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Entries from March 2008

Press A to Go Back to Enjoying the Gameplay.

March 31st, 2008 · 3 Comments

Ah, the Quick Time Event.  How do I love thee?  Not very much, honestly.  There was a time when I did love them, back when they were first born in the games Dragon’s Lair and the slightly lesser known Space Ace arcade games… In “the day,” they were absolutely amazing. I can’t even begin to [...]

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Tags: critique · design · user interface

Videogames as Learning Device

March 30th, 2008 · 3 Comments

Not exactly conclusive scientific evidence, but Fake Plastic Rock finds proof that Rock Band can teach you to play the drums. Kevin from G4′s Attack of the show actually substitutes on drums for Coheed and Cambria. Like, the real band. Now if only I could show you legally how WWIIOnline taught me how to fly [...]

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Tags: general

Pottery Praise

March 28th, 2008 · No Comments

Every 3 months or so, Pottery Barn Kids releases a new catalog, showing off their poorly made and horribly overpriced wares for all of suburbia to drool over. And every 3 months, I typically see yet another pathetic attempt to grasp at the “gaming” zeitgeist by a bunch of ad/catalog people who evidently know nothing [...]

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Tags: business · general

Best. Photoshop. Ever.

March 28th, 2008 · 2 Comments

Okay, so the Daily Mail’s review of violent video games might be the most laughable tripe that side of the pond, but oh sweet zombie jebus, their photoshop skills are worse. They ran this image of Anne Diamond, their “expert” on violent video games (can you hear my eyes rolling?), which on the surface just [...]

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Tags: art · general · nitpicking

The Non Interactive Sequence

March 27th, 2008 · 8 Comments

Cutscenes. Cinematics. Full Motion Videos. Non Interactive Sequences. As long as there have been video games, there’s been story elements forced on the player. Sure, Pong didn’t have them, but Pac Man did. And as long as we’ve had cutscenes, they’ve been linear cutscenes. It really doesn’t matter if they’re pre-rendered or in-game and real-time, [...]

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Tags: design

Linkages

March 25th, 2008 · 1 Comment

I’ve got a lot I’d like to post about, but not a whole lot of time, so you get some kickass links for today. First: what I can only describe as videogames for dogs. Seriously, this must be what we look like to dogs when we play videogames. Unfortunately it turns out this dog would [...]

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Tags: general

Peripheral Sequels

March 24th, 2008 · 4 Comments

Was playing more Rock Band tonight (big surprise, I know), and started thinking about what they might do if when they release the sequel to it. There wasn’t a whole lot in the way of innovation between the Guitar Heroes; just a ton more difficulty piled on to keep their “subscriber” base happy with more [...]

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Tags: design · user interface

Rock Shopping

March 22nd, 2008 · No Comments

I finally was able to grab the new patch for Rock Band, the one that gives you the new store, and from a business perspective I find it an awesome experiment in user interface. Since November of 2007 there’s been quite a few songs released (71 by my count), and I’ve been downloading the ones [...]

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Tags: business · user interface

Unclear on the Concept

March 21st, 2008 · 1 Comment

It appears that EA has lost the pulse of the gamer again, so I figured maybe I could lend a hand and help them out. Microtransactions.  Let’s review: Awesome when the game is free to play. Awesome when it adds to an already robust game’s library. Shitty when you need it to make the game [...]

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Tags: business

Some Love For the 8bit SFX Homies

March 19th, 2008 · No Comments

Umpteen years ago, I played this kickass game that completely broke the level-hopping genre, called Bionic Commando. The idea that you didn’t jump, but swung everywhere was just amazing in a world full of Mario and Sonics. The gameplay was so utterly addicting to me that I felt punished when a “Super” Bionic Commando was [...]

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Tags: audio · design · nitpicking