Archive for March, 2008
The Byron Review
If you have time today try and make a point of reading the Byron Review. If you don’t want to wade through the pages upon pages of the full report you can browse the Executive Summary and get a lot of the information quickly.
It’s surprising to read a well informed article out of Britain in the wake of recent reports of tabloids paying people to blame their life of crime on video games. While there are still some points of contention to be had with the Byron Review, it is on average a level headed view on the digital media children consume. The report wisely recognizes the difference between short term aggression in children playing violent games and long term increase in aggression being caused by such activities.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if anti-gaming advocates outright ignore the findings presented in the report. Heaven forbid parents be responsible for guiding their children through this digital age instead of merely sequestering them away, hiding them from the big scary world. Read more
No commentsDownloading Fun
In this week’s entry: Downloadable Content
Downloadable Games: N+
This puzzler/platformer is yet another game that combines what I love about puzzle games with another genre. The basic premise is simple enough. Open a door and bypass gates by hitting switches. You jump to the switches while avoiding traps and enemies.
The part that makes this game absolutely mind boggling addicting is the precision it requires out of you and the sheer amount of levels there are to enjoy. I never feel like the game is faulting me, any failure I blame squarely on myself. And with making your own levels and downloading more, there may be no end to the enjoyment one can get from this game. Read more
1 commentSubtitled
I’m a huge proponent of loot and the collecting of. It’s for this very reason that I do not invest time in World of Warcraft. I would most likely grind character after character enjoying the loot all too much until I find out there’s no cow level of hell and then kill myself.
Luckily for those of us who want to recreate the storyless loot-a-thon that was Diablo II there is Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates. Which pretty much creates a simplified 3D version of Diablo II for you to carry around in your pocket and obsess over at inopportune times.
This is what playing with friends would look like…if your friends would buy the damn game already! Read more
No commentsDefying Expectations
Our discussion of cultural norms and the protagonists of video games made me stretch my mind. I wanted to think of a game that made me play characters I didn’t naturally identified with but could appreciate after playing. I don’t remember if I talked about it on the podcast proper but I was reminded of an excellent example twice and I think it bears repeating.
Main character Zoe Castillo at the beginning of the journey.
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, is available on Steam now, and you can get the first game (The Longest Journey) along with the sequel for $25. While I can’t say the first game was quite the same experience that Dreamfall was, I’m told the game play was much better. Read more
1 commentHow can it not know what it is?
I’m ashamed to say that I had never, before Friday, seen Blade Runner. A fact that I had always felt put my nerd cred in jeopardy of being completely null and void.
A group of friends were over at my place Friday night and didn’t know what to do. We wanted to watch a movie but Cleveland was getting hit by what became record breaking snow and leaving to go to a Blockbuster was out of the question.
We scanned through the movie selection on my 360 as a way of finding out what movies were out there. We laughed as we flipped through the catalogue joking about how stupid someone would have to be to pay four whole dollars for a rental that only lasts 24 hours.
We stumbled upon Blade Runner: The Final Cut, and a consensus swelled that that movie was the one we had to watch. But how could we obtain it. One person owned a copy of it, but unnecessary driving was probably not very safe, we were warm inside and the weather was getting worse. We tried various means of getting that darn movie on to the TV, but all failed, no amount of remote desktop networking and phone calls could procure us a copy.
I began to get irritated of over and hour of wasted time and pulled the trigger on the XBL copy of the movie and it started downloading. We entertained ourselves with JellyCar for a while and then the notice popped up that the movie was ready to be played (at 10% downloaded no less). Needless to say we were skeptical, but what happened next, looking back on it, should have been easy to predict…
The movie was brilliant to say the least. It wasn’t the kind of movie you should watch late at night. Several cans of pop and energy drinks were needed to get to the end of the movie. The story was front loaded and the action occurred all within the last 10 minutes of the movie. Which makes sense when you view the film as a noir flick and not a sci-fi.
We joked and laughed through the movie that night, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. On second viewing the next day, I found the film to be more than I remembered the night before.
The acting seemed to hit this perfect film noir vibe, the cool suaveness of Deckard, the breathless damsel, flighty femme-fatale and the psychotic yet insightful villain were calling cards to the films true genre. I was amazed that the film was so well written, a single viewing would lead you to believe it was shallow. But there’s an amazing amount of depth there.
Blade Runner also manages to look as good as, if not better than, some of the high tech CG in today’s sci-fi blockbusters. A testament to the simple elegance of hand crafted models and innovative filming techniques.
As I deleted the file from the tiny 20gb hard drive I realized something. Something I should have known all along.
Digital distribution is the future…believe.
No comments