06.12.15 |
Gaming |
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I expect stability and predictability from the big three (Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony) E3 pressers this year. First, we’re a year and half into this generation. It’s past the bumpy launch window, but not far enough for new hardware iterations. PS4 and Xbox One sales are already strong, which reinforces a conservative playbook. And many games for the show have been formally revealed early or leaked. Yet there are unknowns that the pressers next week could help answer.
Continue reading…
05.14.15 |
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Wonderful essay by Alexander Kriss at Kill Screen regarding Lucasarts’ golden age of adventure gaming and its impact on the burgeoning gaming market:
In the mid–1980s, the similar albeit slightly less profound question, “How do I know this is a videogame?” would be answered very differently than today. Such a query might have yielded answers like, “There are discrete levels that increase in difficulty, therefore it is a game,” or, “Progress is tracked by a score system, therefore it is a game,” or, certainly, “If the player fails, she reaches a ‘game over’ state, therefore it is a game.” The medium was young and existed in a kind of philosophical terrarium, bound by certain unwritten rules carried over from arcade era of the late ’70s.
Out of this experimental haze came Ron Gilbert, a young programmer and game designer at Lucasfilms Games (later to redubbed LucasArts). Beginning with 1987’s Maniac Mansion (co-designed with Gary Winnick), he embarked on the impressive project of dismantling the assumptions that had become so ingrained that most game designers had forgotten they were there. Like Descartes, Gilbert sought to find the latent truth of the (gaming) world through the power of the intellect.
04.23.15 |
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Patrick Lee over at The A.V. Club runs thorough analysis of Mass Effect’s well known Paragon vs. Renegade morality system. As Lee argues, 99% of the time, picking the “good” Paragon option results in success and no negative consequences. But what if there was more of an edge? Lee:
Would Paragon purists still be willing to free the captive rachni queen if she returned the rachni to their historical warmongering? Would they let that batarian walk free in order to rescue a dozen people if there was a real chance he would use his freedom to kill hundreds? It would obviously be overkill for every Paragon option to blow up in Shepard’s face, but by allowing Paragons to stroll infallibly through the galaxy, Mass Effect defangs a world it spends a lot of time insisting will bite.
03.25.15 |
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Gita Jackson, writing for Boing Boing:
Where would avant-garde cinema be without Maya Deren, whose authorship of her own work was challenged—as women’s authorship is almost always challenged? If the current Fine Arts climate can support both Kara Walker and Ryder Ripps, I am sure gaming can handle both Merrit Kopas’s Hugpunx and EA’s Battlefield: Hardline. The same corporations that sell us the idea of gamers as an imagined nation are experiencing a wave of diminishing returns on their franchises. What we see in gaming right now is not colonialism, but evolution: the changes that need to take place for the art form to survive and thrive.
02.27.15 |
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Give it up to Eurogamer’s Digital Foundary for being an unimpeachable source for hard-core tech/processing/graphics news within the gaming community. This scoop on the Xbox One – it’s past performance and how it’s likely to evolve with the SDK changes – is a great read.
02.03.15 |
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Developer Rami Ismail, writing an opinion piece for Polygon:
And what is there to gain on mobile anyway? The race to the bottom has pushed the prices down so far that it’s almost impossible to keep making games at all. The people that can buy seats on the gravy train buy more seats than ever, and those still believing you can board the gravy train after it passed their station are left with the illusion that they simply missed the train, instead of understanding that unless they got exceptionally lucky, there wouldn’t have been seats for them anyway.
Rami’s piece is about a lot more than just iOS and Android gaming, but I feel the above paragraph perfectly sums up my reservations about the platforms. With rare exceptions, it feels like the space is dominated by shady in app purchases with a lot of tired gameplay tropes.
01.29.15 |
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Gareth Damian Martin writing for Kill Screen Daily on Destiny’s latest expansion pack:
But, more importantly, this careful titling dodges the usual DLC label, meaning The Dark Below stays away from the word “content” as far as it possibly can. This is because, unlike in the traditional video game paradigm, where locations, characters and items equal content, The Dark Below is entirely structured around the idea of enterprise as content…
…In this way, The Dark Below seems to centralize a symbolic exchange of reward for labour, but in reality treats labour as a product in itself.
01.28.15 |
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As much as the back and forth is fun, at times insightful, I rarely consider NeoGAF as a the first source to turn to for deeply researched gaming news. But in terms of Xbox’s controversial indie parity clause, you can’t do better than user chubigans’s well researched piece on the subject. It’s a great explanation of what the clause is and why it’s ultimately hurting Microsoft on the indie front.
12.11.14 |
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From the moment I first saw the Destiny beta, from the UI to the art direction and even the main ‘feel’ of the game, I knew there was something distinctly different about its game design. So props to the design blog Betterment for laying out some of the biggest hooks Bungie’s epic first person shooter/MMO have to offer. As many reviewers have noted, even with a severe lack of content and repetitive mission nature, there’s something supremely addictive about its gameplay. To quote Betterment author Jason Amunwa:
Destiny uses multiple systems to tease our brain’s pleasure center with anticipation of a reward, combined with activating our nucleus accumbens by making the reward variable at every level. It’s essentially commandeering players’ anticipation – whether it’s getting loot, exchanging Engrams, or what-have-you – and using it as an itch to motivate just one more play.
Our feeble brains’ pleasure centers never stood a chance.
11.25.14 |
Gaming |
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With Black Friday and the holiday shopping season days away, I’ve gotten questions from friends and colleagues about which current gen console to buy. I usually first point people toward Kotaku’s recent editorial on the subject; it’s well written and even handed. But I’ve got my own take that’s slightly different.
Let’s start by removing Nintendo’s Wii U from this debate. It’s got a superb outing of Nintendo first party games yet virtually no third party support. If you’re a big Nintendo fan and little from the other consoles interests you, then buy a Wii U (if you love Nintendo, you probably already have.) But for almost everyone else, especially if it’s your only console purchase, there’s just not enough game diversity.
That leaves the PS4 and Xbox One. First and foremost, both consoles are winners. Both have a decent library of quality games. Both refined their UI over the past year to make navigation fairly straightforward. Both are selling well enough to ensure wide game support for the future. Both are evenly priced. Frankly, given the general lack of exclusives this generation, I’d argue most buyers won’t regret their decision. Yet there are a few important, sometimes subtle differences that can sway you towards either Sony’s or Microsoft’s console.
Deal breakers
Be sure to test a console’s controller in person before buying either the PS4 or Xbox One. It’s an underrated difference that’s both very personal and idiosyncratic. Visit a friend that already has a current gen console, or any retailer with demo units set up. Play a game and run the buttons and sticks through a full range of motion. Most critics rightly point out both console’s controllers have excellent handling given their refinement over multiple generations. But there are differences, especially in the triggers and the asymmetrical analog stick placement on the Xbox.
Also, if you care about multiplayer, poll your friends on what current gen system they own or plan on buying. If it’s dominated by either Xbox or PlayStation players, that could have a strong influence on which system to choose.
Finally, exclusive games and content are on the wane, but If you’re a hard core fan of certain franchises, that can make your decision much easier. Obsessed with Halo or the Forza series? Go Xbox One. Can’t wait for the next Uncharted or baseball game? That’s only on the PS4.
Smaller differences
If the controller, your friends list, or the rare exclusive game don’t convince you which way to go, we get into far murkier territory. In short, those that regularly use their console for non-gaming activities may find the Xbox One more appealing. Sony’s strengths lie in raw hardware for games and games alone. To break that down in more detail, for the Xbox One:
- Those who use a console for streaming, multimedia and other non-gaming activities will find more to love about the Xbox One. The PS4 has the usual streaming suspects like Netflix and Hulu, but the Xbox One adds Plex, DLNA, integration with Microsoft’s OneDrive for cloud storage, and much more. Granted, smartphones, tablets, and streaming boxes like the Roku or Apple TV can already provide much of this functionality. But jumping between apps on an Xbox One is fast, and if you want all of your media in one place, Microsoft’s latest has more to offer than the PS4.
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Big cable TV watchers could easily find the Xbox One’s cable box integration compelling. Via the system’s “snap” UI you can watch TV alongside a game, and switch between live TV and other apps fluidly. But the integration is controversial; I know several that find the integration too cumbersome (e.g. , occasional signal lag, don’t want to boot up the full Xbox for just TV) and have since decoupled their cable box from the Xbox One.
For the PS4:
- If graphics are one of your foremost concerns, many third party titles run slightly better on Sony’s console. Yet that advantage usually manifests in subtle ways, like a mildly higher resolution or more detailed textures and shadows. History suggests the gap should close as this console generation progresses, and many today can’t even notice the difference. Yet I still predict the PS4 will have a slight advantage in horsepower over the long run.
Future philosophies
If you’re still on the fence, I’ve noticed a small difference when it comes to the games Sony and Microsoft throw their weight behind (which may or may not match your own preferences):
- Microsoft leans towards more toward traditional gaming genres like sports, shooters, and driving. If you look at Microsoft’s exclusives so far, they almost all fall within this territory. Content looks similar in 2015, including a potentially innovative “blockbuster” interactive movie experience like Quantum Break and Halo 5. With EA Access, sports fans can get a rotating set of EA Sports titles for a low subscription price; it’s exclusive to Xbox. Microsoft also has strong partnerships for timed DLC, bundles, and advertising on longer running franchises like Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed.
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Sony’s taste can run slightly quirkier and more independent. Perhaps it’s a reflection of a more globally based audience, but Sony often invests in games that have a more of a niche following, or provide a twist on an existing genre. Yes, they’ve thrown a lot of money behind the huge Bungie shooter Destiny, but they’ve also supported (and have a timed exclusive with) the 90s adventure Grim Fandango. They’re also promoting a 2015 sequel to the cartoony, humorous Everybody’s Golf series. And while Microsoft’s ID@Xbox’s has been gaining traction, Sony has a deeper, more diverse relationship with indies. Many more indie titles are available for the PS4 than the Xbox One, a lead I don’t see evaporating in the near future.
Slight philosophical differences aside, most games are coming to both platforms, big or small, regardless of genre. And remember, virtually every difference noted above comes down to taste, not objective advantages. Some love their console for streaming ripped Blu-rays alongside their game sessions. Others prefer retro side scrollers by tiny studios. Some just want to play Call of Duty and NBA2K every year. There’s no one right answer; find what works best for you.