July 18, 2009 Eric Swain Critical Responses, Recent Posts On the Wii and Controls The following is a comment I posted over on the latest GameCritic's podcast. It may seem a little rantish, but that's why I'm going to expand on it at the end. | more
July 12, 2009 Eric Swain Recent Posts, Thoughts Here was the Plan, Here is the Plan I haven't posted anything for almost a month. This is not due to lack of trying. My original plan was to finish up the last of my Beyond Good and Evil related posts now taking a total of 3 month of my life to complete while the game took me less than two weeks. (Writing that post is like pulling teeth.) | more
June 9, 2009 Eric Swain External Sources, Recent Posts Three Appearances on the CDC Podcast I wasted far too much time trying to figure it out or putting it off feeling something would come to me. Well here they are. The show notes pages of the three podcast. They have instructions on how to get it. If you can please rate it on iTunes and become a regular listener if you like intelligent people discussing games intelligently. Episode 1 Episode 2 - Descent into Dissonance Episode 3 - Showing, Telling, Performing Narrative Don't forget those are only the episodes I appear on, there is another great episode afterwords. | more
May 31, 2009 Eric Swain Critical Responses, Recent Posts May’s ’09 Round Table Entry – The Great Wave off Kanagawa A Game Is Worth a Thousand Words: What would one of your favorite pieces of non-interactive art look like if it had been created as a game first? May's topic challenges you to imagine that the artist had been a game designer and supersede the source artwork-whether it be a painting, a sculpture, an installation, or any other piece that can be appreciated in a primarily visual way-to imagine a game that might have tried to communicate the same themes, the same message, to its audience. | more
May 25, 2009 Eric Swain Game Essays, Recent Posts Truth, Propoganda, and the Power of People in Beyond Good and Evil Throughout Beyond Good and Evil we are treated the cycling propaganda messages, news reports for either the Alpha Sections or the Iris Network. Each group purports the others to be the villains not working for the interest of the people of Hillys. Being that it must be one or the other the goal of the game is to search for the truth. | more
April 30, 2009 Eric Swain Critical Responses, Recent Posts April’s ’09 Round Table Entry – Torture Taking Games Seriously, Making Game Seriously: This month's Round Table challenges you to design a game that deals with a social issue that personally troubles you. The recent months have seen controversy sweep through the video game industry. Whether people are objecting to the use of imagery widely considered to evoke racial stereotypes, or to the gameplay based on violent sexual crimes, or to the fact that anyone would complain about either topic-the discussion has been fierce. | more
April 14, 2009 Eric Swain Game Essays, Recent Posts The Storyline Behind Beyond Good and Evil During the game's tenure as the Vintage Game Club's focus and playthrough, a lot of the discussion focused on the story and the player's confusion that came about from it. Indeed it is confusing if you aren't playing close attention and search out many of the details from conversations. Even then you have to make a number of inferences to get the whole picture. | more
April 7, 2009 Eric Swain External Sources, Recent Posts Video Game Hall of Fame and Signs of Better Things Yesterday over at Kotaku they had an article discussing the idea of a Video Game hall of fame. Where would this museum be? Ottumwa Iowa. Now before you go, 'what the hell is Ottumwa?' it does have some semblance of legitimacy for the honor. That city is known as the Video Game Capital of the World. The title of course is self induced, but the reason for it is back in the 1980s Ottumwa held an enormous gathering of the best arcade gamers in the world, including Billy Mitchel. | more
April 6, 2009 Eric Swain Game Issues, Recent Posts A General Message to the Guy who Robbed Me I try to be civil. I try to be nice and understanding to everyone. In other words it takes a lot to piss me off. Thank you to the asshole that broke into my room and stole my PlayStation 3. Thank you for making me have to take time out of my already packed and less than bright day to file a report and remove all credit information from my account. Thank you for changing my view of the world and making me feel no longer safe in my own room. | more
April 2, 2009 Eric Swain Game Essays, Recent Posts The Killer 7 Argument – Beyond Good and Evil Beyond Good and Evil definitely falls under the Killer 7 argument. It has been called a Zelda clone and in fact has even been called a Zelda for grownups. I'm not sure either of those monikers due it justice. It has many of the elements of a Zelda game. Environmental puzzles, dungeons, upgradeable equipments, but there is so much more going on here. | more