Category: Game Issues

Eric Swain Game Issues, Recent Posts

A Clarification of Genre: Conclusion

Please read A Clarification of Genre: Introduction because this post will be finishing the foundation concepts put forth there. That post also contains some clarifications for how I will be writing this series. You can read the previous entries of the series: Action, Adventure, RPG, Strategy and Immiscible Games. What was the point? Outside of very limited set of application that all mostly resides in broad based introductions to the material either in a storefront or in explaining what it is, genre is not a useful concept. | more

Eric Swain Game Issues, Recent Posts

A Clarification of Genre: Immiscible Games

Please read A Clarification of Genre: Introduction because this post will be building off of the foundation concepts put forth there. That post also contains some clarifications for how I will be writing this series. You can read the previous entries of the miscible genres: Action, Adventure, RPG and Strategy. Miscible and Immiscible The descriptions of the super-genres up to this point have all been under the assumption that a game has a single focus throughout its play. | more

Eric Swain Game Issues, Recent Posts

A Clarification of Genre: Strategy

Please read A Clarification of Genre: Introduction because this post will be building off of the foundation concepts put forth there. That post also contains some clarifications for how I will be writing this series. You can read the previous entries: Action, Adventure and RPG. Strategy I’m going to frank and upfront about this. I know very little about the Strategy Super-genre. My experience with this type of game is limited to a handful of titles and has nowhere near the depth and understanding the complexity others do. | more

Eric Swain Game Issues, Recent Posts

A Clarification of Genre: RPG

Please read A Clarification of Genre: Introduction because this post will be building off of the foundation concepts put forth there. That post also contains some clarifications for how I will be writing this series. You can read the previous entries: Action and Adventure. Now comes the big enchilada. The one I’m sure to get the most arguments/hate mail about. RPG I’m going to break up the formula of the posts for this one and instead of starting off with the definition of the Super-genre, I’m going to work up to it via the thought process by which it came about. | more

Eric Swain Game Issues, Recent Posts

A Clarification of Genre: Adventure

Please read the Introduction entry as this post will be building off of the foundation stones and concepts put forth there. That post also contains some clarifications for how I will be writing this series. You can read the previous entry on Action here. Adventure Adventure games are a little more difficult to talk about than Action games. There is a mentality that sticks with them because Adventure games were always understood as this very narrow brand of games. | more

Eric Swain Game Issues, Recent Posts

A Clarification of Genre: Action

Please read the previous entry – Introduction – as this post will be building off of the foundation stones and concepts put forth there. That post also contains some clarifications for how I will be writing this series. And now to the first Super-genre on the list. Action The key to understanding the Action Super-genre is understanding the commonalities between so many genres that we think of as Action games. Where does the platformer intersect with the shooter with the racer and so on? | more

Eric Swain Game Issues, Recent Posts

A Clarification of Genre: Introduction

Several months ago, I tried to explain some of the problems I saw with the discussions of video game genres. These conversations around what are Adventure game and RPGs keep popping up every couple of days in posts and all over twitter and I wanted to address some concerns with what I saw taking place in these conversations. I didn’t convey my ideas well at the time. Also, spawning off of this post I realized that while people debate genre there is a lot of annoyance at these debates at the perceived uselessness of the idea of genres. | more

Eric Swain Game Issues, Recent Posts

TGC 2011 Game of the Year

Before I get to my top 5 games I want to give out some honorable mentions to games I played some of, but not enough for me to feel comfortable honoring in my official list. These are games that I either only played the demo to or just didn’t get far enough to pass full judgment on, but in either case impressed me enough to warrant a mention. First is Avadon: The Black Fortress. This is a massive cRPG based in old school isometric design with deep characters and lore that feels relevant to the story to are taking part in. | more

Eric Swain Game Issues, Recent Posts

State of the Blog ’11

And so ends the third full year of me trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing. Thank you for whatever readership I’ve garnered in that time and for continue to stick around. In looking over my work here at The Game Critique I find that I did indeed write more this year than last (33 posts to last year’s 24) and that much of my writing hasn’t happened here. Most of the posts here at my blog are External Sources to my work elsewhere and this is by no means a bad thing. | more

Eric Swain Game Issues, Recent Posts

Existential Critical Crisis

(This is late. This was meant to come out over a week ago. It’s ironic that it was so difficult a piece of criticism to write in that it deals with criticism itself.  I still don’t think it’s quite right, but it’s got to come out sometime.) I said on twitter last week in response to the bad Freeplay panel that I would…hang on; let me see if I can find it. … Here it is: Well I’ve done a bit of that so far from one perspective and another, but here is the big enchilada. | more