June 7, 2013 Eric Swain Thoughts

Against Sequels

This is something that’s been on my mind and with E3 starting next week, somewhat timely. I don’t particularly like sequels. I don’t like additions. I like completed wholes. I like stories with beginnings, middles and, most importantly, ends. One of my favorite TV shows, if not my favorite, The Wire is so because it knew when to stop. If I was asked if I would like another season of The Wire, it would be tough, but in the end, I’d say no. The Wire was a complete whole with its 5 seasons. | more

June 6, 2013 Eric Swain Thoughts

Xbox One

I did the PS4 a while back, so now its Microsoft’s Xbox One’s turn. First off, yes the reveal conference was underwhelming and I spent most of it reading on my tablet and keeping up with twitter for the snark. A note on that: there was a lot less bile for Microsoft than Sony. Snark yes, bile no. Might have had to do with the fact it was 1 in the afternoon and not in the evening when most of the west was home. | more

May 22, 2013 Eric Swain External Sources

Two Steps Down the Interactive Fiction Road

My second post looking into Interactive Fiction is up on PopMatters. This time I look at two works that move away from the text adventure lineage and start pushing what can be done with text and a parser. This paragraph got cut from the posted version – probably rightly so – but it shows my intent behind the post just the same: I don’t have really anything sort of introduction beyond that. I’m not going to compare or contrast them. | more

May 7, 2013 Eric Swain External Sources

A Look Down the Interactive Fiction Road

Finally, I’m back to talking about games. For the first week of May I decided to critique two modern text adventures and look at the interesting things they do. Instead of jumping into the next big thing or tackling my backlog of AAA titles, and boy I have a lot to get through on that front, I wanted to go off the beaten path. I wanted to look into the weird, the experimental, the lambasted and the old. I wanted to look at the stuff that doesn’t get critiqued. | more

April 30, 2013 Eric Swain External Sources

PAX East: A Primer

And so I finally finish my three-part series on PAX East. Part the First, Part the Second and Part the Last. It’s not so much about this PAX East, but using this PAX East as an attempt to explain all PAX Easts, maybe all PAXs, but I haven’t been to the west coast. Don’t know how good a job I did. In reality this idea of what “PAX East” is doesn’t really exist. | more

April 20, 2013 Eric Swain External Sources

Deirdra Kiai Podcast Interview

Episode 12 of the CDC podcast went live. I know it was promised back in March, but it was delayed due to the hell that misbegotten excuse for an audio file put me through. I had to edit the thing three times. Originally, I had planned to release it last year in conjunction with Deirdra Kiai’s Indigogo for her newest game. That fell through due to editing problems which caused me to start all over again. So, I’m editing it for release in the second week of March. | more

April 7, 2013 Eric Swain External Sources

Reviews and Review Scores

I had a post here. 1200 words of what I thought at least were some interesting ideas and for once decently written. WordPress said screw you and erased them from existence when I saved them. All that’s left is the title above, the tags at the bottom and my anger within. Sufficed to say I’m too pissed to get anything done and I doubt I could hope to rewrite it. It wasn’t even suppose to be long it just ended up that way. So here are the links to my reviews that spawned the whole thing. | more

March 26, 2013 Eric Swain External Sources

Changing Perspectives: Defining What We See in First Person and Third Person Games

And so comes to an end of a month looking at walking games with jaunt over to the Third-Person Walkers of last year Journey and Bientôt l’été. The whole idea of the first-person walking genre was from Kris Ligman or at least I thought it did until I tried to track down where she said it. It isn’t often that a year provides so many examples of a new genre. Especially one as diverse as this one. | more

March 19, 2013 Eric Swain External Sources

‘Proteus’ and the Simple Act of Being

I’ve finally finished up my series on the First Person Walkers of 2012. Ending on the last of the three that I played and the one I honestly had the hardest time writing about: Proteus. I don’t know if it’s the fact I don’t play that many open world games and thus don’t have the proper critical vocabulary to discuss them or what. I like Proteus. It’s restful. I end up closing my eyes and just lightly rest in my chair. Not really napping, just resting. I don’t know how the piece came out. | more

March 18, 2013 Eric Swain External Sources

The Podcast That Burns At 100 Billion Degrees

I appeared on another episode of the Moving Pixels Podcast to discuss the indie game Little Inferno. I don’t know what to really think of the game and spend most of my time trying to parse it out in real time with my fellow podcasters. It’s another game I’m very happy that it exists and I enjoyed my time with it, but I don’t know what to ultimately say about it in any final word sort of way. It feels like a lot of half-finished ideas and sentiments put together centering on the Little Inferno Entertainment Fireplace. | more