Month: March 2008
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There is no places for writers in the games industry.
Last week there was a bit of fallout on the internets from an article titled “The Case Against Writers in the Games Industry”. It was by a game designer named Adam Maxwell, and it basically makes the claim that having a dedicated writer on a development team is a waste; it’s always better to have…
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People Living in Competition
In case there were any doubt that EA and Harmonix are trying to turn Rock Band into a whole platform instead of just a videogame franchise, the release of the Rock Band music store should put that to rest. They did such a good job with the design of this thing, it’s almost eerie. It’s…
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Search for all youtube videos tagged “Satan”
Today Telltale announced the finale of Sam & Max Season Two, titled What’s New, Beelzebub?. This is the one where everything goes completely off the rails, leaving everyone confused, horrified, and entertained. As evidenced by the last trailer: I’m really glad we didn’t do machinima shorts for this season, because it means that time &…
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Our Feature Presentation
Today at the office, Jake made the startling and unsettling discovery that Cinemark’s Front-Row Joe is not a new creation, but an ancient abomination, most likely one of the cinema-trailer Elder Gods bent on bringing about Ragnarök. But I suspect he’s still mostly a West Coast phenomenon; the trailers I’ve been nostalgic for were much…
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The Island Gives, the Island Takes Away
This week’s episode of “Lost” was called “Meet Kevin Johnson.” It ended on a soap opera-like cliffhanger, with Sayid making a dramatic announcement and the camera lingering on other characters giving meaningful looks at each other. And then another cliffhanger with gunplay. Which won’t be resolved until late April. But “Battlestar Galactica” starts back up…
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So how was your morning?
I’m going to write about this on the internet, since I didn’t get to complain about it to anybody today: Despite all my best intentions, I’m a habitually tardy person. (Tardy as in not punctual, in case it means something else to the kids these days. But I probably qualify as that, too). I try…
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World of Goo
I’m not going to even try to think up a clever title for this one, since the game in question is so purposefully wry that adding more here would be overkill. But it’s a good game, and it’s called World of Goo, and you can pre-order it to get a preview copy (for Windows) right…
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Was she a great, big, pregnant person?
This week’s episode of “Lost” was called “Ji Yeon,” and it was about Sun & Jin, which means it’s another chance to get your weep on. (Warning: Every post on here about “Lost” contains spoilers). It was pretty clear early on that they were doing a Jame Gumb-in-Silence of the Lambs style reveal, in which…
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Literacy 2008: Book 5: Mere Christianity
Book Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis Synopsis Originally presented as a series of lectures on BBC Radio during World War II, this book is Lewis’s attempt to describe and defend the fundamental beliefs of Christianity, regardless of any particular church or denomination. It’s presented from the perspective of a former atheist who converted to Christianity,…
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Arch Fiend
A month or so before The Darjeeling Limited was released, they made the Hotel Chevalier short film available on iTunes. Watching that sucked away any desire I’d had to see the full movie. I just kept thinking: This! This is exactly what people hate about Wes Anderson movies! It’s so overcrowded with affectations and artificially…
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Knowing Goodwin
Thursday’s episode of “Lost” was called “The Other Woman,” and the double entendre in the title is the most interesting thing about this episode. (Assume spoilers in all these “Lost” posts.) Not that it was bad, just completely straightforward. The whole question of whether the freighter gang are bad guys was supposed to climax in…
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The three words every geek loves to hear
“Software Development Kit.” Today Apple announced its iPhone SDK. Considering how excited I am about the release, I don’t want to imagine what it’s like for people who are actually going to have time to use any of it. I’d been saying that the real potential of the iPhone (and iPod touch) — whether it’s…