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

February 6, 2015 Eric Swain External Sources

NPC – Non Play Criticism: Love Music, Hold the Criticism

February 6, 2015 | Filed under: External Sources, Recent Posts and tagged with: Music, Non Play Criticism 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. | more

February 3, 2015 Eric Swain External Sources

’80 Days’ and the Limits of Fiction

My weekly column is up on PopMatters on inkle’s 80 Days. Don’t read it. It’s shit. Due to a miscommunication, the wrong version was posted and now there’s nothing that can be done about it. It can’t be edited and I can delete it. Below is the correct text to the post. The only change made in deference to the PopMatters’ version is the title. | more

February 3, 2015 Eric Swain External Sources

Investigating ‘Ethan Carter’

This week on the Moving Pixels Podcast we try to parse out The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. Thanks to Steam sales and a lot of great games hitting near the tail end of last year, we’re doing some catch up. Kind of grateful that January has been slow in that respect. It ended up being a pretty great discussion because none of us really agreed with the interpretation and evaluation. Or at least it was going well until the last 10 minutes or so when I try to make a point I can’t quite articulate on the fly and fumble the whole thing. | more

January 31, 2015 Eric Swain Game Issues

TGC Game of the Year 2014

January 31, 2015 | Filed under: Game Issues, Recent Posts and tagged with: End of Year, Game of the Year Before I get into what I felt were the best games of 2014, that I played, I want to talk about the concept of list itself. It may seem unnecessary. All that may seem necessary is a bare bones ten line list of the titles and be done with it. That wouldn’t be acceptable in my case. I’ve kind of painted myself into a corner regarding the issue and now have to put my money where my mouth is. | more

January 23, 2015 Eric Swain Game Essays

Minor Moments: The Vanishing of Ethan Carter

January 23, 2015 | Filed under: Game Essays, Recent Posts and tagged with: Minor Moments, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter Sometimes there are moments in games that stick in my mind, but aren’t big enough or otherwise important enough to warrant inclusion as a part of a larger discussion. Sometimes there isn’t room in a piece to include mentioning it or there is no simple way to crowbar it in while talking about the game. But they still stick in my mind and I think are somewhat worth mentioning. | more

January 20, 2015 Eric Swain External Sources

‘The Vanishing of Ethan Carter’ Fails to Live Up to It’s Own Promise

I was playing through The Vanishing of Ethan Carter as part of my catch up in time for the end of the year. It was an indie game getting some buzz and the opening certainly was interesting. Unfortunately, it never seems to capitalize on that promise. There’s my two-sentence review of the game. I also would like to note that there’s a lot of visual goodness to like in The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. There are bits of the game I think are quite good and worth experiencing, even if the whole doesn’t stick the landing. | more