Tag: Nightmare Mode

Eric Swain External Sources, Recent Posts

Atmosphere is enough: Why Flower succeeded where Limbo failed

This was a piece that spawned from the end of last year’s debate on Limbo. I figured I might try to be more positive and provide an example that actual does the atmospheric storytelling well instead of ragging on Limbo all the time. I really did want to like that game. If only it wasn’t avant-garde just to catch attention and could follow through.  After a little time thinking of a few titles, I figured Flower was the best one to make my point. | more

Eric Swain External Sources, Recent Posts

It’s all in the presentation: Why I let Driver: San Francisco get away with poor driving

And because I submitted my PopMatters post a bit late for a Tuesday release it got pushed back to Thursday, so I ended up giving everyone a double dose of Driver: San Francisco love. My Nightmare Mode post though focuses more on the ongoing narrative I seem to be building about racing/driving games across my posts. I realize how damn lucky I got that the first driving game I tried was Burnout: Paradise with all junk I’ve been going through since. | more

Eric Swain External Sources, Recent Posts

Let me play: 7 issues with racing games

My weekly post is up at Nightmare Mode and only one day late this time. Here I go on about Gran Turismo 5 and Need for Speed: Shift. Neither game really grabbed me, in fact in the beginning they seem to do all they could to repel me. I understand both games are hardcore driving sims. Though I thought Need for Speed was a bit more arcadey. I just happened to pick up the only sim in the franchise. But as they are hardcore sims and I’ve only started playing racing games a few months ago I didn’t want to flap my mouth off too much. | more

Eric Swain External Sources, Recent Posts

Miscellaneous

Lots of minor things to get through, yet not much to say. Really just a bunch of little things happened my way. On Monday I reposted my Limbo retort, on Nightmare Mode a critical site of a sort. It got edited there by the entire crew, as well as a brand spanking new title too. Taking a quote from the piece was the key, to finally give a title that would satisfy me. A grander audience I have there, that is to be sure. For I got far more comments there than here I could lure. | more

Eric Swain Critical Responses, Recent Posts

In Response to the Responses I Got For What I Said About Limbo

I like getting thoughtful and intelligent criticism of my work. I like reading what people had to say. It means I had enough of an effect on them to make them think and ad drive them enough to respond. And while I like the criticism, whether it agrees, disagrees, clarifies or whatever else, I also like responding back. I want to head off at the pass that I’m writing to the following in an effort to silence my critics. No, I’m responding to them the same way they responded to me. | more

Eric Swain External Sources, Recent Posts

Motorstorm: Apocalypse, the game that wasn’t there

This is one of those posts that felt like pulling teeth. It just didn’t want to come out. Then again it’s a post about how the game offered nothing to talk about, so that is understandable. I say in the first sentence that this was my fourth attempt at writing this piece, but with the editing and major corrections it went through it’s probably even higher. It should have come out a week or two ago, but it kept getting pushed back because I didn’t know what to do with it and the editorial team was equally stumped. | more

Eric Swain External Sources, Recent Posts

Costume Quest and the Annual Tradition

The day after Halloween I have a post up about a potential Halloween tradition in video games. I personally have traditions every year for other holidays with family and friends as I’m sure most if not all of you do. And while Halloween is important for my friends and I we don’t have any set ritual. It’s different ever year. As I have a weekly obligation to talk about games and I’m smack dab in the middle of another project that takes a lot of time and leads to little results until it’s done I decided to go back to a short game from last year. | more

Eric Swain External Sources, Recent Posts

Slow Times at Paradise City

So, my weekly post is up at Nightmare Mode. It was supposed to go up Thursday and alack it is Monday. One of these days I’ll publish on the target day. One of these days. Part of the reason it is late is that this needed far more editing than anything else I’ve published there to date. But what should I have expected. My target post deadline is Thursday and the only game I’ve played all week is Burnout: Paradise, a game in a genre I’ve literally have no experience in other than demos. | more

Eric Swain External Sources, Recent Posts

Heavenly Sword’s Thematic Resonance

This was supposed to go up last Thursday, but it was an absolute mess. It wasn’t until over the weekend did, I realize the problem with the original draft. It was three essays worth of content in one. It was a mess to create a cohesive argument in all of that. Now the version that is up is only two essays in one. I managed to smooth things out so one essay in smack dab in the middle of the other and is necessary to make my argument. The thing is, both pieces are something I’ve wanted to write for a long time, some longer than others. | more

Eric Swain External Sources, Recent Posts

Enslaved and My First Nightmare Mode Post

So, about a two weeks ago I was asked my Nightmare Mode‘s Editor-in-Chief Patricia Hernandez to join. It was right after and mostly because of my Existential Critical Crisis post that I was asked in the first place. I was a bit taken back. Here I was debating my self worth, or rather I was a few weeks ago, (The amount of time it took to edit that 10-page monstrosity was long enough I was feeling much better by the time it posted.) and here was someone asking me to join the revamping of a site. | more