Editor Marty Halpern looks back at the career of George Alec Effinger (part 1, part 2, part 3), a prolific author best known for his work set in the Budayeen, a walled city in a future Islamic state, teeming with gangsters, hustlers and transsexual prostitutes, many of them habitual users of plug in personality modules. The noirish tone and exotic technology of the Marîd Audran books (When Gravity Fails, A Fire In The Sun, The Exile Kiss) made Effinger one of the leading lights in the cyberpunk movie, and spawned a videogame - a rare attempt at a graphical adventure from Infocom - and an RPG setting. Sadly Effinger faded from prominence after that, and he suffered from a number of health and financial setbacks before passing away in 2002. His work has had somewhat of a resurgence in popularity of late, with the Marîd Audran books coming back into print in 2007, a long with a collection containing The Wolves of Memory, Effinger's personal favourite amongst his novels.
posted by Artw on Jun 9, 2009 - 32 comments

There's something in the sea... and it has a big drill for an arm.
posted by Artw on Apr 20, 2009 - 74 comments

Chris Crawford (previously) has released the beta version of his Storytron engine. The first demo? Balance of Power: 21st Century. [more inside]
posted by Iridic on Mar 31, 2009 - 30 comments

"Since I attacked my opponent in the past and the time waves have not yet propagated the results of this battle to the present, my units are still here in the present" Got that? Meta-Time Strategy Gaming [more inside]
posted by doobiedoo on Mar 28, 2009 - 55 comments

SFXR by Tomas Pettersson - Ever needed a skilled Foley artist and an audio lab for making sound effects? No, probably not, but even the most amateur game designer needs sound effects for his game. Now, thanks to Tomas Pettersson the long tradition of stealing sound effects from other games is finally over. It doesn't do much more than little 8-bit bleeps and bloops, but it sure feels nice to have original, royalty-free sound effects for your game, or just for fun. [previously]
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia on Jan 10, 2009 - 15 comments

In this way, Lu Yang became one of the "RMB gamers" she disdains. More than 10,000 RMB was quickly and nearly imperceptibly spent. In the game, the "queen" possessed fearsome power. She carried out vengeance for herself and her friends, she accepted entreaties, and she protected the caravans of the kingdom. At the same time, she went out with the heroes to invade other kingdoms. Her reputation spread far and wide. [...] "Long live the Queen!" People bowed to her in submission. That was the high point for Lu Yang on ZT Online, and for that one fleeting moment, she felt that the time and money she had spent was worth it.

The System is a translated Chinese article examining ZT Online, an MMORPG that has taken fleecing gamers to a new level.
posted by Kattullus on May 6, 2008 - 34 comments

Unintentionally funny voice acting in old school computer games.
posted by Foci for Analysis on Apr 19, 2008 - 39 comments

Harpooned: Japanese Cetacean Research Simulator [more inside]
posted by nthdegx on Jan 22, 2008 - 31 comments

Halo 3: Easter eggs, including the excellent Red Vs Blue in-game dialog easter egg; the RvB Halo 3 beta initiation; 3D images and how-to (dig out your glasses); achievements, ranks, armor, skulls, and campaign scoring explained; Bungie's favorites (videos, pics, maps, game variants to download to your 360)... and that grenade stick.
posted by nthdegx on Nov 28, 2007 - 22 comments

Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw (previously), he of "Chzo mythos" and "Zero Punctuation" fame, has released a new game: The Art of Theft, a heist adventure in grand retro style.
posted by Iridic on Nov 23, 2007 - 17 comments

"Blah blah blah, Mr. Freeman." Half-Life in 60 seconds. Or in 25 years. Or with sightings. (Spoilers all.)
posted by Soup on Nov 4, 2007 - 38 comments

"Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream is an OverClocked ReMix Album featuring free fan arrangements from the soundtrack to Square's legendary Final Fantasy VII for the Sony Playstation."
posted by nthdegx on Sep 15, 2007 - 18 comments

Bible Fight [Flash game]
posted by thirteenkiller on May 7, 2007 - 24 comments

The Twelfth Annual Interactive Fiction Competition begins today. Non-contestants can take part in the proceedings by grabbing a torrent of the competing games and judging them over the next six weeks. If you're new to interactive fiction, Emily Short's "How to Play" will acquaint you with its conventions. And if you're enough of an I.F. expert that even a full slate of Comp games won't satisfy you, you can find every competition entry since 1995 archived at Baf's Guide.
posted by Iridic on Oct 1, 2006 - 3 comments

The Duke Nukem Forever List provides a bullet-point run down of notable events that have occurred since Duke Nukem Forever was first announced back in 1997. And for those who may have missed last month's Gamespot interview, George Broussard is still saying it'll be done when it's done, insisting that 3D Realms "won't be rushed" into releasing DNF before it's ready.
posted by Effigy2000 on Jul 22, 2006 - 30 comments

sega cd emulator with the penn and teller and stuff
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Awesome on Mar 1, 2006 - 22 comments

Concerned (Half-Life 2 comic)
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Awesome on Feb 27, 2006 - 38 comments

This is what happens when you put some of the best writers in UK comedy around a table to discuss videogames. Needless to say even the above average videogame writing gets a deserved hard time. Via the Spaced Out forums.
posted by nthdegx on Nov 16, 2005 - 49 comments

Save King's Quest IX. Ever since personal computers became powerful enough to run graphics-intensive action games, adventure games like the ones once produced by Sierra On-Line (King's Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, and countless other titles) and LucasArts (Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, Sam & Max Hit The Road) have been in decline--most of the series have been abandoned, King's Quest was awkwardly morphed into an unsuccessful first-person fighting game, and Sam & Max 2 was famously cancelled (and, less famously, uncancelled). In the last couple of years, the genre's gotten a shot in the arm from an active emulation community, the ready availability of "abandonware," but mostly from unauthorized sequels and remakes created by fans and distributed for free. The flagship of these new games was to have been King's Quest IX, a three-part finale to the series that wrapped up all outstanding loose ends and properly said goodbye to the characters. The project team included forty people, some of whom worked on the game for more than four years. And, at the end of October, Vivendi Universal (which bought, then disbanded Sierra On-Line) pulled the plug.
posted by Epenthesis on Nov 15, 2005 - 40 comments

New Games Journalism (a Wikipedia definition for the uninitiated), appeared on MetaFilter last December with a link to the now legendary 'Bow, Nigger' article. In the first quarter of 2005 the buzz surrounding the phenomenon grew. Articles like This is Why Your Game Magazine Sucks got the attention of the Guardian, who examined the role of NGJ in a February article. In March, they linked to ten unmissable examples. At about the same time, the movement got its very own publication, The Gamer's Quarter; and in June PC Gamer wrote an open letter to the gaming community requesting articles about, well, anything really.
posted by nthdegx on Oct 16, 2005 - 17 comments

What do you get when you mix a fiendishly difficult and addictive puzzle game with the feel of a hack & slash RPG set in a cartoonish, slightly tongue-in-cheek fantasy world? That would be Deadly Rooms of Death (DROD for short). The game is freakin' huge, with 25 levels filled with unique rooms, and it also happens to be free.
posted by speicus on Sep 22, 2005 - 7 comments

A Dog for All Seasons. A wonderful Flash game. From Orisinal. Via Edge.
posted by nthdegx on Aug 20, 2005 - 18 comments

EDSAC - home of the first videogame, OXO.
posted by Pretty_Generic on Jun 19, 2005 - 5 comments

Get your game on with Kaneva. Billing itself as "The world’s first digital entertainment marketplace!" Kaneva is a beta launch of a concept that maybe interesting to gamers, media creators, and consumers as well. An Atlanta based company, Kaneva.com aims to be an exchange/market portal for game and media creators, who can directly create Massively Multi-player Online (MMO) games using the Kaneva Framework, and for digital media creators seeking distribution. The business model is innovative, and has been described as "a kind of multi-media flickr (pre-fame) meets eBay on steroids, or an online marketplace for folks hyped on digital entertainment. An Intertainment Hub. A platform and host." The company recently presented its concept at the June meeting of the International Game Developers Association, and back in April Computer Gaming Magazine had an article. During the beta test phase, the site's tools are free to all comers, and there is already a limited amount of content available for those who just want to play something new.
posted by paulsc on Jun 18, 2005 - 8 comments

Will Wright's SPORE site online. [note: flash] (Previously discussed here.)
posted by crunchland on May 19, 2005 - 10 comments

On the trail of The Collector comes The Game Room. What a rubbish television.
posted by Pretty_Generic on Apr 16, 2005 - 14 comments

I am 8 bit is a celebration of the pixelated graphics of 80s videogames, at LA's Gallery Nineteen Eighty Eight. A hundred artists have produced paintings, sculptures and designs inspired by the two-dimensional imagery of the pre-PlayStation era. The exhibition runs from April 19 until May 20. More information, including highlights from the gallery, appear at Game Informer. It remains to be seen if the other ninety-nine artists can match the quality of Sean Clarity's exceptional reworking of the cover to NES classic Excitebike.
posted by nthdegx on Apr 3, 2005 - 18 comments

The Most Ambitious Game Ever? At this year's Game Developers Conference, Sims creator Will Wright's upcoming game Spore drew standing ovations. Not to be outdone, Peter Molyneux (of Populous and Black & White fame) revealed his own ambitious game-like project The Room. While the top game designers have freedom to play, independents rail (read Greg Costikyan's amazing bit in the middle) at the restrictions of the publisher system. For those who doubt games can be art.
posted by blahblahblah on Mar 15, 2005 - 60 comments

The Maoist International Movement reviews videogames
posted by Tlogmer on Feb 19, 2005 - 43 comments

Speed Demo Archives is the Guinness Book of Records for Quake speed runs, but they also have speed demos for other games, including a 2:57:35 Half-Life 2 run (torrent to video here). [Via FileRush]
posted by turbodog on Dec 8, 2004 - 7 comments

In-your-face shoot-em-up action by bedroom-coders/games designers. From Japan: Warning Forever; Perfect Cherry Blossom; Cho Ren Sha 68K; Bullet Philharmonic Orchestra; Score Soldier; rRootage; Every Extend; TKKN / Crazy Game; and Galshell: Blood Red Skies [NSFW]. Be attitude for gains! From the West: Deadeye; Strayfire; Warblade; Mutant Storm; Bugatron; Space Birdz; Spheres of Chaos; Battle of Yavin; Demonstar; 'Troid; Platypus; Gridrunner; Intensity XS; and Tsunami 2010. From the pages of Edge magazine.
posted by nthdegx on Oct 1, 2004 - 9 comments

The Arcade Flyer Archive. A to Z.
posted by nthdegx on Jul 15, 2004 - 3 comments

Videogames are falling into the uncanny valley. (Previous mefi discussion: 1 2 -- aw, hell).
posted by Tlogmer on Jun 12, 2004 - 26 comments

Climb the Plantation. [flash]
posted by hama7 on Jan 23, 2004 - 6 comments

A massive archive of Commodore 64 game covers. An extensive archive of C64 magazine Zapp64 covers, features, reviews and editorials. SLAY radio (C64 remixes - very cheesy).
posted by nthdegx on Jan 12, 2004 - 6 comments

Lemmings! Do you miss sending hoardes of helpless little buggers into pits, and trying to free them from their own suicidal helplessness? Then this is for you!
posted by christian on Aug 15, 2003 - 24 comments

Now you too can run your own nuclear plant in this online simulation. Try to avoid a Three Mile Island situation. Friday fun? Via Blue's News
posted by WolfDaddy on Aug 15, 2003 - 10 comments

His name is Mr Freetime, he has 2,967 copies of Moero!! Pro Baseball for the Famicom. He knows how to use them.
posted by nthdegx on Aug 6, 2003 - 11 comments

In these difficult times it's a relief to know that Nethack is still being updated.
posted by chrisgregory on Feb 25, 2003 - 23 comments

Computer gaming ,which once seemed in danger of being entirely trounced by the popularity of console games, now seems healthier than ever, with new game engines taking advantage of speedier processors and the improved capacities of the new age 3D cards. A mere week after the launch of the demo, the PC game Unreal Tournament 2003 has gone gold. Also being launched in the US is "The Thing" which picks up on the story from the John Carpenter movie of the same name. Gamers are also eagerly anticipating "Thief 3," "Doom 3," "Unreal 2," and "Deus Ex 2"
posted by lucien on Sep 22, 2002 - 59 comments

Game Studies "is a crossdisciplinary journal dedicated to games research, web-published several times a year at www.gamestudies.org. Our primary focus is aesthetic, cultural and communicative aspects of computer games." A well-designed, well-written site about a media that seems often poorly studied outside of mainstream press.
posted by moz on Aug 22, 2002 - 4 comments

Little Computer People was a game produced in the '80s and at a time when the gaming landscape was very different from today's market. The point? Life.
posted by moz on Feb 4, 2002 - 11 comments

When will (or will) computer games begin to constitute art? And particularly, highbrow art? I've heard Myst described as the first "literary" computer game; I've played a few games with language well in the foreground, but is there anything out there that truly transcends the basic dorkiness of the medium? I don't imagine the mainstream industry would be cranking out challenging intellectual fare, but surely it exists somewhere?
posted by scissorfish on Sep 2, 2001 - 48 comments

Nintendo delays U.S. launch of GameCube Nintendo has pushed back the U.S. arrival of its new GameCube video game console by nearly two weeks, with executives saying they intend to avoid the shortages and frustrated consumers that marked the debut of Sony's PlayStation 2 last fall.
posted by Brilliantcrank on Aug 23, 2001 - 21 comments

If you've ever wanted your first-person shooter to feel a little less real, NPRQuake may be just what you need. The blueprint and brushstroke versions are nice, but for my money you can't beat sketchy Quake. Unfortunately, the NPR in the name stands for Non-Photorealistic Rendering, not that other NPR, so don't expect Robert Siegel or Linda Wertheimer skins any time soon. (via haddock.org)
posted by jjg on May 17, 2001 - 4 comments

Remember the old Sierra Games? Remember back in the early 80's when King Quest hit the streets? Did you ever think to your self how they created that game? Sierra used a gaming engine called Adventure Gaming Interpreter, or AGI for short, for many of their popular adventure games. This engine which was "hacked" in the early to mid 90's, and there are groups of people that still develop games to be used with home made hacks of this engine. Find out how you can make your own games like KQ or take a look at what have people created or are creating right now, here. There's even someone saying that they are porting the hacked AGI stuff to Dreamcast.
-Ellis of the now dead Geeknews.com
posted by ellis on Apr 5, 2001 - 19 comments

Nethack 3.3.1 released today. This wonderfully addictive game has been under development for 15 years. That fact alone is major bonus points. Also, a quote from the d/l page: "This version might work on a 286 machine, but it has not been tested on one." Heh. 'cause they probably can't find one to test on. Well, the consolation prize is that it does run on Atari and Amiga.
posted by syn on Aug 10, 2000 - 4 comments

SIMbabes ain't putting out... I play The Sims. You probably suspected that didn't you? Well, there's a Blogger Powered weblog by the guy behind the upcoming Blueprint program, and guess what? Copyright infringement once again rears its ugly head in cyberspace. A website called Simcorally has downloaded objects others created and claimed them as his own. So now the SIMbabes are on strike. The upshot of this is I'm still stuck with that obnoxious green couch. I want something better. And that piano looks awful nice. Simlane has more on the topic.
posted by ZachsMind on Jun 25, 2000 - 8 comments

Alexey Pajitnov , the creator of Tetris has had a remarkable life. He developed one of the world's most recoginizable (and mind-numbingly addictive) games - and in the process, managed to survive through all sorts of incredible bureaucratic and corporate nonesense. Speaking of corporate nonesense, he's currently an employee of Microsoft.
posted by grant on Dec 9, 1999 - 0 comments