. The company has long been lauded as one of the few developers that have put an emphasis on storytelling. Even their games that … Continue reading The Bioware Method
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