tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45300244718594706612024-03-13T08:56:58.454-07:00Thinking While PlayingThoughts on video games.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-87499625966751721672016-08-19T14:04:00.001-07:002016-08-19T14:26:25.581-07:00Current preservation of games criticism is insufficient. Can Critical Distance help?In this post, I'll be discussing Critical Distance extensively. For those unaware, Critical Distance is a website that promotes, aggregates, and solicits video game criticism. It is crowd funded, and I have at various times supported it monetarily.
A few weeks ago, Zoya Street concluded Critical Distance's weekly "This Week in Videogame Blogging" feature (retrieved 2016-08-19) with a question: "Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-43313031961917072572015-10-22T14:28:00.003-07:002016-08-09T18:02:01.828-07:00Thoughts on Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island - 3D Game Design Principles in 2D with Super FX 2
Developer: Nintendo EAD
Directors: Takashi Tezuka, Toshihiko Nakago, Shigefumi Hino, Hideki Konno
Original Release: 1995-08 (JP), 1995-10 (NA, EU)
Version Notes: This post refers to the original North American SNES release played on a Windows 7 PC via the bsnes emulator (64-bit version 088; new releases use the name "higan"). Xbox360 controller mapped as closely to the SNES controller as Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-62416201274822624272015-09-16T15:02:00.000-07:002016-04-25T23:08:04.315-07:00Notes on Morrowind II - A Response to the "Skywind" Redesign of the Seyda Neen Lighthouse: How inconsistent architectural details paint a complicated history in Vvardenfell
This "Notes on Morrowind" series of posts will be brief remarks on small topics related to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Game of the Year Edition
(dev. Bethesda Softworks, dirs. Todd Howard & Ken Rolston, 2003 [original game release 2002])
for PC rather than a holistic game analysis. All posts refer to the unmodded, version 1.6.1820 of the game played with maximum graphical and AI Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-48773684452313641692015-05-20T15:29:00.004-07:002015-09-16T15:37:59.049-07:00Notes on Morrowind I - How Time Never Passes But Always Does
This "Notes on Morrowind" series of posts will be brief remarks on small topics related to The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind Game of the Year Edition
(dev. Bethesda Softworks, dirs. Todd Howard & Ken Rolston, 2003 [original game release 2002])
for PC rather than a holistic or fully-researched game analysis. All posts refer to the unmodded, version 1.6.1820 of the game played with maximum Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-37871333611858072102015-03-17T16:09:00.001-07:002016-04-25T23:10:20.326-07:00A call for more precise game citations in games criticismIn academic writing, citations of books, articles, films, and even webpages are usually fairly precise. Printed media is referred to by specific printing or edition, while webpages are usually specified by both URL and retrieval date (though the archiving of webpages is still an area in need of improvement). Most publications with electronic editions, such as academic journals, are even Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-91670783144009794142015-03-02T09:09:00.001-08:002015-03-03T10:31:12.961-08:00Domain updateThis blog is now accessible from the top-level domain http://www.thinkingwhileplaying.com. Please update your feeds!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-29362877465451030852014-10-20T10:22:00.001-07:002014-10-22T12:20:41.428-07:00A new statement of the scientific consensus on the effectiveness of brain-training gamesA while back, I wrote a short review of the scientific results on whether "brain training" games like the Brain Age (devs. Nintendo SDD & Nintendo SPD, various dirs., 2005-2013) series have any cognitive benefits beyond mere entertainment, as their marketing strongly implies. I argued that while it is possible that cognitive decline might be mitigated in certain populations by playing such Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-87067299313949526422014-07-28T22:56:00.002-07:002016-04-25T23:10:41.240-07:00Thoughts on Bulletstorm - Bulletstorm, the Shooter Form, and Wuxia Cinema: An Analysis
Developer: People Can Fly, Epic Games
Director: Adrian Chmielarz
First Person Shooter
Release: 2011-02-22 (US)
Platforms: PC (version played), Xbox 360, PS3
Wuxia cinema is a genre of film that is a variant of the martial arts film. It typically focuses on a martial arts hero's adventure, usually in a melodramatic historical setting and often motivated by an honor code of some sort. InUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-26212834797282497892013-08-15T19:33:00.003-07:002013-08-15T19:33:42.702-07:00Difficulty SettingsIt would be very peculiar indeed if a critic were to publish an academic essay on an abridged version of Gravity's Rainbow or a version of Eraserhead with explanatory voice-over added. Not only would this hypothetical critic's experience be far different from that of countless other readers or viewers and thus not generally applicable, but he or she would be writing of a totally different work ofUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-19895610172509041192013-07-26T16:20:00.000-07:002013-07-26T17:02:16.051-07:00Narrative Distance and the Cult of 'Immersion'There is a peculiar, though perhaps not wholly unexpected, trend in the way many people view and describe the experience of video games: players are demanding "immersion." Though this word is often ill-defined, it usually refers to something like the player's ability to fully identify with their avatar to the point of "losing themselves" in the game.
In some discussion forums, this word pops upUnknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-49683180520556675132012-09-27T23:05:00.000-07:002012-09-28T18:02:11.033-07:00Gender Roles in Gaming: Amazon's TakeSexism in gaming is most frequently discussed in terms of objectified women in scant clothing that pervade action games. But let's not forget other, arguably more insidious forms. Like this deal from Amazon: The Viva Big Bundle of Games for Girls. Because girls certainly only care about Riding Academy 2 or the classic, My Boyfriend. Anyway, here's a screenshot of this wonderful collection in caseUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-20858726067006240662012-09-11T00:59:00.003-07:002012-09-17T14:37:09.525-07:00Films Are Interactive, Too: Spectator Empowerment in Filmic Media Should Inform Game CriticismA recent paper by film critic Thomas Elsaesser (Elsaesser, T. 2011, New Review of Film and Television Studies 9, 247) offers an interesting take on how certain Hollywood movies invoke interpretation in the spectators. (You may want to at least skim it before reading this post.) He posits that a new sort of auteurism ("post-auteur") has arisen, and he discusses it by analyzing the work of Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-48956449010565322592012-09-03T23:31:00.000-07:002016-04-25T23:11:19.108-07:00Thoughts on Depth Hunter - A world devoid of meaning
Biart
Simulator, First Person Shooter
Release: Jan 18, 2012 (US)
Platforms: PC
Some projects feel as if they were created without purpose or direction. They stumble along with no idea how to achieve their goals, because their goals never really existed in the first place. To my great disappointment, Depth Hunter is one such title. As a diving game (or is it a shooting game?), it had aUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-6913123718605325082012-08-23T00:38:00.000-07:002015-03-03T10:32:37.404-08:00Thoughts on Auralux - Minimalist Real-Time Strategy and the Importance of Opponents
E. McNeill
Real time strategy
Release: Unknown, out now.
Platforms: PC (version reviewed), Android
Auralux is a study of sorts. It is an experiment, like Eufloria before it, in the most basic mechanics that define a real-time strategy game; it attempts to boil the genre down and show us how it works. There are no tech trees here, and there is certainly no grand historical context for a Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-13285399741940561652012-07-28T14:33:00.000-07:002015-02-24T21:02:38.722-08:00Thoughts on The Great Gatsby for NES - Packaging as Art and the Expextations of Gaming
Charlie Hoey, Pete Smith, Dylan Valentine, Michael DiMotta
Platformer
Release: 2011
Platforms: PC, Mac
Sometimes, it's difficult to know where the packaging ends and the art begins. Are the original frames of paintings intrinsic to their presentation, or are they merely containers? Are the liner notes part of the music? Is the packaging part of the game? The Great Gatsby Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-40591409289225350202012-05-23T20:52:00.000-07:002015-02-24T21:13:08.441-08:00Thoughts on DLC Quest
Going Loud Studios
Action, platformer
Release: Nov 2, 2011 (US)
Platforms: Xbox 360 (XBLA), PC (version reviewed), Mac
In cinema, short films are a remarkable variation on the medium that allow for themes to be explored concisely and in isolation. The same is true for short stories in literature. In games, however, players far too often criticize titles that fail to consume many hours Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-24629747432628962242012-05-20T14:50:00.000-07:002012-09-10T00:55:44.278-07:00The Brain Age Series: Claims and EffectivenessI've always been a bit annoyed by games like Nintendo's Brain Age series (also known as the Brain Training series in some regions) for the DS. The marketing for these products is very clear in its implications: playing these games will improve your mental skills and capacity. And yet, to support such a sweeping claim would require a great deal of empirical study that Nintendo has not undertaken. Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-75844793076110784822012-05-07T18:44:00.004-07:002015-02-24T21:13:37.648-08:00Thoughts on Mirror's Edge
Back when Mirror's Edge came out,
there was a flurry of writing about it in the online gaming criticism
community. I didn't get around to playing it until it recently, so I'm a
bit late to the party in posting some thoughts on it. So I'll start by
rounding up the existing writing on the game before offering my
thoughts.
What People Have Said
First of all, I wrote a normal Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-86404350386599879642012-05-06T16:15:00.001-07:002015-02-24T21:20:00.438-08:00Thoughts on Homefront
THQ, Digital Extremes
Action, FPS
Release: Mar 15, 2011 (US)
Platforms: PC (version reviewed), Xbox 360, PS3
Homefront is an encapsulation of the problems that plague many video
games. While it has the polish and technical prowess of a top of the
line, AAA gaming experience, it falls totally flat due to its inept
conception.
The single player campaign finds the player's character, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-89700512883433192342012-04-17T23:58:00.003-07:002015-02-24T21:32:13.706-08:00Agency and Animals in The Cat and the Coup
I'm quite enamored of the free game, The Cat and the Coup. It's a sort of docu-game about Mosaddegh and the Iranian coup, cast as a physics puzzler against a disjointed collage art space. The player controls Mosaddegh's cat, who nudges Mosaddegh to action, as events are told in reverse-chronological order, until the timeline reverses to chronological when the gameplay portion ends. The player isUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-19300443942018531592012-04-02T23:43:00.002-07:002012-04-10T22:54:12.471-07:00Resources for Learning and Thinking about GamesRecently, someone on Reddit asked, "What are some must read texts for game design and fluency in reading deeper into games?" I gathered up all my favorite game-writing links and gave a brief summary of some of my own personal advice, and I posted a response. The content of that response has relevance to the stuff I write about on this blog, so I've transcribed it here in slightly edited form for Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-82364054717023718952012-04-02T23:28:00.000-07:002013-02-18T12:35:44.019-08:00The Squandered Potential of Kingdom HeartsI've always had very mixed feelings about the Kingdom Hearts series. (Well, the Playstation 2 games, at least; I've never played the ones on other platforms. And Re:Chain of Memories is another story, that I won't get into here.) When I first read about it, I thought the concept sounded wonderful. The marriage of Disney stylings and injections of Square Enix characters and art sounds like an Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4530024471859470661.post-54235903233930619542012-04-01T20:22:00.003-07:002012-04-02T23:25:25.015-07:00A Metafictive Reading of BraidBraid is perhaps the most talked about of the the current crop of highly acclaimed 2D indie games. It's creator, Jonathan Blow, has inspired polarized opinions, ranging from pretentious jerk to gaming messiah. I think it's safe to say reality lies somewhere in between. In any case, Braid seems worth talking about, because it seems to be impacting how people think about gaming. The internet is Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0