Posts Tagged: Crackdown 2

Game Design — 8 Comments
23
Jul 10

Lay down your guns

Sculpture at the United Nations building, New York. Original image by freshwater2006 on Flickr.

I love violent games.

I love shooting. I heart punching. I make “brrrm!” noises when I move tanks around, and cackle gleefully when I make those tanks demolish other tanks or buildings. Who cheers for war? I cheer for war.

If it’s done well.

Luckily, violence is one of the easiest things to simulate in a videogame. People both inside and outside the culture of games wonder whether the popularity of realistic warfare simulators is a sign that today’s youth are becoming brutalised (as though people haven’t always been fascinated by war), but sit Jack Thompson, Michael Atkinson, Hillary Clinton and Joseph Liberman down in a Basic Game Programming 101 class and I guarantee you they will all start by making a 2D shooter (if they think nobody is watching). Continue reading →

Culture / Industry — 4 Comments
6
Apr 10

On inclusivity

Of the many embarrassing elements of videogames, surely none are more obvious than a more-than-occasional lack of inclusivity. From homophobes on Xbox Live to breast physics, it’s something that comes up too often for me to feel like the medium has really matured. Two tidbits over the last few days have really caught my attention on this issue. Continue reading →