Tag: PopMatters

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Towards a More Complex Form of Moral Choice in Video Games: ‘The Wolf Among Us’

And I’m back in my Tuesday slot with my PopMatters column, looking a little in depth on a single choice from The Wolf Among Us. On the podcast all three of us have been a little down on the choices in The Wolf Among Us as they don’t feel as debatable or as in depth as we would like. I’ve heard this sentiment echoed elsewhere on the internet. And for the most part it does seem that The Wolf Among Us isn’t providing the same if not quality then style of choice we quickly became accustomed to in The Walking Dead. | more

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The Size and Wisdom of ‘Myst’

For this week’s PopMatter’s column I look back 21 years to the original CD-ROM game: Myst. The opening sentence of that piece was the main thought running through my head during my recent playthrough of the 1993 adventure game. “Myst is a lot smaller than I remember.” I realize that time takes a toll on memory and we look back on things with rose tinted glasses. But it wasn’t a difference in the measure of quality I was taken aback by, but the size of the game world. | more

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The Agony and the Allure of the Side Quest

Maybe a poor week to release a podcast with so much attention elsewhere in the gaming scene, but we have a schedule. This week we aren’t talking about a video game, but a part of video games – the side quest. We start talking about what they are useful for and what they do in games, but once it gets to me, I changed the conversation to something more fundamental. I didn’t know how to answer Chris’ question because I wasn’t sure how to define what a side quest was in the first place. | more

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The Change Economics Wrought on Design: ‘Magic: The Gathering’ and ‘Hearthstone’

And I’m back to writing my PopMatters column, though a few days late thanks to a mixup in the backend, but what can you expect when I don’t write anything for over two months. Hearthstone has been taking up a lot of my gaming time in recent months, so I figured I should speak to my feeling about it. I was really into it starting out. Every day I would play for quite a long time. But then I hit the free-to-play wall. | more

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Reviews for March/April/May

I stopped writing PopMatters columns back in March for a number of reasons, all of which have to do with being super busy trying to get technical things to work and those things refusing to. I really want to get back to writing again instead of staring at code sheets, but at least I kept up with the reviews at any rate. I love Shadowrun: Dragonfall. When I finished the game, I exclaimed on twitter that I hoped I wouldn’t even up being hyperbolic when I say it is the front runner for my game of the year. | more

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Exploring the Rituals and Riddles of ‘Year Walk’

We pick up after last time with Simogo’s other notable work from last year, Year Walk. This discussion this time around is more about the amorphous nature of the game itself rather than a detailing of the meticulous construction like in our Device 6 podcast. Year Walk is more about atmosphere and experiencing the folklore of a culture we are not as familiar with. We also get into the differences between the iOS mobile version and the PC version and how Simogo utilizes each format’s particulars to the game’s advantage. | more

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A Game of Words, Exploring ‘Device 6′

This week on the Moving Pixels podcast we look to last year’s iOS standout, Device 6. It’s always nice to come out of a conversation with a greater appreciation of the game in question than you went in with. That exactly what happened here with our discussion of Device 6 and it’s thematic underbelly. So, give the podcast a listen here and enjoy. *sings* “That’s Anna. Oh, sweet Anna. Dreams are coming true. One in a million that is you.” *sings* | more

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Little Human, Big Apocalypse

It may be a little past the time when everyone else was talking about it, but the Moving Pixels Podcast episode on The Walking Dead Season 2 episode 2 is now up on PopMatters. We look at the continuing struggles of the second season to truly provide the same type of morally dubious choices that so endeared us to the first season. At the same time, I think we understand that isn’t as big a problem even if it doesn’t lead to as easily set up discussions. | more

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Another Hand of ‘Hearthstone’

My what a difference a couple of weeks makes. We recorded this episode of the Moving Pixels podcast several weeks ago and Hearthstone, as well as my understanding of it, has changed quite a bit. It’s quite funny really, how much my understanding of the game has changed in the time since we recorded the podcast. So many assertions and details are just wrong and my own predictions are so off base. For instance, I figured Blizzard would announce a new play mode – Tournament – to the menu. | more

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The Seamier Side of Fairy Tales

Another Moving Pixels podcast is up. This time we discuss the second episode of The Wolf Among Us. This was recorded back on Sunday of IndieCade East. I had gotten back from the city only about half an hour before. Luckily my tiredness doesn’t weigh down the discussion. It’s another good, long critical discussion. We start off with a long section about the form of the Telltale style adventure game and how it affects our reaction regarding The Wolf Among Us in comparison to the first season of The Walking Dead, before moving on to the specific events and character beats of the episode itself. | more