Tag: Moving Pixels

Eric Swain External Sources

‘Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly’: The Uncertainty of Control

And so, horror month comes to an end at PopMatters. Originally, I was going to this game last week and I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream this week, but a podcast recording schedule had me switch those around. I’d heard Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly was one of the scariest games of all time and I was going to see if it lived up to its reputation. Fatal Frame II had me hook pretty much from the word go. | more

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A Truthful Execution of Horror: ‘I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream’

We recorded a podcast on I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, it will go up soon and, in the meantime, I decide to look into it with what it does with horror. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream isn’t horrifying in the traditional sense of the genre, but then we tend to use horror, terror, frightening and scary as interchangeable when really, they are subtly distinct emotions. The game really isn’t scary. You won't be screaming or whimpering or see YouTube videos of people making fools of themselves. | more

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‘Amnesia’: The Psychological Toll of Horror

This week on horror month at PopMatters I wrote about Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Normally I like to finish a game before I begin writing about it, because often I do an examination of the whole. But with Amnesia I knew the behavior the game instills in its player going in. What I didn’t know is how complete that behavior outside the game can mirror the behavior inside the game. To properly play a horror game, you have to play it in the dark and alone. Amnesia rewards safety with staying in the dark. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

‘Silent Hill 2′: A Test of Age

Well, it’s October again and that means it’s time to break out the horror games. Last year I capped it off with Silent Hill 2, but I didn’t get very far before the electricity went out. So, this year I decided to pick up where I left off and start the month with Silent Hill 2. I realized that this is my first Silent Hill game ever and it would be fresh experience to me. Not only that, but Silent Hill 2 came out twelve years ago. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

Haunted Homes and ‘Gone Home’

This week on the Moving Pixels Podcast, we take a break from the weird and take a trip through the mundane with Gone Home. Strap yourselves in, it’s a long one. Actually, it’s a testament to the game’s density of themes and material that the podcast is only slightly shorter than the game it’s talking about. And on another note, this is the first recording with my new microphone. The difference is immediately apparent. My voice isn’t garbled and it doesn’t suffer any distortion. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

Syria’s Endgame in ‘Endgame: Syria’

With all the recent refocusing of the news on the Syrian civil war right now I figured now might be a good time to actual play Endgame: Syria, a newsgame app that I downloaded months ago and left sitting idle on my tablet and write about it for PopMatters. This is one of those games Apple refused certification because it dealt with real world issues and where they said the creator should have written a book instead. That logic is maddening, but more importantly it is unhelpful. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

Kentucky Route Zero: A Game of Mines, Maps and Madness

And so, we continue our unofficial, accidental series on indie games in this week’s episode of the Moving Pixels Podcast with Kentucky Route Zero. It was noted in the preshow talk that apparently the recordings have gotten quite longer since I started appearing on the show. That continues here with almost two hours of talk. So, note the length just in case. As for the sound quality on my end, this is becoming a real pain, I tried a new set up for this episode that managed to get the mic right in front of my face the whole time. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

This is the Story of a Crusader King

I seem to be finally writing on a bunch of games lately that I’ve played but hadn’t written anything about. This week I quickly typed up some thoughts on Crusader Kings II for PopMatters. One of the biggest problems I’ve had with the game is how to accurately describe it to others. Part of it is that the most interesting aspect, the part of the game that got me interested enough to buy and play it, is something that is buried behind intimidating UI and seemingly lack of cause and effect. | more

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Inheriting Work in ‘Rogue Legacy’

After a few weeks off the podcast is back with Rogue Legacy. I have to apologize. Starting with the last podcast I started experimenting to try and get my audio sounding better. Changing mic, changing audio settings, changing recording locations. Whichever one I did for this podcast didn’t work too well. You can understand me, but there is a noticeable difference in sound quality between myself and my fellow podcasters. Luckily that should all be fixed now. | more

Eric Swain External Sources

‘Gemini Rue’: A Matter of Memory

I played Gemini Rue several months ago and upon finishing it I immediately began to play it again. This time with commentary. I let it rest for so long because I was in the middle of trying to write about interactive fiction and that took most of my critical attention. But Gemini Rue is a great game. In fact, I call it one of the best sci-fi stories of the last decade. There’s a lot to talk about in Gemini Rue, but as is often the case it becomes a matter of how to approach the material. | more