Kotaku’s Mike Fahey has written a candid and powerful article about his Everquest addiction – one of the worst cases I’ve seen – and how it nearly destroyed his life. It takes a lot of strength and courage to write something like this about oneself, and Mike’s story is as heartrending as it is personal.
Massively multiplayer online role-playing games are all the rage now-a-days. But here comes one that threatens to change the world of MMORPG gaming? …so say the producers, at least. Supposedly a big hit in Asia for the past few years, Aion will soon be dumped, if it hasn’t been already, onto servers in the U.S. Word on the street is that there have been over 300,000 pre-release orders placed in Europe alone.
Hello all, and please welcome back Steerpike’s older and more successful brother as a Celebrity Guest Editor! Marcus Sakey is a famous crime novelist – complete with awards and movie deals – and a wonderful guy to boot. His latest novel, The Amateurs, just came out in early August and is already garnering rave reviews.
Unfortunately the transition from FFC to Tap somehow ate up Marcus’s first Celebrity Guest Editorial, and he graciously offered to do another one. A lifelong gamer like his brother, Marcus is always looking for ways to integrate his beloved hobby with his increasingly complex life. Today he discusses the challenge of finding a good game to share with my kickass sister in law, who is hardly opposed to games but doesn’t find much appealing in the mainstream stuff. Marcus visits Tap often under the moniker “Marquez,” so be sure to leave some comments and suggestions for the lad. Thanks Marcus!
— Steerpike
As I am not too sure how I would do a review of a free, Internet-based game that strokes both my basest gaming urges and my basest sexual urges, I decided to forego a classic form of a review and just do a freeform take on Taboo Snaps, a game that tickles and giggles amusingly but never strays towards uncomfortable.
It’s in vogue these days after Kris Graft eloquently defended the various malignancies of Activision/Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick to support the man, claiming he does all he does as an effective executive officer and not as an imp of Satan himself. Of course, then Kotick goes and does something like giving a speech to the Deutsche Bank Securities Technology Conference, during which he said – didn’t imply, said – that his goal is to “take …
Part 3: The Third of the Great “Imaginators” In this, the final installment of “Literature, Gaming, and Tomorrow,” (first two articles here and here), I will examine the final of my three proposed “Great Imaginators” – that is, authors, dreamers, and creators of literature who in their so-called “fiction” actually proposed a world that has come to pass nearly in lockstep with their vision. Our third imaginator is almost a contemporary of ours, and his …
Part 2: Turning Dreams into Reality This is the second in the series on literature, gaming and tomorrow.The importance of imagination in game development was discussed and related to literature.More specifically, the relationship was made between science fiction lit.This seemed a natural fit since one of the curious things about our lives on this planet is that virtually every innovation we now take for granted had its birth in literature that was science fiction based.All …
Tap-Repeatedly’s Week Old News Service continues (I’ve been busy) with the alert that long-time Ubisoft producer and Assassin’s Creed project honchette Jade Raymond has been tapped to run the company’s new Toronto studio. Here’s the frustrating thing about Jade Raymond – no, not that Assassin’s Creed was a crappy game, the other frustrating thing: despite deserving it, she will never be taken seriously by this industry; despite all her successes, despite her intelligence and capability, …
Part 1: The Wonder of Imagination Every once in a while I get really irritated at those who criticize without the benefit of knowledge. It makes me wish I were God so I could force them to drop their pants, bend over and accept ten swats with a paddle (with holes drilled through it). Too often, the value of gaming is muddied because critics look at it through unenlightened eyes instead of learned, rational ones. …
Shadow Complex, Chair Entertainment’s XBLA-available, Unreal 3.0-powered, side-scrolling, 2.5D send up to Super Metroid’s and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night’s beloved exploratory action platforming is by all accounts a pretty good game. I just started it, so I’ll withhold judgment, but it does look great so far. Problem? Shadow Complex takes place in the fictional universe of Empire, a novel by acclaimed sci-fi-ist Orson Scott Card. Card consulted on the game’s development and has been …
Sometimes I think I am losing it. Stuff is happening that I thought, at one time, would never happen. But, here we are, a bunch of old farts starting to discover video games. Now, understand, when I say old farts, I am referring to people in their fifth, sixth and seventh decade. One has to wonder what that will mean to the future of the gaming industry, much less to the future of civilization. Will Gramps turn into a rapist or a murderer?
So, I’m a bit of an arachnophobe. I spotted a spider making its way from my living room’s ceiling to my living room’s floor the other day and while I managed to throw it out the window eventually, it involved a lot of screaming and panicked jumps all over the room. To be clear here: I don’t hate spiders. I don’t kill spiders, ever. I merely don’t want them near me. Surely, that is not …
The degree to which I hate Activision/Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is nigh-unmeasurable. I loathe the man; I hope he falls into a deep, deep hole with ground glass and spikes and hot lava and sharks and scorpions and poison and fire ants and chromic acid and knives and dead puppies at the bottom. I didn’t think it would be possible – you know, physically – for me to despise anyone in the games industry more …
Call them addictive or don’t, but games have the power to enthrall like nothing else on earth.
Well, this is a difficult one for me to write, if only because if I don’t choose my words carefully I could wind up on the receiving end of a very nasty email from a person who theoretically has the authority to destroy a significant portion of my career. At the same time, though, it bears reporting, and this is one of those rare instances where writing with pure journalistic impartiality would actually come off …