No Added Sugar

[icycalm]

http://noaddedsugar.ie/

This site caught my attention today through my stat reports:

We don’t usually encourage self-censorship here on No Added Sugar but there’s a first time for everything. As of today, we’re clamping down on our own use of bad language, and consigning one word in particular to the dustbin of history. The offending word? Gameplay. In the interests of avoiding lazy videogames journalism, we’re committing to pulling out our thesaurii and scratching out this odious excuse for a word forever.

Our reasoning for the move is straightforward: It’s a word associated with the laziest impulses of games critics the world over; an impossibly broad, catch-all term used to describe the quality of a gaming experience. We don’t believe that ‘gameplay’ is ever an acceptable substitute for a proper discussion of a videogame. We’re not the first to take this step- Alex Kierkegaard has already succinctly made the case for the word’s abolition- but we’d like to join the good fight and assist in the continuing maturation of videogames writing by taking this small step.

Readers can now enjoy watching us perform verbal gymnastics as we struggle to overcome years of conditioning that ‘gameplay’ actually means something.

Oh, and if you catch us uttering the aforementioned word, point it out to us in the comments or via email and we promise to donate to the No Added Sugar swear-box. Cheers.

http://noaddedsugar.ie/editors-blog/bad-language/

I encourage people to check it out and report back here with their impressions. From a one-minute skim of the frontpage and some of the blurbs there it looks like the typical all-in-one jack-of-all-trades blog that has no experts on staff and therefore doesn't produce anything worthwhile, but hey, I just spent a single minute on it so I could be wrong.

[Nybble]

http://noaddedsugar.ie/console/ps3/innovate-accumulate/

Every big game released during the current console lifecycle has had one thing in common with the rest; they all wanted to remind you of something else – a film, a book, a game from 25 years ago. They are all derivative. {Because it is possible to create something completely original? *sigh*} It’s the nature of these releases that is most worrying. Increasingly we look to small independently developed games, usually with much narrower ambitions, to attempt things completely new. {Games built on gimmicks that last 10 seconds} Larger developers may feed off them if they succeed, but rarely take risks themselves. There are (hopefully) two points here: big developers and big producers who make big games (crassly, in terms of money) rarely innovate {FUCK THE MAN}; and those that do something new for games are usually just taking ideas that have been successful elsewhere. {And that is a problem, why?}

That was just the first paragraph. Maybe if they read other articles than just the gameplay one, they'll figure something out.

[immersedreality(old)]

http://noaddedsugar.ie/console/ps3/game ... aptations/

An entire article analyzing the exploration of "morality" in Dante's Inferno in comparison to the epic poem it's based on.

Here's a sample:

Binary choices are used to allow the player to project their morality (or intentionally choose not to) onto the game’s protagonist...

The next sentence:

This choice is an illusion.

He then goes on to explain how the "moral" choices affect what abilities your character receives, but I guess you can't ever use those abilities because they are only illusions as well. Ugh.

[zinger]

http://noaddedsugar.ie/reviews/100-word ... narium-pc/

I’ve previewed this elsewhere, but having played the finished build, Machinarium just gets more charming. It’s a full length, classically styled point-and-click adventure game for about £12, and well worth the time it takes to explore at its sedate pace. Additions include an in-game walkthrough book that deflects overuse by forcing you to beat a simple sidescrolling shooter for each screen you’re stuck on. It’s a flash game, so most interaction is kept to a simple minimum, and it can mean you’re left walking somewhere that you don’t want to go with an accidental click, but it generally suits the game’s style. Beguiling.

I can't tell what's supposed to be good ("beguiling") about this adventure game. Because it's "full-length" (lol)? Because it's "classically styled"? Because it's "about £12"? Because there's a walkthrough book that will open for you only if you "beat a simple sidescrolling shooter"?