Spectre Collie

Category: Videogames

  • But our pistil is in another castle!

    The game “Flower” for the PlayStation 3 is short, simple, and masterfully done.

  • Feedback Loop

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    Previously on Spectre Collie, I snapped my tether and responded to a critique of games I worked on. The claim was that adventure games are bad at giving feedback to the player, partly because it’s impossible for the game to know what the player’s thinking. I agreed that adventure games are usually lousy at giving…

  • Short-term Nostalgia

    A few weeks ago, I was at a party, doing what I usually do at parties — looking for a way to work the Sam & Max games into the conversation. Talk turned to Adobe After Effects and all the cool stuff the kids can do with video editing, and I mentioned the “Behind the…

  • 8-Bit is Enough

    8-Bit Is Enough is the senses-shattering season finale for Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People, and it’s out right now! On WiiWare and for PC from the Telltale site! What the hell are you doing still reading this, instead of buying it and playing it?!? This one was a metric ton of work by…

  • Your Eyes are Getting Very, Very Heavy…

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    I forgot to mention: last week my friend Jake invited me to be a special guest villain on the Idle Thumbs podcast (direct iTunes Store link to the one I’m on), which he runs along with Chris Remo of Gamasutra and Nick Breckon of Shacknews. I’m told that the gang frequently gets together to talk…

  • Feedback’s a bitch

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    Previously on Spectre Collie, I made the claim that the “state of the art” in story-driven games still treat storytelling and gameplay as two completely separate things. In even the best games, the player’s role is that of the guy who pushes buttons and/or shoots guys in the way; the key story moments happen in…

  • The Criminal Projective

    Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People Episode 4: Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective is out now, and everyone with money should buy it. Everyone without money should ask for some and then use it to buy it. It’s my favorite of the series (although episode five is coming along pretty good, too), partly because…

  • By Their Farts Ye Shall Know Them

    It turns out that Dead Space wasn’t able to hold my interest very long, after I saw a friend at work playing Fable 2. The game was completely off my radar, because I could never get into the original Fable; I was disappointed in the unfulfilled potential of Black & White; and I was unfairly…

  • Resident Evil, But They’re in Space!

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    Over the past few nights I’ve been playing Dead Space, the new sci-fi horror shooter from EA. It’s an extremely well-made and entertaining game, and I’m enjoying it a lot. I want to make that clear up front, because I spend the rest of this post complaining about it. And I’m even going to go…

  • Le Monde de Goo

    I already wrote praising “World of Goo” on here when the game was still in pre-order/preview status. Now that the game is available, and I’ve seen past the first chapter, I feel obliged to talk about it some more. Everything I said last time still stands, but there’s more. I’m still not halfway through, and…

  • tl;dr;fu

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    More proof that ignorance is bliss: I’d been happily reading the internet for at least a year before I knew what “tl;dr” meant. Apparently, it means “too long, didn’t read,” and now it’s got my vote for the absolute worst internet acronym. Ruder than STFU, more arrogant than RTFM, stupider than ROFL, more vapid than…

  • Back off, man. I’m a scientist.

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    Previously on Spectre Collie, I made the claim that action-oriented games like shooters and platformers and “action/adventures” haven’t yet lived up to their promise of rendering traditional adventure games obsolete. Conventional wisdom says that adventure games are great stories on top of lousy, illogical, frustrating, and boring gameplay, and therefore Myth 8: If you could…