April 2, 2015 Eric Swain External Sources

Reviews for January/February/March

A new year, a new slate of games to review. A bit of a theme going on here. 2015 starts off with 4 new episodic games and my attempts to review every single episode of each one. All of Telltale games, so far, are licensed games. It’s difficult not to frame their game in the light of the licensed property. I may have gone a bit too far with my Tales from the Borderlands review, but I really do not like the main Borderlands games and Tales by comparison, I am enjoying so much. | more

April 1, 2015 Eric Swain External Sources

A New Critical Distance Confab Undertaking

April 1, 2015 | Filed under: External Sources, Recent Posts and tagged with: Critical Distance, Podcast Everyone has had that thought, “why has no one written about this game?” It’s a different game(s) for every person, but pretty much everyone has had that thought. Sometimes, after finishing a game I go looking for criticism, only to come up empty. An idea came to me during last year’s end of year podcast. | more

March 31, 2015 Eric Swain External Sources

The Games of IndieCade East 2015

This took a lot longer than I wanted it to. Last month was really busy, but I got my work done, but delays happened. This series of posts should have concluded earlier, but oh well. Last year was my first year attending IndieCade East. I wrote a primer on the … (This post is lost beyond this point. | more

March 30, 2015 Eric Swain External Sources

Revisiting The Great War

We continue our look at last year’s indie games with Ubisoft’s Valiant Hearts. I really like this discussion. I come out very coherent and make a lot of good points. Everyone does. We talk about the war and war in general as exemplified as a thing unto itself. We discuss the concept of identity from the nationalistic to the individualistic. We talk about the end of rationality and larger cultural forces that Valiant Hearts is playing with given its subject matter. | more

March 26, 2015 Eric Swain External Sources

Critical Distance Confab – The Zine Knight Rises

We were playing a little bit of catch up this month. The previous podcast episode took longer to edit due to small audio issue1 so it went up at the beginning of the month. Now, our scheduled March interview is up only a week after its original drop date. Thanks … (This post is lost beyond this point.) | more

March 16, 2015 Eric Swain External Sources

This War of Ours

Continuing to talk about games from last year, we dig into the narrative and systems of This War of Mine. I like the game on a micro level, but feels it falls apart somewhat on a macro level. I don’t think it can maintain itself with what it has. It needs more contextual material otherwise that part of game dries up. My compatriots have different opinions. You can give it a listen here. Additionally, we’re still trying to get the podcast back on iTunes and hitting one snag after another. | more

March 12, 2015 Eric Swain External Sources

Critical Distance Confab – Books Fight Boss

This was meant to go up in February. In general, we want the podcasts to go up on the 15th, in the middle of the month. But the 15th was a Sunday and TWIVGB schedule takes precedence. Then I has one of the busiest months when it comes to outings and it turned out to be one of the toughest editing jobs yet.1 So it’s late. I had a good talk with BossFightBook’s founder and editor Gabe Durham about his little publishing house. Continuing the theme of interviewing people having to do with video game books. | more

February 20, 2015 Eric Swain External Sources

Haywire Magazine: Games of 2014

February 20, 2015 | Filed under: External Sources, Recent Posts and tagged with: 80 Days, Game of Year, Haywire Magazine, Jazzpunk, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, Unrest Editor in Chief of Haywire Magazine Joe Köller put out the word some time ago that they were doing another roundup of the best games of the year by getting as many critics together to write blurbs for as many games as they could. This year I participated alongside 32 other video game critics. | more

February 10, 2015 Eric Swain External Sources

‘The Banner Saga’ Presents a Living World Through a Lore That Is Actually Lived

I examine the elegant delivery of The Banner Saga‘s lore this week in my PopMatters column. This is one of those subjects that if I had the time and space I could have expanded into a very long piece. Most lore is extraneous information meant to give texture to the world. Often, it’s done abstractly, but along the journey you do actually cross a few of the locations on the map. Had you read it ahead of time it grants that extra texture not abstractly, but through better understanding of the goings on. | more