Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut is a Watershed Moment in Videogame Narrative

(Note: Just to be clear, there are some light spoilers regarding the ending of Mass Effect 3. If you haven’t played through it, I recommend going through and experiencing the “disappointing” ending before Tuesday so you can know what all

Ten tips for a better Dragon's Dogma experience.

It may be hiding under a few rough edges, but Dragon’s Dogma is one of the best fantasy experiences money can buy. As someone who is favors the adventure, over-the-top action and mystery that fantasy role-playing games often promise in the form of CGI trailers only to drop you into spreadsheet land, DD has already become my favorite game of this year, perhaps for all time. So allow me to enlighten you on the game’s most enticing features and some simple ways to get around a few minor flaws that seem to be driving people away.

Owning Games Isn't What it Used to be, and That Needs to Change

Much of our lives are moving online. Last night, I ordered Chinese takeout through Grubhub in-between talking with friends over Gchat and Twitter, and then later played a few (fruitless) hours of Modern Warfare 3‘s multiplayer, before returning to my

The new Amazing Spider-Man game is doing automated gameplay right.

We all hate quick time events. At least, we’re supposed to hate quick time events because, reasons? I never understood it myself. They can get overused like any other game mechanic, but well-integrated QTE’s let us do things that developers just haven’t quite figured out to turn into actual gameplay. I’d be happy to get rid of them once a sequence like the scorpion-water-horse-things fight in God of War 3 becomes feasible in real-time gameplay. Dragon’s Dogma has gotten pretty close since I can climb a hydra and sever one of its heads as I leap to the next one without a single “press x to not die” moment, but we still aren’t quite there. It’s all about at least having some control over your actions instead of being herded through a scripted sequence. Beenox seems to have gotten the right idea with its Web Rush system in The Amazing Spider-Man.

Don't Front. We All Love The Violence.

Violence is the name of the game. Well, not literally. And not for all games. There’s Nintendo and the indie scene and whatever new craze is lying in wait on the App Store. But the core of gaming right now remains unmistakably violent. As many people have noted,

The least interesting video game characters make the best action figures.

Based on my reaction to today’s news of a fully poseable, well-made action figure of Link and a quick look at my personal collection of plastic miniature gaming heroes I have come realize. The more deep or developed a character is, the less likely they will make a great action figure. Master Chief, Sonic, Kratos, Dante, Cloud, Squall, Sora, Altair and many more are all hanging out on my shelf and look great together in glorious crossover fashion, but I can’t say I’ve really ever cared about these characters when I play their games. They’re just a lot of fun to look at and play as.

E3 2012 is Upon us, but What Choices lie Ahead?

The mood is unmistakable. The current generation isn’t quite over, and the next one hasn’t gotten started yet. Unlike recent years, everyone has both eyes looking into the future even as both feet remain firmly planted in the present. It

Smart phone connectivity is a way better industry fad than motion controls.

Easily the neatest rising trend in the game industry right now is the connectivity we can have with our games when we’re not playing them. Thanks to smart phone connectivity, we can bid on auction house items in WoW and keep our galactic readiness in Mass Effect 3 at a reasonable level without even booting up a PC or console. There’s even an app for an interactive map of Skyrim out there.

And so early in the event that keeps our YouTube and Google Reader tabs constantly open we have already have seen how Nintendo and Microsoft are making sure we don’t ever escape from our little gaming worlds.

Feedback Loop: How Halo Could Improve Democracy Forever

It turns out that the characters we play and the stories they’re in can change our patterns of behavior and our attitude towards others. Armed with better stories, game developers can change the world.

Imagine the latest Halo game with an all new DLC. As Master Chief during election season, it’s your civic duty to get to a voting booth, no matter how many Grunts get in your way. This could be the near future if game writers decide to embrace the responsibilities that come along with the latest research from Tiltfactor’s Geoff Kaufman.

Kaufman’s recent study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, examines the phenomenon of ‘experience-taking.’ The principle is that certain types of fiction, specifically those where the participant can take on the identity of the protagonist, push the participant to merge the character with their selves, “feeling the emotions, thoughts, beliefs and internal responses of one of the characters as if they were their own.”

One particular part of the study shows promise to provide a solution to the political conflict arising from Halo 4’s scheduled release date.

That joke isn't funny anymore

Video games aren’t good at making you laugh. They aren’t because, in a video game, you’re supposed to make yourself laugh. Sure, they can have lines that make you chuckle. They can employ absurd sight gags. But the games that