July 31, 2017 Eric Swain External Sources Moving Pixels Podcast: Tales from the Borderlands Episode 3 – Catch a Ride This week we continue our drive through Telltale’s episodic adventure game, Tales from the Borderlands, with episode 3 “Catch a Ride.” Sorry about last week, there was a slight snafu hitting the Monday release date. Then then episode was supposed to go up mid-week last week, but that didn’t happen either. So, it’s released this Monday and we’ll be back on schedule next week with the next episode. No extra waiting for it. | more
July 19, 2017 Eric Swain External Sources Critical Distance Confab – A Measured Response: Hbomb A new interview on the Critical Distance Confab is up. This time with YouTube critic and vaudevillian Harry Brewis, also known as Hbomberguy. (I will never get tired of that moniker. YouTube Vaudevillian.) Proving once again that preparation and not being hocked up on cold medication makes for a better, livelier interview. I was extremely happy with how it turned out, so of course this is first episode I get actual feedback about my worst nightmare: the audio. | more
July 10, 2017 Eric Swain External Sources The Moving Pixels Podcast Goes ‘Knee Deep’ in Swamp Noir We begin another episodic adventure game to alternate between episodes of the podcast. We begin with episode 1 of Knee Deep. The episode is a bit more chaotic than usual, mostly because I don’t think any of us knew quite what to make of Knee Deep. It’s not a bad game, but it’s also not really a good one either. It’s doing quite a few interesting things, but also, its positioned itself as more generic work in the gaming landscape. It’s hard to read into it when everything it’s doing is rather boilerplate. | more
July 6, 2017 Eric Swain External Sources TGC Game of the Year 2016 Addendum I struggled a bit with my game of the year list, mainly because I was trying to squeeze more games than would fit. 15 games into 10 slots at final count. I debated whether I should increase the list to 15 to accommodate all the games I wanted to mention. I also did think about forgoing the top 10 format entirely. With an alphabetical list I could put as many as I wanted onto the list without getting wonky with the numbering system. | more
July 5, 2017 Eric Swain External Sources TGC Game of the Year 2016 July 5, 2017 | Filed under: Game Issues, Recent Posts and tagged with: End of Year, Game of the Year Time got away from me. I could have passed on doing this altogether, never published it and nobody would have cared, but I’d know. I’d know and that would gnaw at me. This is a wrap up to 2016. In a way, this is an exercising of the last remnants of that year. Things haven’t improved overall, but carrying on any psychic baggage that could otherwise be compartmentalized away from the present is something I don’t want to do and cannot afford myself. | more
July 3, 2017 Eric Swain External Sources Critical Distance Confab – Talking on Games There interview was delayed a little thanks to E3, but here it is with Hamish Black of Writing on Games. I want to quickly apologize for how I sound and my less than stellar ability in asking questions in this one. At the time I thought I was normal and all right to go. Only during the editing did I realize how loopy on antibiotics I was. I also want to make some observations on the changing nature of these interviews that isn’t appropriate to say in the official post. | more