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PAUSE: This "Purple Rain" NES title really should have been more popular
From the Workman Says Things tumblelog: There are 3 people on Earth who own one of these. I am one of them. We are painfully jealous. –Lana Polansky [via]
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Why don’t war games feature civilians?
Over at Slate, Michael Thomson has some thoughts about why keeping civilians out of the line of fire in videogames is standard practice, and why it’s a bad idea. Responding to Battlefield 3’s lack of civilian bystanders because, as executive producer Patrick Bach explains, he doesn’t “want to see vi
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Fictional games we’d like to see IRL
Flavorwire has a really cool list of fictional games they’d like to see played out in the real world. It includes Eschaton from Infinite Jest (it’s like Risk, but you’ve got to be really good at lobbing tennis balls), Double Cranko from M*A*S*H (think Go Fish but with booze), that terrifying war sim
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What a zombie thriller shouldn’t be about: numbers, meters and capacity
Grantland’s Tom Bissell writes on gamification, and the numbers game played all over Techland’s zombie survival game Dead Island. In a game about running from things that want to eat you, what is more important: the emotional experience of running from things that want to eat you, or knowing that th
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This is what it’s like to play baseball inside the Matrix
What you’re looking at is a real baseball game. This is science fact, and it’s brought to you by the new iPhone app, MLB’s AtBat. What in the bejeezus is going on, you ask? This real, live, honest-to-goodness baseball game is being rendered, via all kinds of space-age techno-magical what-have-you, w
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Germany lifts its 17-year ban on Doom
Good news, Germany readers! After seventeen years of being persona non grata in your nation, your government has finally lifted the ban on the controversial videogame Doom. At last, you can get your hands on the damn thing and see what the fuss is all about. The game had been barred from German shel
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Study shows it’s competition, not violence, that causes aggression
A study published on the website for the journal Psychology of Violence suggests that it’s not the bloody fatalities which inspire aggression, but the heated competition which leads to them. The study, led by Brock University PhD student Paul Adachi, tested players’ aggression levels after playing g
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R.I.P. Bill Kunkel
Bill Kunkel, often known as “The Game Doctor” and “Grandfather of Videogame Journalism,” passed away on Sunday, September 4th. He was 61. Kunkel led a diverse, exciting life. He wrote comic books, helped found the first videogame magazine entitled Electronic Games, invented the terms “Easter Egg” an
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In the war of writers and games, we are all winners
In the war to have games become a more accepted part of our culture, there is perhaps no more important battle than those who write scripts to games be viewed on equal standing with screenwriters, novelists and journalists. A videogame can be an unparalleled platform for in-depth storytelling, and i
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Cheat Sheet 9/7: Resistance 3 DLC announced, Free "full version" of Crimson Alliance not really full
Enjoy a fine afternoon of mainstream videogame news! –Get the latest details on Batman: Arkham City’s New Game Plus. –Resistance 3 Survival DLC pack has been announced. –Borderlands 2 promises to be friendly to your PC. -XBLA’s “free” Crimson Alliance download isn’t actually a full game. –Diablo
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Polish videogame to help ease changeover in Northern Africa
This is actually pretty cool. There’s this program called S.E.N.S.E. (Strategic Economic Needs and Security Exercise) from Poland that lets government officials try out various scenarios that might that a good ol’ fashioned market economy might run across, in the hopes that officials might know what
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Retro Gaming Australia lets you relive your childhood one commercial at a time
…well, that is, if you’re Australian. Retro Gaming Australia’s Youtube channel offers 64 uploads of videogame (and videogame product) commercials from the early ’90s, so just pour yourself a bowl of well-aged Legend of Zelda cereal and enjoy the nostalgia—heck, even if you’re not Australian. But bef