Category: External Sources

Eric Swain External Sources

PopMatter’s Top Games of 2012

I was lucky enough to be asked to participate in PopMatter’s game of the year list. Their second one to date. I was also invited onto the Moving Pixels podcast to talk even more about the best games of the year. I don’t have any long diatribe about the nature of the list this year. Though I understand the time constraints, it is a little disheartening to see a year like 2011 (one of the weakest on record) get a top 20 and 2012 (probably going to hailed as one of the strongest) only get a top 10. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

Critical Distance 2012 End of Year Extravaganza

For the third year in a row, I decided not to enjoy my winter break with video games, but drive myself to exhaustion doing the Critical Distance end of year projects. Episode 11 of the CDC Podcast – The Talking Dead and the 2012 This Year In Video Game Blogging round up. Both did not go as smoothly as planned. The CDC podcast this time around was longer than any I’ve done before. Even by cutting the cast down to only 4 people (Myself, Kris, Alan and Ian) it still ended up longer than last year. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

A Commentary on ‘Primordia’

I’m a little late on this. Last week my column for PopMatters went up, though I had been told we wouldn’t be restarting until the new year. Ah well. The previous week my review for Primordia went up and I wanted to write even more about the game. It’s fortuitous that I chose to write about the commentary and what that signifies to me as a player, because my review got me an interview with the writer/designer of the game. I had a wonderful chat with him and it made me notice a really awesome trend as of late. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

When ‘Mark of the Ninja’ Clicks

I’m rather thankful that Klei Entertainment decided not to or rather the deal they had with Microsoft didn’t preclude them from publishing elsewhere than the Xbox 360 for a long time. Us PS3 users are used to waiting a long time for exclusivity agreements to expire. But PC always seems to be different than PS3 in this regard. Now I was a little late in getting around to it and I’ve been hearing about it for months from ever outlet and podcast. I even did a preview of the game back at PAX East. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

The Unfinished Artist

Last week was Turkey week and it seems everyone got the week off from writing at PopMatters. It was Desert Bus so I was cool with this. So, this post comes a week later than planned. Also, my review of the game went up today. I mention them together, because they were really written together. I had two-word documents open at the same time and when I got stuck on one, I moved to the other to get my ideas down. My head was a swirling mass of things I wanted to say, but they all weren’t compatible with one another. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

This Turkey Day in Video Game Blogging

It was one hell of a week for game criticism. A new book, a new digital magazine and the biggest week I’ve had yet in a TWIVGB. Though not the largest one. That goes to Kris Ligman and the previous week. This is supposed to be where I say something about the big issue that came up last week, The New Statesman piece. I responded in the comments and talked a bit on twitter, but I honestly am exhausted with the argument and all the related arguments that come with it at this stage. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

An Inability to Empathize: Fumbling to Grok ‘Papo & Yo’

I was really excited to play Papo & Yo a few weeks back. I knew it was going to be one of those games that I could write a lot about. Turns out not to be the case. In reality I found myself fumbling to try and find anything to say about it. I could have done an analogy reading, going over every element for what it is trying to say, but for the most part that would be retreading old ground. Ground that lead designer Vander Caballero covered in interviews himself. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

A Tale of Two Reviews

I’ve written two reviews in the past week for PopMatters. One on Jonas Kyratzes’ The Sea Will Claim Everything and the other on Borderlands 2. I could make a grand connecting statement like this being the true-blue indie verses the AAA goliath, but really, they’re just two games I played that I noticed reviews hadn’t been written for yet. Though I won't deny there were a lot of opposites in both my opinion and writing the reviews. I’m not going to compare them. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

Discovering the Familiar in ‘Journey’

Journey is a game I’ve wanted to write about for almost the entire year, but have just never gotten around to it. What makes it difficult is after so much time, finding something new to say. The thing is, in trying to figure that out I wondered why I kept going back to play it after so long.  Especially, since it is basically a game about exploration and yet, I pretty much knew everything it had to offer already. In the end that came down to trying to define what I was feeling on repeat playthroughs. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

‘Silent Hill 2′: The Oppression of Atmosphere

Also known as, Experiencing the Atmosphere First Hand. I close out horror month with the big fish, the granddaddy of all horror games: Silent Hill 2. So much has been written and said about this game that coming at it almost 11 years after the fact I wondered what there was left to say about it. I was honestly hoping that the game would just drop something into my lap as I played. Of course, I didn’t get to play much as the power for pretty much my entire state went out the day before my column deadline. | more