Sunday, October 19, 2008
M-Rated Games That Actually Have Mature Themes
10:00AM Owen Good | Remember the old HBO Guides? All the movies in there carried the MPAA rating and then handy-dandy abbreviations telling you why. I’d spend a good 20 minutes going through it looking for everything flagged with SSC and N — because that meant Strong Sexual Content and Nudity. Holy shit, they even had R — for “rape”, which led to a very uncomfortable explanation from my babysitter when I (six years old) asked what in the hell that meant. I realise that “GamesRadar” and “mature” in the same sentence is like matter and antimatter (or pasta and antipasti). But they’ve (rightly) judged that “adult” and “mature,” as applied to video games and films anyway, usually mean T&A and lots of SSC and really immature depictions of both. So they’ve provided a list of games that actually do contain mature, as in grown-up, themes. You might be surprised to find Braid on here, but they sorta justify it. Warning, those expecting a chucklefest absolutely will not find it in the last two on the list. Mature Games That Are Actually Mature [GamesRadar] More »
How to Get an Official Nintendo Seal of Quality
8:00AM Owen Good | There’s no joke I can add to this that wouldn’t just get in the way. Spot on, SomethingAwful. The full list covers NES through Wii. They did it as a longass .jpg, so the full size version is on the jump. More »
Au Revoir, Game Shame
7:30AM Maggie Greene | Despite the fact that I spend my nonexistent spare time writing for Kotaku and being pretty immersed in the wild, wild world of “game culture,” I harbor a bit of ‘game shame.’ OK, a lot. I’ve gotten a little bolder in discussing my Kotaku gig, but I still keep my love of games and gaming under wraps in most situations, unless it’s apparent that I’m talking to someone who isn’t going to look at me like I have three heads when I bring the topic up in anything more than a detached, academic way. Michael Abbott of the Brainy Gamer takes a look at ‘game shame’ and how we attempt to justify gaming — ‘they make learning fun!’; ‘they stimulate cognitive processes!’; ‘they teach us things! Lots of things!’. And while all of these things may be true to varying degrees, he asks what’s so wrong with admitting that some games facilitate play in the best, self-indulgent sense of the word: More »
Suicide is Painless, Even Fun (In This Weird Flash Game)
7:00AM Owen Good | Here’s Karoshi Suicide Salaryman, a frighteningly addictive puzzler in which the object is to kill yourself. Of course, only that part of the game’s concept is backward, the actual means to kill yourself are obscured or protected from you, as you are a danger to yourself and others (and you have access to firearms). I made it to level 7 (it counts down from 49) in about 20 minutes. For a flash game, that’s a pretty good gameplay experience. The game remembers your progress if you want to come back to it later, so don’t delete your cookies. I really dig the soundtrack, but there’s no explanation of why you’re so desperate to end your own life. My guess is the global financial meltdown armageddon panic has something to do with it. Karoshi Suicide Salaryman [Armor Games] More »
Where We Go Wrong: Game Criticism
6:30AM Maggie Greene | Variety’s Ben Fritz posted an interesting response to Leigh Alexander’s rant on game criticism (inspired by reviews on Silent Hill: Homecoming) in which she said we should probably do a little less nitpicking and a little more championing, and that we’ve created a review culture where critics and fans alike are just looking for things to dislike — at least when it comes to details. Fritz maintains that critics are too positive overall, getting sold on games before they’re out (Leigh’s written about the ‘four-month bell curve’ that goes from hype to disinterest in titles like Bioshock) and discusses the lack of dissenting opinions on the current gaming achievement of the year. On the other hand, where’s the championing of certain games or designers for their creative vision — are we just a bunch of sheep?: More »
The 10th is the Tattoo Anniversary, Right?
6:00AM Owen Good | The 10th is actually the aluminium or tin anniversary. But rather than give each other cookie cutters or Reynolds wrap, reader mlazy and his wife got inked. With his n’ hers Pac-Tattoos. (He gives a shout-out to his artist, Skin Deep Ink, and we’ll oblige). Yes that’s hers on the left and his on the right. (Arm hair: Dead giveaway) Congratulations mlazy and Ms. mlazy! Remember, on the 20th, you have to get shoulderblade-to-shoulderblade tattoos of Chun Li and Ryu. So start saving up now! More »
The Soul of Wit: Brevity in Game Dialogue
5:30AM Maggie Greene | Gamasutra has a fun essay up from Ben Schneider, formerly of Iron Lore Entertainment and currently narrative designer at Big Huge Games, on dialogue in games — and the challenges of getting it right. Schneider isn’t calling for a removal of longer dialogues, but pointing out that short dialogue can function better than its longer cousin in many situations: creating ambiance in the background or delivering information (without interrupting or hindering gameplay) when in the forefront. Short dialogue should be like poetry, and poetry is ‘a powerful thing’: The key, of course, is to keep dialog short where it counts. And the hard part is in knowing when that is. Dialog that’s in the environment, tied to gameplay mechanics, or that plays during game action really needs to stay short, clear, and direct. But that is never an excuse for lower standards of writing. Very short dialog (under six seconds, averaging two) is critical for information that needs to be digested instantaneously. Merely short dialog (let’s say as long as 15 seconds, but averaging closer to eight) has the flexibility of carrying a lot more information and character, but can’t reliably be used while the player is fully engaged in intense, focused play. Obviously, the pressure is off when you’ve got the player’s attention and they are largely passive, such as in cinematics, dialog trees, and when they can safely listen to narration over their current task — that is, for untimed puzzles and nonverbal, visually centered challenges (as in Portal, for example). Still — I would argue that there are precious few cases where a single line of dialog should run over 20 or so seconds. He pulls out some good examples of what works and what doesn’t in many situations, and it’s a nice meditation on the role of those short little snips in games — pretty necessary, but pretty hard to get right at times (pedantic prose is, after all, easier to write than compelling poetry). Ode to Short Dialog: Reconsidering the Sound Bite [Gamasutra] More »
Dead Space Team Studied Car Wreck Victims
5:00AM Owen Good | EA Redwood Shores wanted to get the carnage right in Dead Space, and like less gruesome subjects, it can be difficult to illustrate something you’ve never seen. Perhaps that’s why dead bodies have looked silly or at least uninteresting in other games. So the Dead Space team studied pictures of car crash victims and war scenes to get it right. “We knew this would be difficult to portray, because sometimes gore in games looks cheap and unrealistic,” executive producer Glen Schofield told Edge. “Sure enough, the first few corpses that we did, just weren’t convincing enough. I rejected them. “This sounds horrible, but we had to go look at pictures of car accidents and war scenes and things like that because we had to get it right; we had to portray scenes of terrible carnage and realism. It’s a big part of making that experience convincing.” I’d be interested to know where they got their photographs. I doubt they actually got shots from a medical examiner or other public authority — although it would be amazing (and one hell of an uproar) if they did. I saw some pretty disturbing things as a reporter — Brian saw lots more, for sure. It’s not easy to look at that kind of stuff, much less pore over it to study the visual details. It’s a hell of a job they had to do. Dead Space Team Studied Car Crash Victims [Edge Online] More »
Games and Literacy: The NYT Take
4:30AM Maggie Greene | Last week, we mentioned a LiveScience article checking out the educational uses of WoW; in my never-ending attempt to catch up from a weekend off, there’s another article (this one from the New York Times) on the links between gaming and literacy in kids. It’s a decently balanced piece, from the skeptics to the supporters, and it tackles a selection of current issues and future possibilities for the medium: … doubtful teachers and literacy experts question how effective it is to use an overwhelmingly visual medium to connect youngsters to the written word. They suggest that while a handful of players might be motivated to pick up a book, many more will skip the text and go straight to the game. Others suggest that video games detract from the experience of being wholly immersed in a book. Some researchers, though, say that even when children don’t read much text, they are picking up skills that can help them thrive in a visually oriented digital world. And some educational experts suggest that video games still stimulate reading in blogs and strategy guides for players. To be sure, some of the experiments pairing electronic games with books will be little more than marketing gimmicks. But publishers and authors suggest that some projects may push creative boundaries, helping to extend storytelling beyond the traditional covers of a book. More »
