Universal consistency in Thirty Flights of Loving

I’m one of the Wednesday Warriors, the kind of people who go to their comics shops every Wednesday to pick up newly released serial titles. When others question why I read four X-Men books a month, not understanding the allure

Breaking Up With "League of Legends."

Hi everybody, I’m Kevin and I have a problem with games. (Muffled chorus: Hi Kevin.) I’ve uninstalled Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri because I stopped doing anything else.  I’d sit down to play at my desk for fifteen minutes and then

Surviving Day Z: 10 tips that will save your life

The world of Day Z is a cruel one — so unpredictable and so volatile that even a seasoned veteran will hit the deck at the sound of a gunshot in the distance. Beginners have it even worse. In most

How Lone Survivor Gets Horror Right

‘Fear is only as deep as the mind allows’. This short Japanese proverb that I pilfered from the putrid bowels of the internet provides us with an insight into the nature of fear. It’s the mind that is the driving

Role playing games' puzzle paradox

Modern Japanese RPGs have moved to handheld consoles for a simple reason: the genre, as created, requires both major time commitment and a dedication to the relatively mindless. While big budget JRPG’s have become cinematic experiences, games like Etrian Odyssey

ROCKSMITH and the victory over gamification

Gamification is a sexy buzz word. It was born from the assumption that people value the things they struggle to obtain more than the things they freely receive. And so, the behaviorist wizard assigned points and levels to everything. His spell dictated that we would become more motivated if we became aware that every level passed or song beaten was a stepping stone, an achievement.

It was under the lure of this magic man that I purchased Rocksmith, a rhythm game you play with a real guitar and whose goal is to teach you how to play it. Perhaps now, with the ethereal motivation provided by gamification, I would be finally able to switch from the G chord to the C chord without having to stop and mentally command my fingers to do so. It was an impulse buy to be sure, but one that ended up being my most played game of 2011.

And here is the twist: gamification didn’t do a damn thing.

Tower defense evolved: The White Laboratory

Tower defense has faced every possible slander you can imagine. It’s “casual” strategy, a rich game like Warcraft 3 boiled down into enemies attacking, you defending. The genre as a whole leans on its tropes harder than anything besides perhaps

Shards Of Pretty, Broken Glass: Stained Impressions

Imagine yourself as an anonymous robed figure on an unknown, uninhabited planet. Maybe you look a hell of a lot like the Grim Reaper. Maybe you even wield a similar scythe. Now picture a mysterious castle,  haunted by the aftermath

Dog walk, dog listen, dog lost

Ruins is a 2011 PC game developed by Cardboard Computer and can be downloaded here. Self-pity runs deep through the cerebellum, rots the spinal cord to a few strands of disintegrating rubber, destroys everything outside of mind – other people, other

To the end (and back again) – Endless play in Nidhogg

If you were to trace my interest in video game endings over time, the graph would resemble a cascading wave of disinterest. I came into the gaming landscape at an age where my heightened sense of imagination was paired with