August 28, 2012 Eric Swain External Sources, Recent Posts What is the Deception and Who is Drake? After a hiccup last week and talking it over, I will be weekly at PopMatters from now on. So, continuing on from last time I’m talking Uncharted again. I’m going to be talking about the themes of each title in their own post and up this time is Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception. I have to say that while my review on the game still stands, I do now appreciate what it was trying to do a little more after writing this. I never put much thought into what the game meant or the themes of it because so much of the craft was off in this installment. | more
January 27, 2012 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
October 14, 2011 Eric Swain External Sources, Recent Posts Atmosphere is Not Enough: A Limbo and Another World Critique I played Another World on Monday and Limbo on Tuesday and I wrote the post on Thursday. I had a post due and I missed the previous week pulling my hair out trying to get the follow up piece on Heavenly Sword written. It didn’t work out. It was quite fortuitous that I played these two games when I did and found a connection between them. Another World is an amazing game. It’s hard as hell, but it’s short. Limbo is also difficult, or at least brutal and short, but isn’t as great. | more
May 25, 2009 Eric Swain Game Essays, Recent Posts Truth, Propoganda, and the Power of People in Beyond Good and Evil Throughout Beyond Good and Evil we are treated the cycling propaganda messages, news reports for either the Alpha Sections or the Iris Network. Each group purports the others to be the villains not working for the interest of the people of Hillys. Being that it must be one or the other the goal of the game is to search for the truth. | more
January 28, 2009 Eric Swain Game Essays, Recent Posts The Proposed Story Arcs for Prince of Persia I talked about how the story structure in Prince of Persia didn't work for me and how the various villains fit in the game's thematic consistency. Now I'm going to combine the two ideas. This may come off as a little dictating from on high, but oh well. | more
January 23, 2009 Eric Swain Game Essays, Recent Posts Thematic Relevance of the Vignettes in Prince of Persia The servants of Ahriman are the thematic representation of their fall from grace and at the end of the game, a representation of the Prince. Each had a desire that could only be fulfilled giving something to Ahriman, in their case, their souls. However, like Faust, they find their wishes fulfilled, but empty. | more