icycalm wrote:Man, I already miss Recap. What a fucking prickish way to end his run here that was. He managed to make me so mad at him that I actually banned him.
When was this? I had no idea that Recap was banned.
Moderator: JC Denton
by Warden » 01 May 2009 01:19
Another inhibitor to greater commercial and cultural viability for art games is the difficulty in reaching mainstream audiences. Tale of Tales actually hopes primarily to reach non-gamers through work like The Path, but explains why that's a complicated proposition: "The main thing that seems to be blocking this progress–if we're allowed to call it that–is the difficulty of approaching markets outside of the market for games," they say.
"The games industry is very well organized and very successful within its own ecosystem. But it has optimized all of its systems and habits for internal use. As a result, only gamers like games. And everybody else doesn't understand them or is even disgusted by them. Which is problematic for us. Essentially, we make games for non-gamers—and, in general, non-gamers hate games."
by Afterburn » 01 May 2009 02:38
by warken » 06 May 2009 04:32
As for the current review industry, it is built on the unstable foundation of expert opinion in the absence of actual player observation. As games evolve and become ever more about first time learning experiences, the traditional game review will become increasingly irrelevant. It is arguable that they've already stopped informing most buying decisions and now serve as little more than entertainment for the hardcore niche. As the value proposition of reviews falter, the vast, churning, capitalist forces of creative destruction will replace them with a much richer set of game criticism that offers real value to its readers.
by Molloy » 06 May 2009 16:14
Rev. Stu wrote:Hello idiots!
by icycalm » 06 May 2009 20:47
Jean Baudrillard wrote:Everywhere the disposition of force and forcing yield to dispositions of ambiance, with operationalization of the notions of need, perception, desire, etc. Generalized ecology, mystique of the "niche" and of the context, milieu-simulation right up to "Centers of Esthetic and Cultural Re-Animation" foreseen in the VIIth Plan (why not?) and Center of Sexual Leisure, constructed in the form of a breast, that will offer a "superior euphoria due to a pulsating ambiance... The workers from all classes will be able to penetrate into these stimulating centers." Spatiodynamic fascination, like this "total theatre" established "according to a hyperbolic circular disposition turning around a cylindrical cone": no more scene, cut-off point, or "regard": end of the spectacle as well as of the spectacular, towards the total environmental, fused together, tactile, esthesia and no longer aesthetics, etc. We can think of the total theatre of Artaud only with black humor, his Theatre of Cruelty, of which this spatiodynamic simulaton is only an abject caricature. Here cruelty is replaced by "minimal and maximal stimulus thresholds," by the invention of "perceptive codes calculated on the basis of saturation thresholds." Even the good old "catharsis" of the classical theatre of the passions has become today homeopathy by simulation. So goes creativity.
by El Chaos » 16 May 2009 18:14
Ashton Liu wrote:Let's take a trip back in time; let's say around 15 years ago, back to 1994. Final Fantasy III had just been released in the U.S. to much critical acclaim. RPG enthusiasts were gleefully exploring a new and vivid world with a large cast of diverse and colorful characters. The majority of RPG aficionados believe this to be the golden age of RPGs, when innovation within the genre was widespread and we didn't get 10 Tales games per year. RPGs were a niche type of game for a niche type of market, and nobody would've wanted it any other way. We liked to think and strategize battles in our games. We were not barbarians whose only thought was to shoot everything that moved in Doom. We liked to explore interpersonal relationships and connections among different characters. We were not mindless oafs whose only goal was to cut down or destroy anything blocking our path in Ninja Gaiden or Sonic. We were sophisticated strategists who fought battles with intelligence and cunning. We were not unthinking brutes that made lines in Tetris to watch the block exploding violently. RPGs were the sole property of gaming elites, and it was good. It was a veritable renaissance for gaming.
by icycalm » 22 May 2009 15:54
by mothmanspirit » 01 Jun 2009 03:04
But the most important question you're probably wondering is: does the Konami code work? From what we can tell, no. We tried inputting it at the title screen and during gameplay, neither of which seemed to do anything. Longtime gamers know this code from Konami games on the NES. It would typically provide the player with 30 extra lives.
by taub » 03 Jun 2009 17:34
by EightEyes » 05 Jun 2009 07:52
by infernovia » 05 Jun 2009 22:42
Suits’ project in the book is to define the word “game.” He takes direct aim at Wittgenstein for denying that such a task is possible. “Playing a game,” according to the grasshopper, is just “a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.”
What makes a foot race a game is the fact that its participants don’t allow themselves to use cars or bicycles, or to cut through the center of a circular track. What makes chess a game is the fact that the player doesn’t allow herself to simply reach across the table and pluck her opponent’s king from the board.
Electronic games are above all games, that is to say "activities or contests governed by sets of rules"
by icycalm » 05 Jun 2009 23:01
infernovia wrote:Plus, he is abusing language.
by infernovia » 06 Jun 2009 06:22
a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.
by Choking » 06 Jun 2009 17:31
What Last to Blame does not do is review video games as products to consume. Last to Blame never takes the position of "rent" or "buy", but rather one of "thinking" and "feeling".
by Evo » 16 Jun 2009 01:57
Kieron Gillen on June 14, 2009 at 1:40 pm wrote:Sundays are for sitting and compiling a list of interesting gaming reading from across the week, and finding myself remembering that the chatter by games journalists about a fall in standards is just ludicrous. We’d have been lucky to get pieces as splendid and varied as the ones gathered here in a whole year in the early nineties, let alone in a single fucking week. Wouldn’t it be good if someone would admit that games writing has never, ever been better than it is right here, right now?
by Marcus » 24 Jun 2009 23:55
Michael Pica (commenter) wrote:I would love to see a more serious version of this article... perhaps as an Annual were the games of the last year are compared and awards are given to the most innovative and functionally appropriate designs.
by warken » 17 Jul 2009 22:18
arcade games such as R-Type have contributed to the repression of male homoerotic desire since 1987. In future articles I hope to explore this issue more deeply, and highlight some of the ways in which modern video games have allowed men to express their desires for other men, and women for other women.
Author's note: While this analysis has focused upon the male homoerotic aspects of the game, it is important that these aspects could easily be explored in their misogynic symbolism.
by Molloy » 20 Jul 2009 14:48
by another Riposte » 12 Oct 2009 11:12
Games do not succeed, developers do.
Games have no "essence." There is nothing right or wrong about a game and there are fundamentally no rules restricting how a game can be created. The game something created by developers to fulfill the goals of a developer which may be anything that a human may be motivated by.
The set of properties used to judge a game (mechanics, atmosphere...whatever) are just a collection of experiences and of no fundamental importance. Yes, it is good to refer to experiences when trying to do something that has been tried, but only so much. They are but weak guides when trying new ideas.
Gamers has also changed and the very idea of the game over time naturally. Players learn new things and forget old ones and that reshape the environment all the time. A game like "I want to be the guy" for example, loses its meaning without remembering the days of retrogaming. The language of gaming is changing all the time and no fixed rule can capture them all.
The most worthless idea is to think that a formula or a simple set of rules (eg. make mechanics and throw in some interface) can define all of games. If that happens, that is the end of the medium.
by El Chaos » 12 Oct 2009 16:56
Quintin Smith wrote:Scattered throughout God Hand are certain perfectly ordinary fodder enemies whom killing causes the music to stop, the sky to turn dark blue, a peal of thunder to echo around the level and the spawning of a terrible, spiny, lightning-fast demon with a massive health bar which will slaughter you unless you've got what it takes to bring it down.
There is no explanation for these terrifying things and they show up quite rarely. But Clover chose to put one in the first level. More than that, they put one in the first five minutes, and I have yet to see anyone playing that first level for the first time survive it. You're trundling along still learning or remembering the controls and this thing bursts out of the ground and savages you to death with ten elongated razor-sharp fingers. It's horrible and hilarious because for once the joke is on us.
(...)
Bad game design? Well, yes. But as we've already established, God Hand didn't give a shit. There's enough brilliant design in the game's combat to prove the team knew exactly what they were doing, they just didn't care. It's therefore arguable that Clover wouldn't have produced God Hand if they hadn't known they were going under.