None of these games engendered any suffering at all. They were already pre-designed for failure; a player has no chance of success. But isn’t part of the pleasure of gaming the repeated failures that, over time, lead to successes?
Mar 202013
Jan 112013
“Ace of Spades” is pure fun to play, but I’m not sure smashing two games together qualifies as innovation.
May 022012
Swarms in the train station! Improv in the library! Video game hits and poetry! Must be Jazz Week–and there’s plenty more, including a major CD release by Argentinian bassist Fernando Huergo paying tribute to the land of the Albiceleste.
Apr 102011
So let’s steady that swaying hive, put down the poking stick, and take a deep breath. Games continue to evolve in creative, unexpected ways, and the mechanics of gameplay can form the basis of intriguing and thought-provoking works of art.
Nov 182010
But The Image in Question begs a crucial question: Isn’t modern media supposed to be flashy, colorful, and loud beyond all sane toleration? Aren’t shrill, unceasing proclamations a part of what drives some individuals away from television and video-games to [...]
Feb 082010
“Avatar” is beautiful and otherworldly, but the film is so grounded in down-to-earth concepts that it restricts the viewer’s imagination rather than broadening it. An infinitely better and more complex recent space opera, “Mass Effect 2,” comes in the form [...]
Oct 042009
Author Noah Wardrip-Fruin argues that each of the sometimes tangentially related processes in a video game shapes “the audience’s experience as fundamentally as the specifics of the images used in a motion picture.” Expressive Processing: Digital Fictions, Computer Games, and [...]