Not much time for contemplation on a weekday. Rush-hour traffic, panic, work-a-day-blues, screaming, zombie-wars, knife-fights, crying, etc. But Sunday? Sunday there’s all the time to sit back and chew over the thinky-writey-stuff from the week. To that end, I compile a list of stuff which caught my eye, while trying to resist linking to tracks from the first gig in years from one of my favourite bands. Oh yes.
- This is great. Steve Gaynor of 2K Marin takes apart FEAR and FEAR 2 to illustrate first-person shooter level design principles. Clearly of interest to anyone wanting to look at the craft, but also shows how things like “Improving AI” don’t really matter by themselves nearly as much as you’d immediately think. (Via @Harvey1966)
- Following our look at the micro-controversy around Dangerous High School Girls In Trouble, Crispygamer sit down with Mousechief and get their take on the furore. Indie games are the new punk rock. Or something.
- Videogame critic killed for 7/10 review. Probably had it coming. I bet he didn’t even count how many multiplayer modes there were properly or something.
- We haven’t done anything on the RapePlay controversy, for no good discernable reason. We were probably drunk. In short, conservative critic Kevin McCullough uses Amazon.com’s pulling of the RapePlay game to illustrate his point to do with Liberals. That is, American Liberals not English-unelectable-party Liberals. Head to Gamepolitics for their coverage of the whole thing. Head over to Leigh Alexander for her trying to processing whether to review RapePlay or not.
- Cliff Harris of Positech starts blogging about his new game. So if you want to know more than its splendid title, go read. I take pride in RPS’ coverage of Gratuitous Space Battles managing to find new lows in shallowness of videogame coverage.
- Still trying to get a decent frame rate of GTA4? Hefty tweak guide.
- Black Box Recorder’s reformed gig on Wednesday was made of splendid and total evil. They played new stuff (But not online). They played old stuff. They played B-sides. They played The Hit. Hurrah!
Failed.
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Dorian etc, well said. I’m frequently dismayed by how ethical debates play out in gaming circles. Bioshock is supposed to be a game with complex moral decisions, but it basically comes down to whether or not to murder children. So I can either commit one of the most heinous deeds thinkable or not. Well. That this is considered a step forward is evidence of a fault somewhere.
I think a difficulty might be in taking themes from one medium and putting them in another. Books and movies aren’t interactive. In Irreversible, the viewer (hopefully) isn’t rooting for the rapists. In Rapelay (from what little I’ve read, apologies if I’m mistaken), you are playing the role of the rapist. The analogy fails. I don’t want to identify with a rapist. I can’t think of anything I could possibly learn from the experience. Moral choice enters at the level of choosing to play the game, not clicking Y or N on the “Rape?” query.
BargainBinLaden:
I did! I still do!
But well, I just miss tactical combat, and in general dislike hands-off combat.