rolling thread of stuff worth reading on videogames

and how have i not been to the terrifyingly completist (e.g.) http://segaretro.org/ before?

http://segaretro.org/images/thumb/6/6a/TheBlackOnyx_SG1000_JP_Box.jpg/640px-TheBlackOnyx_SG1000_JP_Box.jpg

I've always loved the disparity between the boxart and screenshots on retro games.

fun: http://gamasutra.com/view/news/172990/The_psychology_of_Diablo_III_loot.php

good article

-an acquaintance gave me 'ready player one' to read - 5th generation snow crash xerox copy, ugh

― Faith in Humanity: Restored (dayo), Saturday, June 30, 2012 12:04 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark

this was like the da vinci code written by a tv tropes nerd as imagined by whiney

http://www.mcvpacific.com/news/read/interview-deus-ex-creator-warren-spector-talks-narrative-heavy-rain/098986
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-06-14-warren-spector-the-ultraviolence-has-to-stop

i'm afraid Spector hasn't put his money where his mouth is for quite some time, but i never played Epic Mickey

anna anthropy's book is terrible, hamfisted, reductive. the fucked up thing is that i basically agree with her thesis but man the way she goes about advancing it is progressive self-defeating bullshit 101.

i guess i should have known from her blog but i was really hoping for a good thoughtful book on videogames and how they could be better.

/goes back to saints row 3, beats prostitute to death with giant purple cock, sips coffee, laments, considers

it's published by random house? hunh

oh, never mind, it's seven stories press but on the random house website because they're the distributor

that's disappointing to hear about anthropy's book; i still kinda wanna give it a shot, but i'm already inclined to fear what you're saying about it

ffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck
http://www.ebay.com/itm/BIGGEST-COLLECTION-EVER-22-SEGA-NINTENDO-PC-ENGINE-FULLSETS-FACTORY-SEALED-/300736846867?pt=FR_Jeux_Vid#ht_163613wt_931

my mouth is literally hanging open

uh that is crazy

egad

sold for 1.2 million dollars.
holy shit in every way

the laserdiscs really make the package

man, some UPS guy is going to have a really bad day

isn't $1.2M still less than original retail value?

also "Unfortunately, Shaq-Fu never was released in Japan" is a sentence i never expected to read.

i wonder how much the lot is worth broken down by piece and based on previous ebay prices.

Reminds me of when i was a kid and i dreamed about winning the lottery and buying every single videogame ever made. Only this is real!

and you really would've had to have won the lottery to get it

That is insane

isn't $1.2M still less than original retail value?

― Philip Nunez, Monday, July 9, 2012 4:01 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

$175 per game? i doubt it...

In the questions at the bottom, someone asked if it includes all the consoles, and he said 'yes', that it also includes consoles either brand new in packaging, or at least mint in box. Still doubt that rounds the average out to significantly less than $175/game though...

I was looking at your collection and I was really impressed until I saw you were missing the Time Gal spine card

lol @ this guy.

how much were the games in japan? (plus adjust for inflation, import from japan, shipping etc...)
i'm thinking this might actually be a bargain.

yes, a bargain.

pennies a day. practically pays for itself.

you could probably flip it for $2M to some hollywood manchild.

Tom Cruise has got plenty of time on his hands at the moment.

Couldn't you argue that the men and women who make Battlefield and Modern Combat and Call of Duty are making the world a demonstrably worse place? I think you could. Sometimes I wonder how they sleep at night. Sometimes, when I can't sleep at night, I play Call of Duty.

Tom Bissell piece on shooters & Spec Ops: The Line, worth reading...
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8157257/line-explores-reasons-why-play-shooter-games

g1

castlevania bloodlines
butthole brothers: the opening
a boy and his abortion
gurglefest 9: browngurgle
simple beans: fancy kitten hugs
Chocoholic breastmilk
Floor club for men
Epic Flower
The Cavalcades of Sir Rudelman Horcrotch
Just Some Dude
Feather Tickle: Tickle the Pickle
Upside-Down Hedgehog Vengeance
Klondike Explorer: Return of Numbness
Patriarch of Tushybutt Kingdom
Collect Stamp: The Stamp Collection Game for Collectors of Stamps and Stamp-like Collector's items
Frantic Reading
Leisure Suit Larry 14: Sit at Home and Read a Book
Porthole: The Portholening
Practice Makes Perfetc
Sponge: The Official Game of the Movie
Thirsty: The Search for Water
Galileo's Tuxedo
Amputee Battle
Burning Sensation 12
Progress Bar 3: 75%
Slather (From the makers of Butter Lips)
Sondlifect: The Word that Means Nothing
Internet Cat Upload
Magic is Real: The Parent Convincing Game
Headband: The Game
Go Outside And DIE
Dashboard Smash
SmashBoard
Excessively Hungry Hippopotami
California Texas
The Blair Science Project
Cords vs. Wires
Carrot Top's Fitness Program
Phlegm Produce 2
Babysitter Blastoff
Trachea 800
A Gentleman and a Bentleman
Dong Sludge
Watermelon Pregnancy
Nostrilfist 2: Nostrilfist's Revenge
Various Indian Cuisines
Super Mario Brothels
Paper Cut: Decapitation
Hailstorm: The Basement's Adventure
Susan Goes to Liverpool
Boner Javelin
Happy: The Shitty Dwarf
Loose Power Cord
Hands Aren't Feet
The Man Who Killed Larry The Cable Guy (and his Subsequent Rise to Fame)
Tooth in the Wrong Place
Watching Mr. Belvedere: An Enthusiast's Journey
Flashing Pictures
Salad Bowl Slipperooni
Fetus Mouth
Marvel vs. A Wooden Leg
General Custard: A Pudding's Story
The Pair of Plegics
Divorce Brigade
Bridge Over Meat
R.T.D.: Random Turtle Division
French Fry and Potato
Ben and the Last Name Debacle!
The Last Bojangle
C.S.I. Bedrock
Vapidiot 3: Palin
Sadman Forlornia
Upchuckle
A Flair for the Uniform
Simple: A Game for Babies
Cart B. 4: The Horse
Snakewhip
The Lonely Eyeball
Triscuit Flambe
Cavalier Wimbledon
Larry King's Jacks
Larry King's Cup and Ball
Larry King's Wheel Make
I Want Earl
My First Tramp Stamp
The Computer Turn-Off Turn-On
Annoying Friend
Papier Machet Giraffe Neck
Opaque Window
Kitten Disembowel
Freedom 3: Abortion
Tree 2: The Deciduous Project
Palindrome 2: Emord Nilap
Beyond Pudding
Pages of Fury
The Blabberfest
Sweat Spot
Puddle of DOOM
Calamari: The Squiddening

idgi but lol

Tom Bissell lives in Portland now, I think, and I have issues with the part of his Extra Lives book where he goes on and on about how much he loved GTA4, a love that just so happened to coincide with his intake of mounds of blow, which could JUUUUUUUUST color his impressions a little.

it's kinda amazing to me that after doing all that coke he was cool with sitting down for marathon GTA sessions in his livingroom

Kinda strikes me as undeniable proof that dude is hella boring

but how can a drug abuser be boring yo???

ughhhh that bissell piece on spec ops the line is awful. his smarty pants hardman bullshit is fucking infuriating especially when there's a little picture of his stupid bearded lambchop-album-buying face down by the byline. fuck you bissell you are not elevating the discourse the right way and you make us all look bad.

smarty pants is not actually an insult.

Maybe, in the end, "blowing off steam" is the only kind of experience a shooter needs to enable. The shooter is merely a vent. OK. I suppose I can accept that. But I just went and looked into the vent of my apartment's air conditioner. You know what? It was filthy.

yeah it is

No, no it fucking isn't. What he is doing there is making a) a joke and b) a point at the same time. Either of these are largely out of the reach of most games journalists, it's nice that there's someone who can do both.

Also the article told me about things I didn't know about, and connected them to other things in a smart way - again that's just journalism, but it stands out.

The gentleman declines to answer, so Sam sticks his knife into the gentleman's clavicle. The gamer is then given an onscreen prompt to twirl around his controller's joystick, which in turn twirls around Sam's knife in the gentleman's wound. The screaming gentleman gives Sam the info he needs — and, suddenly, it's "moral choice" time, for Sam has to choose whether to kill or knock out his freshly tortured victim. Let's review: a moral choice — after an interactive torture sequence.

this is seriously fucked up.

goole otm, what the hell

i didn't think the article quite pushed all the way into the places i wanted it to go but like is the objection here that his metaphors are pretentious or that he called shooters filthy or what, because i thought that metaphor was serviceable and shooters are obviously filthy