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.

Serving the douche: When usability trumps character

Oh, I have a partner in this game? Wonderful! You take this, and this, and this, oh I might need this, but take this…. Partners in video games have it rough. They’ve been shafted ever since the palette-swapped Luigi. From

BATMAN: ARKHAM CITY and the douchebag in all of us

It’s late in Arkham Asylum. Dawn will break soon and it seems like the nightmare Joker would unleash onto Gotham was averted. The game is about to end, but, before it does, a call about Two-Face is overheard on the radio. It seems Batman: Arkham Asylum is all but over for Commissioner Gordon, you and me. But not Batman. He flies off to handle another crisis in Gotham City. He must endure. The game offers us a taste of what it is like being Bats, but just a taste. What that ending says is that never truly became him. His martyrdom must continue after the credits rolls.

Sometime after the first game, mayor Quincy Sharp, former warden of Arkham, together with the help of Dr. Hugo Strange, reallocated all criminals to a closed-off area in Gotham City and named that new prison Arkham City. The developer’s goal in doing this is pretty straight forward: to finally get the full experience of being Batman, as he scours the city for criminal activity.

In doing so, what they have managed to do was to corrupt all that understanding of what it means to be Batman that was so well-crafted in the first game. Batman is no longer a hero. He is a “video game hero”, with all game manias that entails.

Confronting violence in Nier

I’ve killed a lot of people in video games. There weren’t many games that chastised me for killing until Nier, though. Shadow of the Colossus certainly tried, but it’s difficult to feel guilty when you can unlock power ups via

L.A. NOIRE and the Story That Wasn't There

Hank Quinlan: “Come on, read my future for me.”

In some ways, a game based on Film Noir would be the anti-GTA. Ah, the GTA series! The pursuit of the American Dream! To fight that good fight requires a great deal of optimist, no? The optimist believes the future is within his grasp.

Tanya: “You haven’t got any.”

Noir Films, however, are filled with pessimists who already know that the game they are playing is futile. That what they are playing is actually a poker game of death.

“What do you mean?”

The world is merciless. It’s unforgiving. We are already doomed no matter what we do. In the search of the American Dream, the fall from glory is a surprise; in Film Noir, the surprise would be not to fall from glory.

L.A. Noire isn’t the anti-GTA. It certainly isn’t the gaming equivalent to L.A. Confidential… or Double Indemnity …or even Who Framed Roger Rabbit. L.A. Noire may be many things – but it certainly isn’t Noir.

“Your future is all used up.”

VANQUISH and the Best of All Possible Worlds

VANQUISH is a videogame developed and published by Platinum Games for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 version was played for the purpose of this review. It was directed by SHINJI MIKAMI. In Voltaire’s magnus opus, Candide,

Ken Levine doesn't want a new console just yet

It’s been said before that this generation’s hardware would live longer than its predecessors; the original Xbox lasted only four years before Microsoft rolled out the 360, which turns six this month. With no official word of its successor, it’s

Mortal Kombat (2011) – Review

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Deus Ex: Human Revolution Review

Detroit, 2027 AD. You are Adam Jensen. An ex-SWAT operative, now head of security at Sarif Industries–A biomedical augmentation manufacturer central to the game’s primary conflict. A group of terrorists have attacked the company you work for, murdered the woman

Battlefield 3's Platoons Take Clans "To The Next Level"

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