July 2008
Hamlet (Facebook News Feed Edition). →
nostrich:
Brilliant.
Back home for the day
Time for my monthly visit to Eau Claire’s Video Game Star.
Joystick 101 →
Joystick101 is a blog dedicated to studying games and gaming culture with a particular emphasis on learning. It combines a great authoring community with a core of authors from UW Madison’s Games, Learning, & Society Program with an open community structure to allow broad particpiation. We try to create a fun, open collaborative atmosphere where gaming is taken seriously but we don’t take...
Last week, we were fourth. This week we were...
“Combat has replaced puzzles as the progress-impeding mechanic du jour for modern...”
– Brainy Gamer’s Michael Abbott on the decline of puzzles as progress obstacles in game narratives.
I tend to think that puzzles like those described have diminished as adventure games in general have become less and less common.
“When you talk about games evolving over the years and becoming more like movies,...”
– Stan Lee on the difference between game stories and movie stories.
Contrast Lee’s quote with John Carmack’s story-doesn’t-matter philosophy.
Kami Calls It
Me: Have you seen Wall-E or is it not out in Scotland?
Kami (kami.tumblr.com): It just came out, and I've only seen bits and pieces whilst working. What is on your mind, oh you American you?
Me: At the beginning of the movie, there is the Pixar short about the magician and the rabbit [Presto].
Kami: I love it. It's Portal: The Movie.
Me: The whole time I watched it, I was like "this is Portal".
Me: Glad to see I'm not the only one!
Kami: I'm sure there is probably some kind of very subtle reference to the game in it. In one very quick cut, there will be like a Companion Cube-esque shape in the background or something.
Me: Maybe
Kami: And when it comes out on DVD everyone will find it. I just want to establish that, in the words of Yahtzee, I fucking called it.
“The game industry has many well-known developers, but few have reached the...”
– Game Informer’s Classic GI perfectly summarizes the legacy of 90’s-era id Software, reducing the gripping drama and piquant nostalgia of David Kushner’s Masters of Doom to just one tidy paragraph.
New (Vista) Computer + Xbox 360 = Hell Yes!
Ways to Lose at Tony Hawk's Pro Skater →
You catch a bus ride over to the old military base, where no one seems to question your presence as you pop-shove it over Black Hawk helicopters and hurricane-grind through the soldiers’ mess. Hours pass and eventually you accept a mission to pop a backflip over a four-star general. Your sick moves are interpreted as hostile action by the MPs, who pistol-whip you behind the aircraft hangar...
Nickelodeon's Marketing Sucks
shutupinternet:
Whoever works in marketing at Nickelodeon should lose their degrees, be fired, and be forced to watch, non-stop, hour after hour of shitty modern Nicktoons. I say this because they’re all blind. Somehow, they’ve never noticed the demand for Nicktoons on DVD. Remember how Family Guy killed in sales numbers once it was cancelled and put on DVD? Put Hey Arnold, Angry Beavers,...
Webcasts from the Games + Learning + Society... →
Right now, I’m watching the Games & Incivility talk, the remarkable abstracts of which I’ve quoted below:
“Sympathy for the Griefer: MOOrape, Lulz Cubes, and Other Lessons From the First 2 Decades of Online Sociopathy” by Julian Dibbell
Pwnage, zerging, phat lewts — gaming has bequeathed upon the new century a rich vocabulary of terms and concepts, but none, perhaps,...
Though we may have finished as respectable...
“Just one problem: MegaMan is a robot and must not harm a human, or by inaction,...”
– A particularly clever commenter on Old Wizard’s Megaman vs Samus debate.
Entertainment Weekly's Classic Games
A couple weeks ago Entertainment Weekly celebrated their 1000th issue by making a list of 1000 “new classics”—i.e. the classic films, records, books, etc. of the past 25 years. In a rather uncharacteristic move, EW decided to include a list of the 50 classic games from the past quarter century. As much as we gamers love nothing more than to comment and disagree ad nauseum about...
NES Muxtape →
I decided to give Muxtape a try, so I used some NES mp3s to make a mix of NES music. In making this mix, I tried to balance some of the console’s classic songs (hence the preponderance of “stage one” tracks) with some of my personal favorites (like the Dr. Mario and Shadowgate selections). Below is the tracklist:
Super Mario Bros. - Overworld
The Legend of Zelda - Title Theme
...
WatchWii Music promises incredibly awkward moments for you and your friends.
The Grand List of RPG Clichés →
zetahydrae:
This list is so good, so painfully accurate. I spent a considerable portion of my childhood playing console RPGs, and it’s a shame that I never really pinpointed these ridiculous recurring staples until now. Keep in mind that the list is absurdly long, so you might want to grab a hot coffee or something before you decide to engage in plentiful “ahhhs” of nostalgia. Ahhh.
Absolutely...
Muphry's Law →
marykgo:
“Muphry’s Law is the editorial application of the better-known Murphy’s Law. Muphry’s Law dictates that (a) if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written; (b) if an author thanks you in a book for your editing or proofreading, there will be mistakes in the book; (c) the stronger the sentiment expressed in (a)...
“Writing about games has taken me from the role of dreamer into the world of the...”
– Julian “Rabbit” Murdoch on writing about games, or rather, on how being a writer-slash-critic causes us to reinterpret the things we enjoy. (Via Kotaku)
Guantanamo detainees tortured with music →
up-schist-creek:
Never gonna give you up never gonna let you go never gonna run around and release you!
“I reported to the executive V.P. He knew what was going on. And he keeps asking...”
– Ralph Baer, former manager of Equipment Design Division, Sanders Associates and designer of the first video game console. (Quoted from Steven Kent’s The Ultimate History of Video Games)
Capitalization Could Disappear?
shutupinternet:
To the “scholars,” the only exercise you guys is get jumping to conclusions. The Internet changed the way we live and communicate, yes, but it’s not leading to the downfall and stupefying of the human race. Just because things change in some aspects doesn’t mean that they’ll change every aspect in the way we communicate. People dress informally when they’re going to a friends’...
WatchRecently Acquired: Q*Bert
Last week, during my combined visit to the Northern Wisconsin State Fair and my endocrinologist, I swung by my old stomping grounds in Eau Claire. In particular, I went to Video Game Star, one of the few brick-and-mortar businesses in the region to still carry titles for consoles like the Atari 2600 and the NES. (Nowadays, most exchanges of classic gaming software occur...
“fanboy: a boy who is an enthusiastic devotee, such as of comics or movies.”
– Merriam-Webster just added fanboy to the dictionary. Other notable additions include air-quotes, malware, mondegreen, netroots, pescatarian, subprime, Texas Hold ‘em, webinar, and wing nut.
For more of the 2008 lexical zeitgeist, check out this news-story.
merlin:
McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: E-mail Addresses It Would Be Really Annoying to Give Out Over the Phone.
Still always makes me laugh.
MikeUnderscore2004@yahoo.com
MikeAtYahooDotCom@hotmail.com
Mike_WardAllOneWord@yahoo.com
AAAAAThatsSixAs@yahoo.com
One1TheFirstJustTheNumberTheSecondSpelledOut@hotmail.com
Okay, this is brilliant.
Thank you for participating in an HP real-time...
HP Person: Let me know the lights blinking on the printer panel.
Me: Right now, the power button light and the MC printhead lights are flashing
HP Person: Thank you for the information.
HP Person: I understand the power and the MC printhead lights are flashing. Am I correct?
Me: Yes
“While certain games are lauded for achieving near-realism, many people play...”
– MTV Multiplayer blogger Tracey John raises some interesting questions in a story about some gender-based character differences in Age of Conan. According to the article, the issue at hand is that “female characters in the MMO swing their weapons slower than males, causing them to do...
Wikipedia: smart cow problem →
jonathan-deamer:
“The smart cow problem is the concept that when a group of individuals is faced with a technically difficult task, only one of their members has to solve it. When the problem has been solved once, an easily repeatable method may be developed, allowing the less technically proficient members of the group to accomplish the task.
This has recently been applied to Digital Rights...
Persuasive Games: Performative Play →
In this editorial, Ian Bogost applies J. L. Austin’s concept of performative language to videogames. As such, it’s one of the few examples of linguistics-game design cross-pollenation I’ve ever encountered, and if you happen to be a formal linguist interested in game design like yours truly, this essay is kind of a big deal.
The idea is this: There are, for the matter at hand,...
“Blackjack is beatable. Unlike just about everything in the casino, it’s a...”
– The card-counting coach in Bringing Down The House.
I find this quote insightful because it indirectly outlines a common logical flaw; namely, The Gambler’s Fallacy. When we say that a game doesn’t have a memory, we mean that the set of previous (independent) events—be they coin...
“A good strategy game may well be a series of interesting decisions – but a good...”
– Chris Bateman on the famous claim that “a game is a series of interesting decisions.”
Basically, Bateman argues that adopting the decision-oriented definition of “game” is restrictive and that this constrained definition can have harmful consequences. In particular, it reduces what we...
Four Things Every Tumblelog Needs
shutupinternet:
1. A means of contact - It sucks when someone posts something that you really like and you can’t get a hold of them. If you don’t want to reblog it because it’s way too long or doesn’t fit the style of your website but still want to thank the person who contributed and can’t, everyone needs to offer some means of contact for their dedicated followers.
2. Original content -...
Fourth of July
Ken: have a good july 4th?
Me: yes
Ken: cool
Me: i was on the 23rd floor of a chicago building
Ken: awesome
Ken: fireworks?
Me: i could see fireworks in every direction. dozens of shows going on simultaneously all night.
Ken: nice
Me: really nice
“Why is it that school boards attract idiots like shit attracts flies?”
– Linguist Bill Poser on a recent news story about a school board member objecting to a pair of Vietnamese students who had the apparent audacity to address their parents in their native language during their valedictorian speeches.
See the comments section for more linguist sass.
32 Sci-Fi Novels You Should Read →
roamin:
How To Split An Atom
“Looking for some new material to add to your science fiction reading list? [Listed] are 32 books that have pushed the boundaries of the genre, inspired generations of thinkers and in some cases have even predicted key aspects of societies development…”
Saved for later. It’s remarkable how many classic novels are included.