It has come to my attention that some gamers enjoy a bit of didactic discourse. Dissection and deconstruction fashioned into posts and comments aimed at interpretation and insight seem to rule Tap-Repeatedly’s front page. Do Games = Art and if so, how and why? Luckily, gaming is all about choice. In order for games, or any single title, to be classified as High Art, logic suggests there must be a continuum. A comparative analysis among games, if …
It’s been threatening for some time now: first a bit of misdirection involving a possible sniper update, now revealed through clever internet chicanery to be the Spy. I don’t really play much Team Fortress 2 any more, but I do love these character movies. And so shall you!
Don’t lie: who among us doesn’t occasionally sit bolt upright in bed, drenched in sweat, eyes big as saucers? Our partner, lover, girl (or boy) picked up at the cheap bar down the street, and/or pet paws at us worriedly. “What is it?” they ask. But how can we communicate the terror to them? They’d never understand. Only those who’ve actually been through the horror – and the subsequent political fallout – can truly know …
Video games are about imagination. They’re about going to places you might not otherwise go and doing things you might not otherwise do; they’re about meeting people and entities you might not otherwise meet and having experiences you might not otherwise have. The medium allows us, essentially, to take a life for a test drive. And the more advanced the technology gets, the less hard imagination work is required to “be” there. I don’t know whether this is good or bad, it’s just the way things are. But one thing’s remained the same since day one: there is always you, on the other end of the mouse or controller, always you separated from the other world by a screen. Video games can be about anything, but they always have you in common.
While I have never been what one might call an “intense” gamer, I have for years been a student of visual and printed forms of media.I have particularly followed the on-going argument related to computer gaming as art.I do this largely because it amuses me to find politicians who can barely spell “computer,” and lawyers who have an opinion about almost everything, expressing their remarkably intense and often nonsense-laden opinions.I truly believe they need to …
The Local and GamePolitics report that Germany has banned paintball and laser tag in response to the recent school shooting in Winnenden that left 15 dead, including the shooter. Germany has a long and storied tradition of opposition to violent entertainment, the result of massive and not entirely misplaced sensitivity over the perception that any presentation of violence may awaken dark memories of Nazism. It will be many decades before time “heals” that wound, and …
All visitors who arrived here expecting to find FourFatChicks.com, rest easy – you have. FFC has renamed itself and added exciting new content and features, but everything you know and love is the same. The reviews archive and forums are up and running, so be sure to register and get in on the conversation right away. Welcome! — Steerpike P.S.: Some content from FFC isn’t yet transferred over, and some of the old review pages …
The developers for The Path, the new game that has everyone scratching their head, has just announced the release of the Mac version. TransGaming did the honors and you can read about it here. As is typical whenever PC and Mac rub up against each other, there are a few sparks. (Get a room already Mac and PC! Oh wait, they already did.) According to the Tale of Tales blog, sales have been charting steadily …
1UP Network, The Escapist, and other outlets are reporting that 3D Realms, developer/publisher of games since time immemorial, has shut its doors. This means an uncertain fate for Duke Nukem Forever, now in its 12th year of development, though by this point I don’t think anyone really expected it to ship anyway.
Check out this mini-interview. Valve’s vice president of marketing, Doug Lombardi, fills in Doug Kuchera of Ars Technica on the ins and outs of keeping it fresh with their customers. In a word…UPDATES: “The updates cause an incredible spike in sales. And when the update is offered in concert with new Achievements, new media, such as a new ‘Meet the…’ movie, and a promotion, such as a Free Weekend and/or limited-time price drop, the spike …
Last week, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Playing Games column listed their nine Most Bizarre Video Games of All Time. To limit the list, the authors decided to concentrate on titles that were “actually kind of fun to play” and exclude licensed titles. (I’ve included my impressions for the games that I’ve played.):
Researchers at Grant MacEwan College have been busy conducting a series of studies on gamers and their dreams with great titles like Threat Simulation Theory and Video Game Play, Video Game Play & Dream Bizarreness, and Video Game Play: Effects on Nighttime Dreams. You can see a very cool PowerPoint slide show on the last one posted here on AuthorSTREAM. Jane Grackenbach, Ian Matty, and Beena Kuruvilla presented the latter study in 2007 at Futureplay …
It is my belief that the term “computer game” is a misnomer.I have no trouble accepting the word computer, since indeed, we experience them on a computer.It is the word “game” that I have problems with.Surely most gamers are sophisticated enough to accept the fact that we have progressed to the point that the word “game” is not only incongruous, it is incorrect.
In this installment I look at why we find it so hard to approach all problems with a fresh outlook
This Xbox 360 gameplay walkthrough for the upcoming Obsidian RPG, Alpha Protocol, recently popped up over at IGN and is worth watching if this game is on your radar. According to an April 27th interview just posted over at Gry.o2.pl (there is an English version on the right side of the screen), Obsidian is in the process of bug fixing and polishing and is still on track for a late 2009 release. I’m not exactly …