rolling thread of stuff worth reading on videogames

in short -- do not want

more than a little wankery, but it had its moments i thought.

http://killscreendaily.com/

^ they're just irregularly poaching a writer from killscreen btw--i dig killscreen

http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/09/04/dont-quit-how-to-save-adventures-225/

yet another article about what's up with adventure games these days, but this one is actually good

ha, clever.
http://killscreendaily.com/articles/reviews/infinity-blade

"I insert the game card, gently, into the slot of my Aqua Blue system. As I walk over to a red chaise lounge the system slips out of my fumbling hands, falling onto the carpet. I flashback to my first kiss, in my parent’s garage—It gets betterthe more you do it, she told me—and with that in mind, I begin my quest."
aaaaaand i stopped reading there

gonna have to live through a lot more shitty games writing before the field matures... sigh

that said, maybe there's some kind of history to this sort of pap that i'm not getting, like cherished jazz reviews or some shit, i don't know

i think the history of this particular pap is early p4k writing

^

they even use the fonts pfork used to use

not reading, but this is awesome:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WPZbwDHz-0

A+ would watch again

The pastebin bit has somegood points

That was awesome, ZS

http://www.joystickdivision.com/2011/09/videogames_are_awesome_because.php

(I am not Gus Mastrapa)

http://killscreendaily.com/articles/everybodys-doing-it

the conclusion more belongs in a games o_O thread though, if there is one

haha we talked about that terrible piece in the p4k thread

there was much o_Oing

well why in the hell were you talking about videogames or indeed anything in a pitchfork thread

i think about 60% of that piece is pretty smart, anyway! it's just the rest of it is very much smdh or o_o or other territory better expressed by internet shorthand than by actual words

also talked abt it upthread

yeah i really cant see anything of value in that piece

i got sucked into the p4k thread bcuz they/we were talking about n+1

omg that last graf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO1OV5B_JDw

http://twitter.com/#!/leighalexander/status/113783739447902208

The pastebin bit has somegood points

― Blind Diode Jefferson (kingfish), Friday, September 9, 2011 1:14 PM (4 days ago) Bookmark

yeah, i consider it the final word on DNF

i'm seriously so fucking sick of every 'serious' (seriously gay lol) games writer who has Important Things To Say About Zelda/Mario. i have more respect for paid IGN shills than these dipshits revisiting the same shiggy suckfest over and over

i dont think there's ever been a games journalist who had anything of value to say about games. 99% of the time actual devs are the only people worth listening to (most of them are morons too obv, but thats still where you find the real shit) - JE Sawyer's formspring is worth a thousand leigh alexanders

hmmmmm

yeah yeah

dont give me the LAmp treatment pal!!!

lol

well i think, i suppose fairly self-interestedly although the amount of paid writing i do about videogames atp is essentially zero blah blah blah anyway, that the sort of big picture, look-at-the-culture, how are games experienced writing that non-developers like to produce has a fair bit of value, and that while the sort of near-adult 'what do i get from gaming' think pieces tend towards the solipsistic and the tedious there needs to be space for those type of questions

i would rather read a quartertothree game journal these days than another think piece about 'video games + art' or 'is [blank] the next braid'

i see what you're saying & it comes down to what you find interesting - im predisposed to a fascination with nuts and bolts discussions of How Things Work more than i am in, i dunno, narratives about how things make you feel - but to me the questions that accompany discussion about game programming & design are so vast and interesting that i dont even see the point in tepid distractions like wondering what Modern Warfare 2 says about our culture. to me its like the difference between jaws and kornheiser - one guy wants to educate you on the game, the other doesnt care about the game and just wants to talk about his made-up storylines. the latter approach has value in that some people enjoy it, but it means nothing to me

didnt know you did any games writin m8 :0

sure, i like How Things Work pieces as well but i think, at least in larger sense its impossible to talk about the mechanical or formal aspects of video games w/o thinking/discussing how 'we' xp them, what the consumer is getting out of them, 'what the mean to the player' all those cliches!

i mean i could v. happily never suffer through another 'are games art: y/n?' piece again but i reading about how other people xp'd a game does give me a some insight into ~how it works~ on a design level. good games criticism is really about thinking processes, which i think lends itself well to a written narrative.

'how we experience games' is important but again its something that devs tend to have a more interesting, more informed perspective on, one thats totally wrapped up in their development experience. when i want the perspective of people who only play games, i just talk to other gamers.

developers are never going to really xp a game the same way a player would, both have necessary and potentially interesting things to say about how a game works

i mean, you like what you like, im not really interested in convincing you otherwise, but i am interested in staking out space for writers/critics to work their way through the xp of gaming, or their reaction to a game. like that zelda piece is really terrible and ok partly im bitter that they rejected my piece on sakura wars but i dont think its a priori illegitimate

one thing we mb do agree on is that i think the type of writing im defending reaches too quickly for metaphor as a way of explaining/obscuring the actual process stuff that is imo 'important'

zap! clang! bang! video games aren't just for kids anymore!

hmmmmm

bjorksclovetofu

didnt know you did any games writin m8 :0
― https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i_qxQztHRI (Princess TamTam), Wednesday, September 14, 2011 3:05 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lamp short for leigh alexander my pseudonym

first of all,

hmmmmm

― Lamp, Wednesday, September 14, 2011 4:39 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

http://bossip.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/yung-humma-e1312834671395.jpg?w=600

second, w/r/t the actual conversation at hand, people writing about their experiences with games can be incredibly useful when I'm trying to determine whether I want to play a game; I've probably wasted a shitty used car's worth of money in my life on the sheer basis of reading someone describe a really satisfying time they had with a game and gone AW I WANT THAT.

however when that tactic is applied to cultural criticism I would rather inject diarrhea directly into my eyeballs than read it, typically because the writers involved can't imagine any sort of strange paralell universe where experiences/conclusions other than theirs might actually have some sort of value or relevance. they also only ever seem to approach the issue from a self-centered humanist perspective ("let me tell you about how this made me feel") rather than bring any discipline to the table; one reason why I like Sean Malstrom so much despite his shameful Palin-boner is the fact that at least he's looking at the experience of playing games in another context (specifically the business context). people tend to come up with better points when they have to prove they're experts on two things instead of just one, imo.

I feel like I could write a pretty enjoyable "gamer perspective only" piece with agreeable but self-centered, humanist points. Is there any respectable gamer sites that offer freelance writers a chance to make their front page? I'm thinking that I could write a better article than a lot of stuff that ends up in 1up's features section

i also look better than ron jeremy but for some reason no one wants me to film porn

I was going to make a ron jeremy did 9/11 joke but I don't want the cap'n to post a smearogram about that

I just read walkthroughs.

I have no idea if a gamer article of mine would be under appreciated. I never tried submitting one anywhere.

still holding out hope for quality

there are a lot of good blogs out there imo (as we discussed in that link thread)

I think I'll go home and write a feature article for 1up and see what happens. I'm thinking that my topic will be along the lines of "best old school multiplayer games"