Feedback Loop: Why video games should drag us kicking and screaming

Two weeks ago I went to a panel with Warren Spector at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne. The conversation between Spector and Paul Callaghan, director of Melbourne’s Freeplay festival, was a fascinating look into the creative

The world may be coming to an end in 2012, but the Internet is just getting started

Today marks the beginning of two new Kickstarter campaigns. The first is for a new product that will potentially disrupt the current models governing the manufacture, publication, and distribution of video games. The second however, a modification to an already

5 video game action figures you didn't know you wanted

Who’d have thought that adults with disposable income and a love of video games might throw their money at well-crafted action figures of their favorite digital avatars? From weird, jointed action figures of Sonic targeted at children to the various offerings from Square Enix’s Play Arts masterfully sculpted with collectors in mind, video game action figures are more popular than ever. Although there are some amazing, long-awaited, criminally underrepresented and wallet-draining video game figures in production, this list will be limited to figures that are out and will be waiting for you when your next browser tab arrives at Amazon or eBay.

Fixing Final Fantasy: A conversation, part two

Think Final Fantasy is a little bit broken? So do Nightmare Mode editors Tom Auxier and Adam Harshberger. The difference between you and they is that they had the time and inclination to have a minutiae-obsessed conversation about how to

The Ugly Paulistano

Every tourist is an ambassador for its country. As a man who mostly communicates with bullets, Max Payne isn’t perhaps the best man to represent its country.

Max Payne has always communicated through bullets, though. In Max Payne 3, the only difference is that he is now restrained from relying on any other means. As an ignorant foreigner, unwilling to learn the local language and expecting the impoverish locals to know his, Max forces us to play the role of the ignorant foreigner.

I’ve been living in São Paulo, or Sampa for short, for almost a decade now. A German friend of mine asked me how it felt to play as an alienated foreigner while being able to understand everything being said by the locals at the same time.

Finding out the answer scared me.

Fixing Final Fantasy: A conversation, part one

Think Final Fantasy is a little bit broken?  So do Nightmare Mode editors Tom Auxier and Adam Harshberger.  The difference between you and they is that they had the time and inclination to have a minutiae-obsessed conversation about how to make

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

Thanks to this videogame related ruling, I'm moving to Europe.

I’m moving to Europe. I’ve always wanted to, not least of all because it’s old, beautiful, and full of real castles. But there are other perks as well. For instance: mandatory paid vacation. That’s why Europeans have so much time

Entitled, Insatiable Whiners. Yea, I'm Looking at You Gamers

Gamers, that most thankless sub-culture of righteous, misanthropic critics. We are never pleased, often discontented, and consistently better informed (or so we like to think) than our video game loving counterparts in every other part of the industry proper. Who could love

3 fictional universes that should go MMO

It’s really easy to imagine a well-established fictional world as an MMO. Any imaginative world beyond our own has factions, races, neat archetypes and cities that could be strung together into another WoW clone. As much as we all would like to see innovation beyond that, here’s my top three “why by Odin’s raven does this not exist?” contenders for fictional universes that haven’t already been made into MMO’s. Expect the “verse” suffix attached inccorectly to many words and plenty of foolish optimism.