rolling thread of stuff worth reading on videogames

thats barely a challop tbrr. hard to think of a worse one

jimmy maher at the digital antiquarian keeps getting better. right now he's doing a (three-part?) series on a world war i dogfighter, i guess as a prelude to his coverage of cinemaware's "wings" (1990). considered dropping the blog when he finished with the infocom games (his primary wheelhouse), but not as long as he keeps writing the way he has been.

http://www.filfre.net/

Thanks Will I needed that

I have a challopion belief that FF is the worst iteration of console RPGs

the latest ones, or the series in general? confused by "iteration" there

i will stab anyone who has a bad word to say about IV-VI. the rest are pretty flawed, but i haven't gotten through a full one since VII

i haven't played one since IX. i'm excited for the new one, though, and will take it on when i'm done with the witcher.

Karl you should play X. it is really good. the combat is amazing. i'm playing IX right now for the first time and while it's really good, it feels like one of the most linear of the series. there are long stretches where i am just watching stuff happen. the story is pretty cool though.

XV looks really cool and i've played the demos and it seems like a good mix of modern HD graphics and weird fantasy stuff (very cool random monster design from what I've seen) i would already have this if it was on Steam GET WITH IT SQUARE ENIX!

oh yeah, XIII was vastly underrated. the story was dumb and impenetrable but it looked amazing and the combat was so much fun. juggling enemies in the air was a blast. they should have just ditched the world map completely.

the latest ones, or the series in general?

all of them!

7 and 8 are ok ish.. X is fine.. everything since is garbage

XII was fun!

did we ever make a thread about horrible pay-to-win games like Game of War and the ridiculous, horrible things they do to people's lives?

like this guy?

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-game-of-war-california-stolen-money-20161212-story.html

Ater stealing $4.8 million from his employers, Kevin Lee Co went a spending spree and bought everything from season tickets for the Sacramento Kings to plastic surgery.

But his oddest expenditure was on the addictive smartphone game “Game of War.”

According to federal prosecutors, Co spent a lion’s share of the embezzled funds – approximately $1 million – on the game.

https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/how-cheat-codes-vanished-from-video-games

That's a fun read, thank you!

Wonder if the WAD community and its descendants might also fit into the narrative. The novelty-play Goldeneye modifications discussed in the article were surely inspired by things like Barney Doom, where fans dove into the code and started reverse-engineering it. And then at a certain point you don't really need or want 'codes' because the novelty effect of being able to moonwalk or whatever is actually now an unlockable thing if you collect all the hidden skate tapes.

That also makes me think that the novelty just wears off, particularly when the average gamer is 16 rather than 10. But maybe most important at all is that games got less hard. Something like Contra virtually begs for some cheat, any cheat, for you to have a snowball's chance of seeing most of the levels. That's pretty much a dead model.

no way dude I beat Contra before cheats
shoulda gotten a badge or patch or something

that badge is called "take a blurry Polaroid of the TV set and get Nintendo Power to print it"

I remember when Activision games asked for that, on 2600. think maybe we did it once?

no way dude I beat Contra before cheats
shoulda gotten a badge or patch or something

same, it was sheer memorization

im in that Contra club.

i was super impressed with the cheat codes in GTA:SA. "make everyone a clown" "make everyone an Elvis impersonator" "cars have moon gravity" etc.

http://kotaku.com/the-year-in-video-game-paintings-1790382713

not worth reading (apparently neither Orland nor his editors know which decade WWI belongs to; only one non-PS4/Windows/XB1 game makes the cut) but I thought this pattern was of interest. The parallel evolution of games and cinema end-of-the-year detritus?

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/12/ars-technicas-best-video-games-of-2016/

20. August 2
19. October 6
18. October 13
17. March 11
16. October 21
15. June 29
14. October 10
13. November 29
12. November 17
11. October 28
10. October 28
9. August 23
8. February 5
7. October 18
6. May 10
5. November 11
4. May 12
3. January 26
2. February 25
1. May 23

think it's worse for video games because you need a ton of time to really examine them (especially certain genres like multiplayer shooters and RPGs) unlike films. video game reviews generally have the deadline rush problem

http://www.vulture.com/2017/02/video-games-are-better-than-real-life.html

(as with most things on the internet, ignore the headline/URL)

kind of an interesting article. tbh i'm not sure if i agree with the final assertion. the world IS shit, but is that why video games are great? um... no.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/soviet-arcade-game-museum

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/musicofcastlevania/musicofcastlevania.htm

Castlevania is where the series starts and more or less defined what the follow two games will sound like. The heavily syncopated rhythm with the octave leaping bass in "Vampire Killer", the first level of the game, is present in nearly every level track of the game and is very common amongst these three games (as well as most Konami games of this era). Every song is also in a minor mode, which is a bit unique. While the levels have a distinct Konami esq. rock like drum accompaniment (indicative of their style and the era), there are still numerous baroque influences that dot the OST. The "Alberti Bass" figure that accompanies boss fights and the second phrase of the level five music are perhaps the biggest indicators of a Gothic/baroque influence. Even though "Alberti Bass" figures relate to classical technique, it's especially synonymous with older harpsichord and clavecin music so the intent is rather clear.

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/the-oral-history-of-oregon-trail

Interesting analysis by Liz Ryerson on Duke Nukem & toxic masculinity, in Jacobin of all places:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/04/duke-nukems-dystopian-fantasies/

http://kotaku.com/how-three-kids-beat-the-odds-and-translated-final-fanta-1794628286

^^^ enjoyed this, thanks.

Yah me too

https://www.polygon.com/2017/5/16/15622366/valve-gabe-newell-sales-origin-destructive

I love Steam sales but yeah, this is pretty otm

hard to argue with any of that, really

thx for posting

wow that is a truly terrible article. the premise is that valve is a business and not our buddy, written by someone who apparently thought valve was their buddy and is now bitter about it. powerful.

If you were to ask the average PC gamer, they’d swear up and down that there’s no way they’d ever give their money to such a corporation. They’d not only be caught dead before helping a company like that come to power, they might even join the resistance to stop them.

lol are you serious

Valve didn’t always seem like the sort of corporation which thought of its customers as meaningless numbers in a colossal profit machine

so does this guy realize that Microsoft exists and has been doing this for not just games but all global software since MS-DOS

that was awesome

Adam I think you're missing the point

I mean, the thrust of the piece is that lots of gamers who will rail against Microsoft, and EA, and various other big evil companies, continue to put Steam and Valve on a pedestal, when its practices are right up there with other terrible tech companies. I enjoyed it. I didn't know about the Australian court case or about the insane "workshop" aspect at all.

the workshops section is the very worst part despite stiff competition. completing ignoring the reasons why anyone might benefit from engaging with the steam platform, like oh idk, an insanely huge install base and a level of exposure that doesn't exist anywhere else.

"Maybe it's time for all of us to wake up." jfc

lots of gamers who will rail against Microsoft, and EA, and various other big evil companies, continue to put Steam and Valve on a pedestal

they do? are there really lots of articles praising Valve and Steam these days necessitating this? feels like one of those controversies that only exists on message boards and in comments.

i never played Half Life and am pretty oblivious to any hype Valve as a company gets. i signed up for Steam a few years ago and just like anything on the internet plenty of people knock it, plenty of people like it.

Steam is Good, and Origin is Bad. Steam is run by Good Guy Valve, and Origin is the devilspawn of EA, the Evil Corporation Who Doesn't Care About You. We know these things to be true ... right?

i don't really have a borse in this race. it seems like you really need to be bought into this thing that is similar to the Console Wars but about digital game download services for the same platform. ridiculous consumerist purity wars. i thought Polygon was started so there could be more intelligent game writing? sad that they have sunk to perpetuating outrage cycles by validating the vapid consumerist purity wars of videogame message board detritus. there is some interesting stuff in here, the legal cases are good to note in particular, but i wish they would tone the divisiveness down rather than capitalizing on it.

JOIN THE RESISTANCE

guys, this massive multibillion dollar corporation is EVIL

WAKE UP SHEEPLE

Fairly certain that you guys are helping prove his point

I DON'T BUY GAMES ANYWHERE ELSE
SO FUCK YOU IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT

IT'S JUST CAPITALISM LOSERS

i used to pirate games and then signed up for Steam to be legit and use multiplayer but i'm cool with going back to pirating games if it is helping The Resistance