In anticipation of Deus Ex: Human Revolution I replayed Ion Storm’s masterpiece, Deus Ex. As I once again traversed through the web of conspiracy and explored the open levels of Deus Ex, I marveled at how, up to this point, no modern game has rivaled the smart design and complex story AI of Deus Ex. I believe Deus Ex is unmatched in the level and depth of freedom it gives the player. Read the rest of this entry »
Independent games have a great way of distilling game design down to its essence. They strip away the high-end graphics, production values and story elements to get at the core of a good game experience. One game I’ve played recently that got me thinking about game design is Atom Zombie Smasher. You are tasked with evacuating human survivors from cities being invaded by zombies. Read the rest of this entry »
A while back, I happened to stumble across this article which talked about the most influential people in the video game industry. Among such giants as Gabe Newell, John Carmack and Randy Pitchford was the name Guillaume Rambourg, managing director of a little website called Good Old Games. Hey, I thought, I love Good Old Games, and I love what they do, but why was he on the list? Read the rest of this entry »
Once every year, gamers from around the world huddle in front of their home/works computers eagerly awaiting the slew of announcements from the industry. It’s a time to see the most cutting edge graphics, the latest gaming experiences and largest number of titles. While E3 has always had an issue of hyping and misrepresenting titles, the thing that struck me the most this year is how overwhelmed each game was at showing some sort of spectacle. Read the rest of this entry »
Note: This is not a review, but simply thoughts on the story of Portal 2. This means there will be plenty of spoilers.
Portal 2 is a large step back from the original, brief, title nestled in Valve’s The Orange Box. While Portal 2 boasts two campaigns that are both twice as long as the original, a plethora of new mechanics and a multiplayer co-op mode, the actual experience of playing Portal 2 is greatly inferior to the original. This is because Portal 2 is trying to tell the player a story. Read the rest of this entry »
Most SCUMM era adventure games start off with a high concept, a general idea of what the setting and story is going to be, and then work from there. The specifics of the jokes, puzzles and narrative details are often unrelated to one another. The mechanics of the puzzles and the layout of the various areas often have to do with gameplay while the story is told around those gameplay elements. The brilliance of The Dig is that the world informs the approach to the gameplay, creating a fantastic synthesis of gameplay and story. Read the rest of this entry »
Games, at their worst, misinterpret player intent and turn it into an undesirable in-game action. While sometimes this can be rooted in the design philosophy of the game, more often than not, it’s the result of a lack of control, communication and clarity on the part of the designers of the game. It’s this issue which taints the majority of the experience of Tomb Raider: Anniversary. Read the rest of this entry »
Grand Theft Auto III is a brilliant metaphor for American consumerism, coupling esthetics and gameplay to create a critique of capitalism. The open world freedom and undeniably fictionalized American location reinforces a powerful statement about how the American dream can go so wrong. However, as well as it works on an ideological level, the underlying mechanic do not always allow for the seamless flow between ideology and play. Read the rest of this entry »
When Star Wars: Dark Forces was released, it was compared to Doom. Retroactively, this is a bizarre comparison as little unifies the two games beyond the fact both involve shooting thing and have cardkey systems. Doom is a game built upon motion while Dark Forces takes a much different approach, focusing on constantly presenting new obstacles to the player in each level. Read the rest of this entry »
There are few discussions more futile and foolish among video game discourse than the idea of finding the Citizen Kane of gaming. While people have the best of intentions with this argument, it’s based in poor logic, silly standards and a general ignorance of the actual history of Citizen Kane. As a film and digital media student who has seen Citizen Kane a good number of times and has studied Citizen Kane and I can’t help but shake my head every time gamers discuss the search for the Citizen Kane of gaming Read the rest of this entry »
