Published by Bob July 21st, 2007
in Dispatches.
Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t quite know what to say, yet.
I’ve come to Tim Schafer’s premier platformer, Psychonauts, with nothing but the best intentions and expectations. I know of his reputation as an adventure game designer from the LucasArts days, and I know the old adage of not judging a book by its cover. Heck, as a writer myself I tend to take it as far as you shouldn’t judge a book by the first few pages you’re likely to leaf through in Barnes & Noble, since that alone isn’t going to show you everything a piece of literature has to offer. In our Cable TV world it’s very easy to decide whether or not to watch all of a film based on the strength of its first few minutes, but nobody decides to purchase a movie ticket or DVD on that same criteria (not that you’d be able to, anyway, except if you were renting or merely ducking into a theater to play peekaboo with the projector). Therefore, I realize that I cannot render an immediate judgment of this game until I’ve sat with it for at least another hour or two more, but after this first triplet of quarter-hours, all I can say with definitiveness is this:
I didn’t have fun.
Continue reading ‘Dispatches: Psychonauts, Part One; Or: Not-So Pleasant Dreams’
Published by Bob July 16th, 2007
in Opinion.
I’m not usually the type to get excited over anything. Even when pursuing my passions I tend to approach things with a kind of intellectual calm, a distance brought on by refusing to give in to the cascades of immediate emotional reaction in favor of a studied, logical and analytical meditation. I’ve done my best to relax this impulse in my Dispatches, and was probably most successful at it while evaluating God of War, partly because my experience was already so varied between the highs and lows of the game’s successful and problematic qualities that I didn’t feel unafraid to register unabashed satisfaction or, more often, displeasure with what I was experiencing. For games I’ve almost completely enjoyed (you know what they are) I’ve had force myself to restrain my enthusiasm, if for no other reason than I don’t like appearing biased. Obviously, there’s a delicate kind of irony there– if you’re talking about your favorite game/film/book, etc., you are necessarily going to be exercising the very definition of favoritism– but I remain firm in my belief that, for the most part, it’s been best possible way to write for this blog.
Every once in a while, however, you encounter a title that forces you to reevaluate your positions and provokes you to consider more than what is merely thought provoking, emotionally moving or instinctively stimulating, and instead focus on what is just plain fun. Ape brains and lizard brains can’t help you figure out anything at a time like this. The only kind of gray matter that matters is your own, and the scrutiny of everyone else’s opinions be damned– if you’ve just got to say it, you’ve just got to say it:
Taito’s Dungeon Maker is the best goddamn game I’ve played for the PSP, and anyone out there who owns this system and hasn’t picked this title up should be goddamn ashamed of themselves.
Continue reading ‘Bob’s Dungeon Maker Rant; Or: Mr. Blandings Builds His Grind House’
Published by Charles Joseph July 15th, 2007
in Audio/Video.
This is kind of the direction that I was hoping to take Casablanca eventually. I especially like that it’s purposefully unbalanced, or at least balanced so that one side almost always wins. The documentary really got to me. I have to admit that it’s kind of the reason I design games.
The Documentary
The Website
Published by Charles Joseph July 10th, 2007
in Audio/Video.
Here’s another selection from Gamasutra’s GDC Radio. This time it’s Mark Morris and Tom Arundel talking about the history of their company, Introversion Software. They’ve achieved something that we’ve all thought about from time to time, the creative freedom of running their own development house and being their own publisher. It’s an interesting listen, as well as a cautionary tale.
After the Party: Introversion Software One Year On From IGF 2006
Published by Bob July 9th, 2007
in Dispatches.
Well, pleasant dreamers, I once again find myself at the end of a stirring Kojima game, staring down the end of an interminably long cut-scene, and one of the master’s first, to boot. Once again, it’s been a gripping narrative, despite some of the cloying story devices, plot holes, last-minute love triangles and other assorted narrative missteps. Moreover, while I’ve griped here and there about how the game has more or less failed in terms of providing gameplay that is at once satisfying, innovative and expressive, I find myself rather pleasantly surprised at the end with a few mechanical twists and turns that actually offer tantalizing glimpses of the same kind of playful design Kojima would later infuse, with much richer detail, in the MGS series. Still, at the end of the day, Snatcher isn’t really a game, just in the same way that it isn’t really “cyberpunk,” either. What it is, on both counts, may wind up being one of the most surprising revelations about Kojima’s work, in general.
Snatcher isn’t futuristic or ahead-of-its-time, in aesthetic, gameplay or narrative style, but stubbornly old-fashioned.
Continue reading ‘Disnatches, Act Three; Or: A Snatcher Darkly’
Published by Charles Berkeley July 6th, 2007
in Games and Links.
Coolest flash game I’ve played in a long time… and poetic!
game, game, game and again game by Jason Nelson
Published by Charles Berkeley July 6th, 2007
in Readings.
Grand Text Auto, a blog much like this one where several game designers gather, is devoted to interactive narrative and the like… in fact two of the guys who are included in the blog are the fellas behind Facade.
I bring our attention to this as one of the contributors (Nick Montfort) just posted his thesis on:
Generating Narrative Variation in Interactive Fiction
Interesting read… and make sure to check out the comments.
Published by Bob July 3rd, 2007
in Dispatches.
This week in Dispatches, we continue our examination of Snatcher, the game that time forgot, and compare its gameplay to one of its closest mechanical relatives. Does that mean we’ll be delving into the Lucasarts vaults like everyone assumes when talking about adventure games? No, and a big part of that comes between the difference between the point-and-click and the click-and-click, and if you don’t know it already, then prepare to learn a little something. Things are about to get educational…
Continue reading ‘Disnatches, Act Two; Or: Where In the World Is Hideo Kojima?’
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