Year: 2014

Eric Swain Game Issues

Virulent, Vociferous and Vocal

(Excuse this entire article. I wrote this a few weeks ago when I needed to do so. This ended up as my version of stream of consciousness writing and given how I normally write that’s saying something. But, at this point, it’s merely an exercise in style and testing a new feature on the site. I have no idea if there is anything worthwhile to be gleaned in this post. If there is, great. If not, you were warned.) I generally like to give credit to what inspired me to think along certain lines with an essay. | more

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‘Spec Ops: The Line’ Denies the Player the Pleasure of Play

All of us at PopMatters finally got around to playing Spec Ops: The Line several weeks ago and I just got around to writing about it now. Coming to a game late with an eye towards writing criticism about it is a daunting task. There is always that knowledge that someone, somewhere must have already said anything you’d think was interesting. There is that fear that you have nothing new, insightful or otherwise useful to add to the conversation. More than usual, I mean. | more

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Hardboiled Hijinks

The summer doldrums ticked away and so we went back to talk about an indie game from 2013: Gunpoint. As we found there was little to grab onto with regards of our usual in-depth discussion about craft and theme, but we still managed to find things to say about style and tone. Overall, I think Gunpoint is a fine game. Not an exceptional game, not one I’d leap up and down and say you have to play it right now, but a fine enough game that leaves a pleasant feeling after having played it. | more

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NPC – Non Play Criticism: Women in Clothes

It is a truism in video game circles of serious thinkers that video games are a young medium and that we are forging new territory with our criticism. That is of course bullshit in both respects. Video game critics are often cut off from other mediums. May perhaps that our medium is so new that more energy is required to get anything done as each new step is not just walking along a singular path among the fold, but having to stir and pour the concrete before a step may be taken. | more

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My Downward Spiral with ‘Watch Dogs’

I’m finally back to writing my weekly posts on PopMatters, coming back with one that had been holding me back almost since I stopped writing. This was originally supposed to be a review of Watch Dogs. I had gotten a copy from Ubisoft for that purpose. But the game was taking so long to play. Every time I sat down the play, I wanted to literally do anything else. While playing the game, I wanted to stop. There would be days or weeks in between play session as I got over my aversion to it. | more

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Fairy Tales of Politics, Fairy Tales of Justice

September 29, 2014 | Filed under: External Sources, Recent Posts And with this podcast, we finish up our in-depth discussion on Telltale’s The Wolf Among Us. It’s been a long journey. Our first podcast on the game came out almost a year ago. It’s been a long road for what is just a few in game days of investigation. Our … (This post is lost beyond this point.) "When we suffer, we do it in silence. And the world likes it that way. We just fade, like we never existed. | more

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Critical Distance Confab – The Founderhead

September 22, 2014 | Filed under: External Sources, Recent Posts This is the last of the archived interviews I did so many years ago and left languishing on my hard drive. In it I talk with Critical Distance’s founder and original TWIVGB head Ben Abraham. It was only after I recorded all three interviews — long after — that I ... (This post is lost beyond this point.) | more

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Little Money, Little Games

What to do when waiting for releases? Why look towards the free, arty games of course. In this podcast we look at Serena, Glitchhikers and A Dark Room. Serena is a game that was a free point-and-click adventure game on Steam, so of course I tried it. I didn’t think it was very good, but had some interesting formal elements that I figured could add to the genre as a whole. I still do, but since then I’ve played Jurassic Park: The Game which does some similar things, only much better. | more

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Transitioning to ‘Transistor’

This week’s podcast we delved into Supergiant Games’ more complicated follow up to Bastion, Transistor. Transistor isn’t a game that got nearly the discussion it deserved. It’s a difficult game to parse and requires a lot of effort on the part of the player to tease out its meaning. Much of the plot and conflict is obscured early on and only slowly reveals itself over the course of making your way through the crumbling city, add on a deep combat system that yields its secrets only to experimentation and not pre-planning and the larger themes and craftsmanship of the narrative can end up taking a backseat. | more

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Reviews for June/July/August

The summer months are slow and that apparently makes me slow. Anyway, here are the reviews I actually managed to finish writing. When in doubt and bored with the game, make the review interesting. Daedelic Entertainment and I have a running thing with their published adventure games. I keep reviewing them and, so far, with a single exception they keep disappointing me. 1954: Alcatraz is no exception to the pattern. | more