having read the whole thing even the bit that annoyed me is more of a gag in context, actually : /
― thomp, Wednesday, 24 December 2008 00:23 (fifteen years ago) link
I liked the lanchester article. I didn't agree with everything, but I thought it was a well-considered piece on the whole.
― Your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet (polyphonic), Wednesday, 24 December 2008 00:32 (fifteen years ago) link
Great series of articles from 1up: they tracked down the composer for Contra, Hidenori Maezawa:
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3172388
I absolutely loved these games soundtracks, anyone else who's an insane nerd over those NES scores must read these now.
― Nhex, Wednesday, 21 January 2009 20:18 (fifteen years ago) link
I thought this guy's takes on TWEWY, Layton and L4D were pretty spot on.
http://www.hiwiller.com/2009/02/10/best-games-of-2008/
― Nhex, Tuesday, 17 February 2009 20:23 (fifteen years ago) link
How is there no X-Com thread?
Anyway, here's an interesting read:
http://www.edge-online.com/magazine/the-making-of-x-com-enemy-unknown
Fascinating that the whole strategy element was imagined by the publisher, not the Gallops, so they could create an epic product that would compete with Civilization, and explains why (sadly) it doesn't exist in their later products at all.
― Nhex, Sunday, 17 May 2009 23:47 (fifteen years ago) link
Sirlin on subtractive game design. Good article.
― Nhex, Saturday, 4 July 2009 05:14 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.auntiepixelante.com/?p=459
― bamcquern, Sunday, 5 July 2009 02:15 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.google.com/patents?id=aAuzAAAAEBAJ&pg=PA3&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=2
― thomp, Sunday, 5 July 2009 02:42 (fourteen years ago) link
really liked that auntie pixelante piece
― Nhex, Sunday, 5 July 2009 03:35 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_210/6252-Time-to-Move-On
I can't believe that anti-Leigh Alexander bit quoted isn't some kind of over-the-top parody!
― Nhex, Tuesday, 14 July 2009 22:25 (fourteen years ago) link
That article in general is really problematic. I imagine much of the "new" popularity of games is due to gamers growing up. Not due to games somehow magically finding a new audience.
― Mordy, Tuesday, 14 July 2009 22:30 (fourteen years ago) link
cool pixelante piece
aw super mario land
so dope
― canks: for the memories (s1ocki), Tuesday, 14 July 2009 22:35 (fourteen years ago) link
i like his thesis, but there's not much meat there
"In those days it was fairly common for an article in The Escapist to drag on for more than 3,000 words"
gosh, not three thousand words. that's, like, a lot of words.
nhex did you click through to the whole thing? in places it's almost as batshit as that patent doc:
"The solution to the riddle that woman has always been for man is childbirth. The sexes are distinguished by many other minor differences, but this is the most important, the most fundamental one. Thus man's primeval instinct is for war, whilst woman's for childbearing. With this insight in one's mind there's no sexually conditioned problem one cannot solve. The reason, therefore, that men are so easily seduced by virtual worlds whereas women are generally indifferent towards them (and in fact usually fail to even see the point in them), is because man's vital function, war, can be just as easily performed in virtual worlds as in the real one (and in fact even more easily there), whereas woman's vital function, childbirth, cannot be performed in them at all -- thus spoke Zarathustra."
― thomp, Tuesday, 14 July 2009 23:01 (fourteen years ago) link
Make childbirth simulators!
― Mordy, Tuesday, 14 July 2009 23:04 (fourteen years ago) link
now i am on his forum.
"Yes, Schopenhauer is inappropriate, but random modern philosophasters wouldn't be. For your information, it is the anti-racists and the anti-sexists who are the bigots: there is no more racist person than the anti-racist, and no more sexist than the anti-sexist. "
― thomp, Tuesday, 14 July 2009 23:06 (fourteen years ago) link
seriously i know this isn't a productive addition but can someone fucking stab this cunt plz
"Another thing I've already talked about here (in the "Icy's Genius" thread). Style is not a "decision". Only someone who has never created anything could think that it is. Style, as Schopenhauer somewhere explains, is a direct reflection of the author's character. And character is NEVER a decision. It is "an order of fate" as Baudrillard would put it. All I did was express myself as genuinely, as honestly, as directly as I could.
Man, it gets tiring having to clear up the same little misunderstandings for people again and again. I live on a planet with 6 billion people, all of whom operate under a number of unfathomably crude and simple-minded assumptions. What is education doing, eh? Still teaching people about "equal rights", "freedom", "justice", "proofs" and other such mythical beasts no doubt."
*ahem*
ohhh ... senpai ...
― thomp, Tuesday, 14 July 2009 23:08 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah, the levels of craziness are just amazing in that one! I just skimmed over that guy's article, didn't even want to look at the rest of the site, once I realized that wow he might be actually serious and this isn't an Onion-style piece. It's like if Dave Sim was into video games.
Pretty much agree with you thomp on Pitt's article, but I guess I appreciate the intent nonetheless - I really am surprised how video games really "returned" to the mainstream in the last couple of years (beyond the typical Madden type stuff during the last gen) with the Wii and DS, with much older and female audiences really catching on - lots of anecdotal evidence for me personally, yet weirdly it seems the 'hardcore' are getting moreso in response to this. Not saying if any of it is good or bad, but most analyses tend to get obnoxiously navel-gazing more than insightful anyway... hrm
― Nhex, Tuesday, 14 July 2009 23:30 (fourteen years ago) link
The misogyny in the post is pretty horrific. But, that said, he picks targets that really are ripe for ridicule.
― Mordy, Tuesday, 14 July 2009 23:34 (fourteen years ago) link
mordy if you at his forum where ppl are like "i agree with you that leigh alexander and c. are overhyped and not very good but do you really think calling them a lot of different words for slut is clever?" he is like "you just don't understand how above considerations like that i am and so i am banning you"
i dunno: i quite like the idea of leigh alexander. there aren't really many outlets that would commission her to seriously think through some of her stuff in an organised way, though, is the thing.
nhex when i went to edinburgh with a crowd of ppl i'd known since sixth form earlier this year it was only the girls that brought videogames. (tho one of them was dating a guy that was carrying around what was basically a handbag with the gears of war logo on it, which i don't know what to think.) i guess in terms of ppl i know who at least halfway make a hobby of videogames it's an even split. but it is pretty much only girls i hear saying "oh videogames are lame." (including one person who IS WRITING A POSTGRADUATE THESIS ON THE COMIC BOOK BONE, which i gotta say, the hour i spent trying to beat brigan in odin sphere just now is a more culturally enlightening use of my time or anyone's, wait, i can't remember what my point was
― thomp, Tuesday, 14 July 2009 23:59 (fourteen years ago) link
not really something to 'read' but i can't think of a better thread to put it:
http://tasvideos.org/PasswordGenerators.html
― thomp, Wednesday, 15 July 2009 00:00 (fourteen years ago) link
i have to admit that i am sort of bored w/the whole hardcore vs. wii grandmas debate at this point - doesnt seem to really be much more to say
― PLURrrrrrggghhhh (jjjusten), Wednesday, 15 July 2009 00:08 (fourteen years ago) link
not in reference to to what you were saying thomp - i think that the shifts in the male/female divide in gamers is way more interesting
― PLURrrrrrggghhhh (jjjusten), Wednesday, 15 July 2009 00:09 (fourteen years ago) link
http://kidicarus222.blogspot.com/2009/06/its-secret-to-everybody.htmlShit is RIGOROUS!
― ⇑⇑⇓⇓⇐⇒⇐⇒ΛΒΒΛŠΤΛΓΤ (forksclovetofu), Saturday, 18 July 2009 20:34 (fourteen years ago) link
jesus christ dude
― wax onleck, wax affleck (jjjusten), Saturday, 18 July 2009 20:57 (fourteen years ago) link
omg the article is so long, but i will read it all eventually
― Nhex, Sunday, 19 July 2009 07:51 (fourteen years ago) link
that thing is depressing
― thomp, Sunday, 19 July 2009 11:55 (fourteen years ago) link
"Final Fantasy VIII uses the series’ rich history of meaningful names to enhance the game’s plot."
― thomp, Sunday, 19 July 2009 12:00 (fourteen years ago) link
Also warning - that article has a sort of crazy amount of spoilers for Mother 3 and many many other games.
― Nhex, Sunday, 19 July 2009 18:29 (fourteen years ago) link
holy shit
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 16:58 (fourteen years ago) link
Does anyone have Martin Amis's book on Space Invaders to scan in?I haven't read Martin Amis but I enjoy making fun of him and that Space Invaders book looks like a goldmine.
― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 17:26 (fourteen years ago) link
he wrote a BOOK on space invaders? like a 33 1/3?
― 1p3 freely (s1ocki), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 17:31 (fourteen years ago) link
hey u know what, someone should do a 33 1/3 series but on video games!
― 1p3 freely (s1ocki), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 17:32 (fourteen years ago) link
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
― PLEASE SIT TIGHT WHILE WE MAKE NEW ARRANGEMENTS (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 17:32 (fourteen years ago) link
would read
― Ømår Littel (Jordan), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 17:33 (fourteen years ago) link
haha i would feel sickened by the idea but mainly because i feel i would do it better than whoever ended up writing them : /
nunez you may have seen these?
http://www.martinamisweb.com/commentary_files/ma_space_invaders.pdfhttp://www.villagevoice.com/2005-09-20/books/their-back-pages/
tbh i think reading the whole thing would make me like him, at least a little: his new maps of hell mb
― thomp, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 17:36 (fourteen years ago) link
Iwata Asks for Punchout http://us.wii.com/iwata_asks/punchout/vol1_page1.jsp
― zappi, Friday, 7 August 2009 18:01 (fourteen years ago) link
Oh whoops didn't realize this link had already been posted (or even that there was an ignored Punch Out thread)
― Nhex, Friday, 7 August 2009 21:21 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/the-edge-of-reason?page=1
the tale of an acclaimed iPhone game and how it's been hogtied by the actions of an unconscionable douchelord
― passed on the lead in "all i can do is crossups cuz ihave no skills" (jamescobo), Saturday, 8 August 2009 06:45 (fourteen years ago) link
geez that sounds awful....
― Nhex, Saturday, 8 August 2009 08:31 (fourteen years ago) link
What an asshole.
― Mr. Snrub, Tuesday, 11 August 2009 02:06 (fourteen years ago) link
This NYTimes article on Beatles Rock Band is EPIC:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/16/magazine/16beatles-t.html
― Your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet (polyphonic), Wednesday, 12 August 2009 17:22 (fourteen years ago) link
terrible title and probably could've been edited down a couple pages, but interesting
― Nhex, Wednesday, 12 August 2009 19:05 (fourteen years ago) link
followed by bleep blorp buzz! video games, not just for nerds anymore
― Nhex, Wednesday, 12 August 2009 19:06 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_214/6358-Artificial-Thrills
― thomp, Thursday, 13 August 2009 20:42 (fourteen years ago) link
I think the subject matter of that article is absolutely worth examining, but I can't feel everytime I read one that covers these games they fall pretty short of achieving real insight into those games, the communities around them, etc. I mean it's a pretty diehard subculture that goes through the trouble of hacking these games, making story and interface translations and so on... but of course these dudes are just pervs so why look too deeply, right? That one above kind of tries, a little...
Interview: Stardock's Wardell On Matchmaking Out The 'Jerks'
Stardock trying some kind of social data/preference gathering for matchmaking in their Impulse service. Pretty good idea, I think - SFIV and GFWL would be helped greatly by this kind of thing, as it is you can just submit good/bad reports, preferring/avoiding players, but it's pretty blunt, lacking useful nuance. Of course, it's just as possible the griefers could hijack and ruin the system, or people simply being dishonest or unintentionally misusing the system. Worth a try, though.
― Nhex, Thursday, 27 August 2009 00:14 (fourteen years ago) link
ilg favourite leigh alexander used to write a regular column about japanese sex games
Stardock trying some kind of social data/preference gathering for matchmaking in their Impulse service
ok in context i thought you meant, like, actual matchmaking. like qiran.com or something
― thomp, Thursday, 27 August 2009 16:03 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_222/6614-Not-That-Theres-Anything-Wrong-With-That
― thomp, Wednesday, 7 October 2009 21:21 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4151/valves_writers_and_the_creative_.php
― Nhex, Tuesday, 3 November 2009 05:16 (fourteen years ago) link
admit i like this because primarily because i support the workplace ideas
http://www.sirlin.net/blog/2009/11/5/making-games-faster.html
They said that if you see your time as an unending ocean ("hey, I'll be here for another 15 hours anyway today, and again tomorrow"), then it doesn't even phase you if the solution to a problem would take 5 hours of menial labor from you. But when your time is limited, you think about alternate solutions, or question the framing of the problem that is leading to the tedious work.
i look at life this way - it is an unending ocean, so everything takes forever and hence nothing is ever finished
― Nhex, Friday, 6 November 2009 22:20 (fourteen years ago) link