May 10-16, 2009

[Erik Hanson]

I had been suspicious about the balance of cost and benefit in weekly attempts to sculpt the non-Newtonian mass of links I collect into some sort of coherent story. Now that a crash has made me re-write my post, I'm fairly certain that I like this more streamlined approach better. With that due ado:

Narrative & Story:

• Part 3 in Randy Smith's take on unfun games at Edge (Part 1, Part 2)
• Should online games teach/train players to think more about human rights?
• The Scourge of "To Be Continued ... "
• Game stories are too superficial.
• Geralt (protagonist of The Witcher) and sexism: Perhaps he didn't get the memo that shallow protagonists are out of style.
• Cutscenes
• Scripted events in general
• Games should allow for and even facilitate the unpredictability of players.

Aesthetics, Ambience & Atmosphere

• Story vs. atmosphere -- which is more important?
• Steven Poole knows that the best way to make sure I read your article is to drops the p-word.
• Rossignol writes about the architecture of evil. (Commentary at Offworld)
• Triggering emotional reactions in players, and the longer-term effects of fear (Apologies for that first link, it's just a book I really like.)
• Is immersion just one type of player engagement?

Mechanics & Dynamics:

• Neat Venn diagram of game genres (Note: A neat conceptualization does nothing to convince me away from my distrust of taxonomies.)
• In-depth look at factors of pacing in games
• Emily Short takes a fascinating look at how games can and could deal with dialogue. (TIGSource commentary)
• Mud Tub, an almost obscenely tactile interface.
• On minimalism in games
• The point of achievement points

Culture & Creativity:

• Grifball, one of many emergent Halo play variants
• Didn't notice at the tail of last week (thanks, GameSetWatch): link archive of 8-bit music.
• Famicom covers for imaginary games
• Futurist Charlie Stross on gaming in 2030 (via Gamers With Jobs, but also mentioned by Raph Koster)
• 8-bit Andean art
• Remixable potential of ripped Rock Band tracks

Down, Retroscope:

• X-Com development retrospective
• Comparing modern shooters against the classics
• N'Gai looking back on the Resident Evil 5 racism controversy
• The Escapist's "Best of" issue: hitting dishonest game themes, escapism and autism
• The fall of Leisure Suit Larry
• On Violet, a game you really should have played by now.
• Max Payne: "Perhaps the best example of a game taking cues from films, without forgetting what it means to be a game."
• Short reviews of every SNES game, coming in alphabetical order (Via GameSetWatch)
• Thief's legacy: expanding mainstream gamers' expectations of the medium.

Reviews:

• Dear Esther gets more time in the sun, and an interview.
• The Velvet Assassin (Violette Szabo) controversy
• Left 4 Godot
• Pictures for Truth review
• Magical Wasteland on the PixelVixen707 ARG (I guess this mean she's not likely to link here from now on)
• Michael Abbott begins plumbing the depths of critical analysis of sports games with a look at MLB ’09: The Show.
• Brenda Brathwaite is a rock star. Game Culture picked up the story of her board game Train, which, if nothing else, is an important game.
• Ian Bogost's new game, Guru Meditation gets play on GameSetWatch, Offworld and Nick Montfort’s blog.

Books:

• More buzz for Ethics of Computer Games
• Scott Juster (Experience Points) reviews From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War in Video Games

News, Publishing & Conferences:

• Nick Montfort (collaborator with Bogost on Racing the Beam and Platform Studies) hath a blogge: Post Position
• Raph Koster's Metaplace launches
• Review of the blog-based manuscript review experience
• The Incisive Analysis Office of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) is looking to fund research on gathering intelligence from MMOs and other virtual worlds. (PDF) Via Terra Nova
• Australasian Interactive Entertainment Conference (IE2009) call for papers
• Congrats to Nick Montfort on getting tenure and an associate prof. spot at MIT.
• Wednesday (2009-05-20) from 6-7pm at MIT: Pablo Gervás of the Departamento de Ingeniería del Software e Inteligencia Artificial, Facultad de Informática, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (Department of Software and Artificial Intelligence Engineering, Computing Faculty of the Complutense University of Madrid -- The talk will be in English.)
• GDC Canada 2009 roundup

As always, feel free to contact me (here via note or comment, or @erik_a_hanson on Twitter) if you would like to point out something you think I missed, or if you'd like me to check out a site to add to my weekly review.

[Roger Travis]

Man, I missed nearly all of this. Thanks, Erik!

[Simon Ferrari]

I'm conflicted about that Left 4 Godot thing, but not enough to argue with the guy about it. After reading Adorno's aesthetics, I've got very particular and biased ideas about what Godot is about. What did you guys think about that one. And what do you think about using this space to talk about the posts Eric links?

[Erik Hanson]

Unlike lot of blog sites where I've left comments, I know I'll keep track of conversations here!

I think that Godot lends itself to many different meanings (and even pronunciations, in my theater-going experience), and as such is hard to pin down as the referent of an analogy, since such an analogy would tend to presuppose a constricted subset of the possible interpretations of the play. Inasmuch as the play is "about" repetition and illusory progress, I'm sure a large number of games (especially older arcade titles based less on a fixed story arc) are analogous.

[Simon Ferrari]

Crap I mis-spelled your name! I apologize. All the Eric/ks I know in real life are "Eric!"

You hit the nail on the head. Godot's repetition has numerous meanings, but whether any of them can be exactly connected to Left 4 Dead or to videogames in general is really specious, at least without more research or commentary.

[Erik Hanson]

Mama always told me I was special. Good thing she gave me a name to match. ;)