[Originally posted on The Ontological Geek] For several years now it’s been semi-standard practice for games to record the amount of time played. When I look at the number of hours I’ve spent playing a game I try to keep in mind a short article by Kat Chastain about the way games consume time. To summarize … Continue reading The Serotonin Machine: On Grinding
An NPC in Motherbound, the third of four towns in Breath of Death VII: The Beginning, jokes that she wishes she could go out and see more of the world, but the monsters surrounding the town are too difficult for her to fight; if only, she laments, she started an adventure in Lufestpolis—the player’s starting … Continue reading Mobility as a Weapon in Phantasy Star
“Human sperm cells were seen with the earliest microscopes in the seventeenth century. The human egg is several thousand times larger, but — despite earlier postulates — it was not visualized until 1827. […] For something to be found, it must first be imagined and sought.” (Duffin, Jacalyn. A History of Medicine, (Toronto, ON: Toronto … Continue reading It’s a Man’s World: The Implications of Makeup in Mass Effect
If somebody were to make a game out of that one twitter bot that proposes random situations (@AndNowImagine) the result would look something like Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. I really enjoy the game (Review: Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. PopMatters. Feb 19 2014.), though I admit that I had an extended honeymoon phase with … Continue reading Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII and Defamiliarization
Between review games I’ve been picking away at Deus Ex: Human Revolutions. It’s a game with a fair share of problems: the shoehorned-in boss fights completely break the game’s tone, its plot and characters are wafer-thin, some of the character designs are a self-parody and it’s clumsy with some of its more complicated themes. Still, … Continue reading “We’re helping people, Adam”: Deferring Responsibility in Deus Ex: Human Revolutions
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