rolling thread of stuff worth reading on videogames

http://www.clicknothing.com/click_nothing/2010/05/451-weeks.html

kind of interesting but immediately upon finishing it, i wanted to yell at this guy, wait - so why the fuck are you quitting? why write this thing if you're just going to talk around the reasons and "bad habits" that you have developed? what a bizarre semi-inspirational yet passive-aggressive resignation notice, the most eye-rolling bit is the "i have to walk on coals" shit - he's quitting because he job is just too damn good for him to live with

i read that and then realized i had no idea what he had actually said

So I liked a bunch of Extra Lives -- which is the thing worth reading on videogames, not my review of it that I'm linking to right here and hoping the total tackiness of linking to myself will be overlooked since I mentioned it myself: http://popculturecurator.tumblr.com/post/709868739/book-review-extra-lives

is that by the guy who wrote about doing coke while playing GTA? my eyes are already rolling

It was so good! I don't know how/where he wrote about it elsewhere, but that sequence in the book is my favorite.

If anyone wants to pay me to write a book about doing drugs & playing videogames, feel free to contact me.

If you write that book, I will buy a copy. But no advance, I'm afraid.

Also, I will contribute a chapter about my experiences parachuting through snow-capped mountains in Lost Cause 2 while completely stoned with the volume turned down and some dubstep turned up.

Oh my god I checked whether the library had that Bissell book today but finding out that he's the coke Observer gta guy I hate you for recommending it. Is it really a recommendation? I don't actually hate you. But god.

I'm surprised you guys don't like the cocaine piece. Is it just that you feel an article about drugs + video games is inherently self-congratulatory and fratty? Because I find it really open and honest and real. Or did you just think it was poor writing?

An article about drugs is inherently self-congratulatory however honest.

I tried Rainbow Islands on acid once, it was shit.

There is something really cool about seeing the graph paper drawings for planning out Pac-Man.

http://kotaku.com/5569439/secret-pac+man-drawings

So I liked a bunch of Extra Lives -- which is the thing worth reading on videogames, not my review of it that I'm linking to right here and hoping the total tackiness of linking to myself will be overlooked since I mentioned it myself: http://popculturecurator.tumblr.com/post/709868739/book-review-extra-lives

I was high as fuck and blindbought a Kindle copy of this based on your recommendations itt before realizing the author was Captain Cokey McCahzinNico

/wrists

Your narrative about being on drugs and reading books about video games is A++ imo.

Kotaku makes my netbook throw up. It took 5 minutes to load that page.

your netbook is clearly looking out for your best interests

UPDATE ON THAT SHITTY BISSEL BOOK: so far I am guardedly enjoying it?!?? it is as self-serving and self-congratulatory as a post-success Nick Hornby book but since the whole collection is basically attempting to be an aesthetic study of vidya games that is to be expected, and fortunately (and incredibly) he occasionally makes semi-trenchant points. nothing as risible as the GTA essay, although it's looming at the end of the book.

that being said, that essay about Resident Evil can swing from my ballhair. STOP USING THE SECOND FUCKING PERSON, SOME OF US DIDN'T GET TO PLAY VIDEO GAMES WHEN WE WERE BABBYS

Haha!

also did not realize that Bissell was the one behind that CliffyB NYT profile from a few years back; blech on that one too

oh wow, that guy is pretty terrible

TOM SHITTYBISSELL BOOK UPDATE

the Mass Effect essay is maybe the worst thing I've ever read of his, GTA and CliffyB essays included. the correlation between the quality of his writing and his personal affinity for whatever he's writing about is downright Hornbyesque.

downright Hornbyesque.

this is worse than being described as Mcsweeney-ish in my book

The best thing I have read about videogames for ages? http://www.boingboing.net/features/nomenludi.html

whoa

that's for real?

impressed.

great story...

that's for real?

Read further down in the comments. It's fiction.

ah, that's a bit more believable then.

Do you guys read RetroGamer magazine? The magazine is filled with articles very much like that story with maybe a little less fictionalization (though there is always a haze of fiction when dealing with nostalgia) and less drama (though not always -- last issue had an interview with John Romero)

keep meaning to get a sub

uh holy shit like 150 bucks for 13 issues, no.

Ha! Nostalgia is expensive in more ways than one, and one of those ways is money.

(Sometimes I think that if I could get funding to do any phd in the world and did not need a job afterward I would want to do nerd culture 1986-1988? Nostalgia is the wrong word really 'cos I was at, y'know, nursery at the time but it's definitely some kind of yearning?)

why those years specifically? Post-Robocop to pre-Burton Batman?

finally done with this shitass book, and here is what I've learned:

- many people in the game industry got their start by making mods with the Unreal Engine
- stories in games are inferior to those in movies
- "ludonarrative"
- Jonathan Blow is apparently the voice of reason within the game industry (LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL)
- Resident Evil made it okay for games to have stupid stories
- Tom Bissell should be dropped from a great height
- Kindle offers a "read the first chapter for free" feature which I really need to start taking advantage of before blindly buying shit while stoned

in summary, it was exponentially more fun to hate on this book than to actually read it

how does this guy's war journalism compare?

Haha, thank you for blogging.

why those years specifically? Post-Robocop to pre-Burton Batman?

So I have this series of six very small books, published 1988, in a series called 'Oss The Quick'. They're basically CYOA books for a very young audience (I'd say mid-ability eight-year-olds or bright 7s) that are, well, they're AD&D. Monsters are called things like 'The Nasty'. It's not actually possible to lose in most of them. But they star a rogue, a fighter and a magic user, and the setting is pure generic Gygax, through a kid-friendly sensibility. You even get a character sheet!

Anyway why I like them so much is that they were published by Oxford University Press! I'm not really sure why! I get the idea that there was a moment somewhere in these years when it seemed like geeks would surely inherit the earth but no-one quite knew in what aspect, whether computers would turn out to be the important thing or whether it would be painting lead figures, when the world seemed to be seeing and laying approving eyes for the first time on this new and multiplying sect.

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=dcbooks;cc=dcbooks;rgn=div2;view=toc;idno=5682627.0001.001;node=5682627.0001.001:2.1
^full version of This Gaming Life available online

Stack Exchange, but for gamers...
http://gaming.stackexchange.com

pc zone comes to an end
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10641398

I didn't know that it had hailed from Zero in 1992 though.

Ah, lost count of the number of floppies in my box (/mrcursor) that were reformatted PC Zone cover disks.

Er, was it three?

Three issues in, the decision was taken to give away a free CD Rom every issue, full of game demos.

Main PC Zone memory was buying the issue with the Quake demo/shareware/whatever it was while on holiday. Holiday was then mostly ruined cos I just wanted to get home again to play it.

hahaha

heh, sounds like good times

http://thoughtcatalog.com/2010/video-games-atari-macintosh-pc-computer/

leigh alexander is writing about every video game console she has ever owned

and for some reason doing so in the style of tao lin?

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these scare quotes are killing me, but she hasn't made a diversion yet about what her dude-bro is texting her, so it reads pretty purged of Tao Lin

oh man fuck this