column
-
This Is What Video Games Are: A Dispatch From A Crowded Gaming Expo
“Sometimes I’m tempted to just, like, lie,” laughs a colleague across a table from me. We’re talking about preview coverage: The unusual condition of being slotted in front of a monitor in a noisy expo hall, shoulder to shoulder with fans waiting their turn, a well-used headset shifted off one ear so you can hear…
-
I Wish I Was Good At Video Games So I Could Be Cool Like People In ’90s Movies
Having Mad Skills is a huge part of the video game culture mythos. Do you remember the future promised to us in the 1990s, where every TV show had a kid just like you “going in the game”, crowned with a giant jutting VR helmet? Remember all the kids in action kneepads, waving power-gloved fingers,…
-
How Bad User Interfaces Are Ruining Video Games And Other Wonderful Things
I can summarise my experience designing user interfaces like this: if you were to place a refrigerator and a toilet side by side in a room with no windows and a door that locked from the inside, 9.3 out of 10 people entering that room would defecate in the freezer and urinate on the floor.
-
Forget Call Of Duty And Battlefield. Real Military Training Needs A Different Kind Of Game
You’re playing a game like Battlefield 3 or Call of Duty, shooting and grenading left and right. And you’re thinking, “Wow, what an awesomely realistic game. The Navy Seals should be playing this.”