Category Cloud
Blogroll
- Bitmob More of my game writing.
- CastMedium Useful summaries of podcasts, complete with metadata. (Now defunct.)
- CerebralPop Games, movies, music, comics, books, tech, and TV.
- Comic Vine Comic-book reviews.
- Unoriginal Soundtracks Podcast on Cerebral Pop A fortnightly music podcast about video games.
Category Archives: Games
Dog Wars: The dogfight between developer freedom and taste
Dog Wars is the game PETA had in mind when they condemned Mafia Wars’ inclusion of pit bulls. It’s the app Apple has in mind when it cherry-picks content allowed in the walled garden of the App Store. It’s a dogfighting role-playing game … Continue reading
How Rock Band taught me I’m allowed to sing
It’s my turn to sing, and the song is Maps by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I don’t know the song, but I know this is a female-fronted band. And I can’t sing. A loop of a single note on guitar … Continue reading
What’s So Great About the Darkness?
The Darkness isn’t perfect. I’ve played plenty of first-person shooters with better-designed levels, and the story is almost as cheesy as the comic book it’s based on. But on Unik Gamer – a site written in charmingly broken English, on which gamers arrange … Continue reading
Poker: Telltale Shows ‘Em How It’s Done
When MASH surgeons need to do something with their hands, they play cards. It’s cool, it’s tense, and it adds some action to dialogue scenes. Gambling is full of bold-sounding terms like “no limits” and “aces high,” and it’s inherently … Continue reading
Extending the Life of Games Through Books, Comics, and Other Media
After finishing Mirror’s Edge, I disagreed with the bullet point commonly listed in the con column of reviews: It was too short. At about six hours, I felt the game told its story as best it could without unnecessary fluff. It … Continue reading
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From The Bitmob Game Club Vault: A Personal Retrospective Of Fallout
Before it changed into something more inclusive, the Bitmob Game Club was a feature in which a handful of community writers played a few levels of the same game every week, then wrote about it in their own style. The final … Continue reading
Apple And iPhone Developers: No First Amendment Here
While the debate about freedom of speech, games, and how the law should or should not censor the industry rages on, the folks at Apple have came to their own decision. Apps — which include some of the most creative … Continue reading
Fixing Competitive Online Games: Abandoning Illusion in Favor of Fairness
Spawn campers are the ugliest, most annoying thing in online shooters (apart from racist, homophobic jerks). These guys are the equivalent of that kid who exclusively hangs around the other team’s goal and waits for the ball to come to … Continue reading
“Beating” Games, or, Can You Win at Flower?
Something has been puzzling me lately — why do so many people say they “beat X game”? The game has no will of its own. It isn’t (or shouldn’t be) working against you. In the ’80s, when video games hated you … Continue reading
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Tagged Braid, Demon's Souls, Flower, Gears of War, Halo, Lego Star Wars, Limbo, Max Payne 2, Ninja Gaiden 2, Prince of Persia
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What RPGs Can Learn from Battlefield
I have nightmares in which I direct my body using Battlefield: Bad Company’s Xbox 360 controls. One by one, the buttons stop working, and I feel helpless. When I’m awake, the head bob, movement speed, and jump height are all … Continue reading
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Tagged Battlefield, Battlefield 1943, Battlefield: Bad Company, Battlefield: Bad Company 2
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