There’s no nice way to say this, but it needs to be said: video games, with very few exceptions, are dumb. And they’re not just dumb in the gleeful, winking way that a big Hollywood movie is dumb; they’re dumb in the puerile, excruciatingly serious way that a grown man in latex elf ears reciting an epic poem about Gandalf is dumb. Aside from a handful of truly smart games, tentpole titles like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Call of Duty: Black Ops tend to be so silly and so poorly written that they make Michael Bay movies look like the Godfather series. Taylor Clark's Atlantic profile of Braid creator Jonathan Blow has prompted some strong reactions.
Are videogames dumb? Is hard to make them not dumb? Are most things dumb anyway?
posted by Artw
on May 6, 2012 -
179 comments
Super Mario Bros. Crossover 2.0 is out! An expansion on the original game, which let you play as various NES characters transplanted into Super Mario Bros., but using the rules and abilities of those characters from their original games, version 2 offers more special abilities, more characters, and your choice of audiovisual "skins" based on four Mario games from the NES, SNES, and Gameboy, along with one based on
Demon Returns. There's even
instructions for playing with a gamepad!
For more information, see the
Super Mario Bros. Crossover Wiki or watch the exciting
Super Mario Bros. Crossover trailer! [
Previously]
posted by Pope Guilty
on Feb 12, 2012 -
15 comments
"Imagine a world where casual and hardcore gamers can enjoy games together? So instead of hardcore gamers pretending to like wii sports just so they can spend xmas with their family they actually prefer it as opposed to just going off and playing the best hardcore games such as Skyrim or Fable3." From the often hilarious fake Twitter account for "Peter Molyneux 2" comes
cascore. Finally, bowling and survival horror come together.
[more inside]
posted by jbickers
on Nov 14, 2011 -
13 comments
"The days when you could buy a videogame one day and get an expansion a year later are, sadly, lost in time. Instead, it seems there's a constant bombardment of DLC and microtransaction items all vying for our credit card numbers. They're in everything, from MMORPGs through to singleplayer shooters, and it's only getting worse as time goes on." -
An investigation into microtransactions and gaming.
posted by Artw
on Oct 17, 2011 -
114 comments
Ludum Dare is an annual video game development contest where the contestants have 48 hours to complete a game. This year's theme was Escape and 599 games were submitted. The winning
solo and
team created games have been announced. You can download all games and even view their source code. If you want to experience the awesomeness of real-time game development, check out the
time-lapse videos.
[more inside]
posted by Foci for Analysis
on Sep 13, 2011 -
10 comments
Back when
Super Meat Boy first came out, PETA made a parody game called
Super Tofu Boy, which sort of sucked hard.
Really hard. But the developers were amused, and so
they put a secret into the game, letting you play as Tofu Boy himself! Unfortunately, the anemic little man could only jump half as high as the titular character and was unable to run, making it seem absolutely impossible to use him in any capacity. He can't even complete
the very first level of the game.
And so, he was shelved as a joke character, and everyone forgot about him.
Or not.
{OTD}q has just released a video showing
almost every possible level possible to beat with Tofu Boy and set it to a killer soundtrack, pairing the popular fansong/remix
"The Power of Meat" with
a lovely mix of
everyone's favorite band.
posted by flatluigi
on Mar 26, 2011 -
73 comments
All your art are belong to us. Previously, Rogert Ebert said that video games can never be art.
And previously, some
disagreed. In a recent opinion piece, game developer
Brian Moriarty discusses the debate, and fires a
fresh salvo.
The piece is long winded, examining art, medium, games, and industry. He seems to conclude that games are not Art, but lengthily addresses what may be the more important question: Could they be?
posted by Stagger Lee
on Mar 16, 2011 -
133 comments
Minecraft mastermind Markus "Notch" Persson has
officially announced his company's next project:
a hybrid online board game/trading card system called
Scrolls. Spearheaded by Mojang co-founder Jakob Porser (
interview) and with backstory penned by Penny Arcade wordsmith Jerry "Tycho" Holkins, the game will consist of turn-based battles between collectible "scrolls,"
illustrated character cards strategically deployed on an abstract gaming grid. In an interesting inversion of the
Minecraft model, the game itself will be free, while updates in the form of additional scroll packs will cost a nominal fee -- a business model gaming analyst Sean Maelstrom decries as
"snake oil." Mojang, for their part, is unafraid and even eager to target an untested slice of the gaming market, and is angling to get their playable prototype of
Scrolls ready for a possible Alpha release this summer.
posted by Rhaomi
on Mar 2, 2011 -
128 comments
Modern mainstream video games tend to be about framerates and millions of polygons per second. But it is possible to play games that have hardly any graphics at all: audio-only games like
Papa Sangre, designed for iOS devices, being the most recent example of the genre (and with binaural audio, probably the most ambitious). There are others:
In The Pit for Xbox 360 (or a PC with a 360 wired controller)
[previously], the (sadly incomplete)
Cadet 277 for PC and Mac, and
SoundVoyager, released in 2006 for the Nintendo. More at the
Experimental Gameplay Project.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul
on Feb 12, 2011 -
14 comments
Contrary to a lot of idle criticism, Bungie's
Halo series of video games has
a surprisingly rich backstory -- a universe complex enough to support
seven bestselling novels,
a wiki with over 7,000 articles, and
one of the most successful ARGs in history (including
a full-fledged radio drama). The series has also turned out sweeping audiovisual work, from the games'
cinematic cutscenes and
epic music (lots of free previews) to
top-shelf anime and the Hollywood-quality short films --
ODST,
Believe,
Deliver Hope,
Landfall -- that were made to promote the games (the latter of which, produced by Neil Blomkamp,
inspired District 9). And that's apart from all the material produced by Bungie's dedicated fan base:
genuinely hilarious machinima from
Red vs. Blue,
professional-level graphic novels (table of contents at the top),
gorgeous artwork,
hours of recorded dialogue,
complete transcripts of
hidden apocrypha, and more
factual analysis,
story speculation, and
casual discussion than you can shake an energy sword at. But most of these pale in comparison to the latest and greatest exercise in Halo beanplating: the
Svmma Canonica, a 40-page, 17,000-word formal treatise on the nature of canon in the world that Bungie built, and how it will fare once Bungie moves on and the franchise is managed by 343 Industries. Discussion
over at Bungie's official site, or at decade-old fan forum
Halo.Bungie.Org.
posted by Rhaomi
on Jan 31, 2011 -
71 comments
The biggest literary influence on my approach to game design, however, was one of the writers I worshipped as a teenager: Alice Sheldon, aka James Tiptree, Jr. Tiptree had one particular recommendation for starting a story: “Start from the end and preferably 5,000 feet underground on a dark day and then don’t tell them.” This is precisely how we begin Half-Life. It was a deliberate antidote to the many game openings that involved pages and pages of backstory presented in scrolling text. - An
interview with Marc Laidlaw, writer for the Half Life series.
posted by Artw
on Oct 13, 2010 -
65 comments
The Sacrifice! Valve Software releases a 4-part comic that chronicles what happens to Francis, Louis, Zoey, and Bill at the end of the original Left 4 Dead.
[more inside]
posted by kbanas
on Sep 22, 2010 -
15 comments
EA's new
Medal of Honor video game allows players to
take the role of Taliban insurgents killing American troops. In response, the US military has
banned sales of the game on all military bases, including in privately run businesses (such as GameStop) present on bases. Military members (who game) don't seem too happy about the decision
here. (More military member comments, some pro, some against, can be found
here.) You can watch someone playing as a Taliban insurgent
here. (Warning: MoH gameplay is rated 'M' for mature.)
posted by GnomeChompsky
on Sep 4, 2010 -
90 comments
TheSmartAss.info's suite of Java emulators allows smooth, in-browser playback of literally
thousands of old-school video games:
517 Atari titles,
148 for DOS,
636 Game Boy games (and
410 for Game Boy Color),
2,019 (!) NES titles,
238 GameGear games,
802 Sega Genesis titles, and
284 for the Sega Master System. Highlights include
Space Invaders,
Frogger,
Galaga,
Pitfall!,
Super Mario Bros.,
The Legend of Zelda,
Metroid,
SimCity,
Zero Wing,
Duke Nukem,
Sonic the Hedgehog,
Aladdin,
Earthworm Jim,
Pokemon, and
Metal Gear Solid. Use
the search function to find your favorites! You can also register an account to save games on emulators that support it. Make sure to check the purple bar below each game for control info and links to alternate emulators in case the default one is buggy or slow.
posted by Rhaomi
on Nov 30, 2009 -
54 comments
Street Fighter II. It basically created the 2d-beat-em-up, and invented the combo, the special move, a wide roster of diverse, playable characters who people grew to
love, and all the other things that gamers have taken for granted for years. It spawned a whole
series, none of which ever quite captured the original's charm or had the same influence. This was a game that people obsessed over -
bands were named after its special moves,
rappers cited it in their
lyrics, and
even Premier League footballers weren't immune to its charms. Poor
Raul Julia's final film was
this masterpiece, and
a new version's headed straight to DVD very soon. Now, 17 years later,
Street Fighter 4 is about to be released in Europe and the nostalgia machine is going into overdrive. The game's producer's been talking about its
links to Street Fighter II, reviewers are
getting misty-eyed , and even musicians are getting in on the act with Akira the Don making his very own
Street Fighter-themed track.
Apparently it's pretty good. Hadouken!
posted by muggsy1079
on Feb 19, 2009 -
79 comments
