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Games, play, and culture with Jamin Warren
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This program will make all your games. Now what?
In his review of the new indie sensation Journey, Jamin Warren lamented the fact that many game developers now mistake “artistic value with realism,” thrust as they are with new technologies into an “artistic arms race to see who can stuff the most polygons on the screen, the most feathers on a bird
Vehement response to Mass Effect 3’s ending shows the changing, more protest-happy face of gamers.
The countless unexpected variables—the unprecedented furor, surprising governmental responsiveness, and overpowering community solidarity—of the SOPA/PIPA protests led many political analysts to conclude that the internet had now official become a force to be reckoned with. Though it’s hard to draw
The invisible knapsack: why is nerd culture still a white male culture?
This week is the annual SXSW festival, an event where many a figurehead from the fields of art, tech and culture descend on Austin, Texas for a mash-up of pseudo-democratic panels discussing all of these things. Covering the event for Salon, Irin Carmon noticed a particular steadfastness in white ma
Is it the no-cut that draws us in?
We have come to seen the popularization of no cutscenes in games. As opposed to film which often relies on cuts and methodical edits, this is to say that many games trend toward longer shots without interruption, particularly after 1998’s Half Life. As art often does, a new cinematic feature aims t
Play of the Day: Surprise Bullfight is less surprise bullfighting than it is just 8-bit mass animal slaughter.
I’m totally down with absurdity, especially the pixelated kind. That’s why I’m like Adult Swim’s Surprise Bullfight by developer/designer Messhof. What the game lacks in coherent meaning it certainly makes up for with addictive animal slaying and plain ole violent playtime. The premise is this: you
How much of a game should you play before you’re "done?"
Dirty secret: I can count the number of games I’ve actually finished on one hand. Okay, I might need a toe or two, but still. This is for a lot of reasons. One, a lot of the games I put serious hours into (sports games, I’m looking at you) are fairly open-ended. Two, who is a game developer to tell
In the land of free, how much should games cost?
The world is a weird place these days. Up is down, left is right, cats and dogs are now living together in peace. So crazy! Also, Ghostbusters was on the TV of the place we ate at yesterday. Anyways, The Escapist reports that Daniel Kim, CEO of Nexon, is calling for all games to be free. Mainly, he
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