As strange as it may sound, getting my kids to play games is important to me. My daughter’s turning three early next year, my son’s newly born, and I’m already working out what we can play together. Does that make me a bad parent?
No. At least, I hope not. And, here’s why.
I’ve got a problem. A FIFA 10 problem. It’s 12:16am and I know that flamenco music is going to come bursting out of my phone at 7:00am like a flamboyant air raid siren, urging me out of bed. And that’s if I’m lucky enough not to be torn from my slumber by the howls of a hungry infant first. But instead of thinking about climbing under my doona and heading off to dreamland, I’m contemplating more FIFA 10. I can get through the day fine on five or six hours sleep, yeah? I’m sure that I can win the next one, and then I’ll head to bed. Right now my record stands at 10 wins 104 losses, so it’d be talking me up to say that I’m average, but I’ve lost the last two games by just a single goal. The thrill of victory is just around the corner, I can feel it. I know I can do this. I can make it work. Continue reading →
I’d always figured that videogame characters were so unlike ‘real-world’ people that they couldn’t prepare me for anyone that might be thrust into my life. But walking my nine-month-old daughter around my kitchen, like a living marionette, I was suddenly hit by how much these miniature humans have in common with the characters we play in our games. And it’s more than just their uncanny ability to double jump. Continue reading →
It seems as though point-scoring systems, once an indispensable part of videogames, have slowly been dying out. High score tables are far from extinct, but among the immersive single-player games that are considered the flagships of the medium – commercial colossi such as Half-Life, Uncharted, Fallout, Metroid Prime, Super Mario Galaxy and Grand Theft Auto, and critical high water marks such as Braid, Portal, World of Goo and BioShock – few use scoring in any significant way.
Why has the high score fallen out of favour? And are we overlooking an element of games that has not outlived its usefulness?
In Part 1 of Who killed the high score? I wrote about Halo 3‘s campaign scoring system, and how it greatly improved my experience of replaying that game. That got me thinking about another well-realised scoring system, in a game at the very opposite end of the developer budget scale: Spelunky. Continue reading →
Part of the reason games make such an interesting topic is because they are so multi-faceted. You can talk about a game as an abstract design, as an individual experience, as a part of a broader culture, as an economic product, as a technical showpiece and many other things besides.
Sometimes it’s not about a game at all; it’s about the people. Continue reading →
God damn it.
It’s 2am. I’m tired. My back hurts. My eyes hurt. I can’t think clearly. I want to go to bed. I can’t stop playing Fire Emblem, because it’s so much god damn fun I want to stab myself with a pencil.
Playing Fire Emblem is like being in an abusive relationship. It’s a frightening, nerve-sharpening, anxiety-inducing experience. The game makes you hate it for its cruelty, and love it for its rare, begrudging approval, and hate yourself for not being good enough for it. Continue reading →
Sleep paralysis is odd, scary and enthralling all at the same time. It’s a phenomenon that not everybody experiences, but if you don’t, I’m telling you, you’re missing out. You emerge from slumber to find you can’t move, sometimes feeling a presence in your house, occasionally being able to hear voices as you lie there impotent to movement. It’s like a waking nightmare while it lasts, but a blast to look back on. The powerlessness and confusion seem like things any sane person would want to avoid, but remember, I’m someone who wakes up convinced that people are talking in my walls. This kind of experience – one that steals away your agency, yet manages to still place you within a world you are involved in - is rarely, if ever, seen in games. However, the latest creation baring the Silent Hill moniker manages to submerse you in these types of feelings in an even purer form than past iterations of the series. Continue reading →
