Category: Videogames
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Lawful Good
On Monday (or was it last week?) I saw a friend I haven’t seen in a long time, and he asked how I was liking the new job. I’m so used to answering that question by launching into a string of complaints or highly-qualified compliments, that it surprised me I couldn’t come up with much…
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For the Overlord!
I hadn’t heard anything about the game Overlord until its demo was released on Xbox Live a while ago. Now that’s how you do a game release: under-hyped to the point of obscurity, then a wide-release demo that builds buzz, and the full release a month later. The game itself (I’m playing the Xbox 360…
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You’ve unlocked… Rosebud!
When I started writing about storytelling in videogames almost a month ago, I’d intended to turn it into a series, with more arguments and maybe even some examples more concrete than “videogame stories should be good.” To keep things going, I’ll take some of the comments I’ve read about the topic online (in blogs, articles,…
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Back to School
I’ve been dropping hints left and right that I quit my job, but nobody’s been taking the bait, so I guess I have to make an announcement or something. (I guess it’s pointless to even try to pretend there’s a distinction between professional and personal on here at this point. If any future employer wants…
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Is there anybody going to listen to my story?
There’s been quite a bit written on the internets lately about writing and storytelling in videogames, and frankly, I’m relieved. I was starting to get concerned that everybody had just given up. People have been bitching for years about how the writing in videogames sucks. Long cut-scenes suck. And nobody cares about that stuff anyway,…
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The startled gasp of a beautiful woman
It occurred to me I never did go on enough about how much I love this Sam & Max short, written by Steve Purcell: The list of things Max loves is the best thing I’ve heard in a long time. God bless you, Sam & Max. I’ll never forget all you’ve done here today.
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The Blizzard Effect
Word on the street is that Blizzard is going to be announcing a Starcraft-themed massively multiplayer game at an upcoming event in South Korea. (For people who don’t know videogames, but are still reading this for some reason: Starcraft was a real-time strategy game released back in 1998. There was one expansion pack, but there’ve…
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Wood for Sheep
The Settlers of Catan is the game I’ve been most looking forward to on Xbox Live, and it was finally released today. I played two games against the AI, and I totally won both of them. My initial impression is that they did about as good a job of translating it to a console as…
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35 Going On 13
I can’t tell if I’ve lost any last shred of shame I was holding onto, or I’ve reached some kind of clarity that only comes from true maturity. Either way, I had no problem buying the latest Pokemon game last week. Common decency suggests I should’ve furtively taken it up to the register, hidden underneath…
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Everybody Wins
I can’t give out free copies of the Sam & Max games, but i can point you to the people who can. There’s a bunch of contests being run for a free copy of Season 1: Telltale’s own contest wants you to make with the arts and crafts Wired’s Game|Life blog is looking for a…
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SHODAN and Max
Maybe you’ve heard about Telltale’s Sam & Max games, and you’ve had your little mouse-clicker thing hovering over the “buy” button, but you’ve stopped yourself. “I’m tempted,” you say, “but I’m a strict adherent of post-modernism, and I would only play a game with self-referential humor about videogames and the burgeoning ‘internet’ phenomenon that all…
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A few (well, two) of my favorite things
Matt sent me this link to a really, really well-done fan video. It’s The Walt Disney World Tower of Terror in a Half-Life 2 mod. All it’s missing is the fog in the courtyard and a few of the effects in the ride.