Part Two of Critical Mass Effect
In the last entry, I highlighted the most egregious problems of Mass Effect. But the fact remains that I’ve played it to completion twice, when I don’t manage to complete most of the games I start. Clearly, it’s doing something right. … Continue reading
Welcome to the first real entry in Critical Mass Effect, a compendium of articles that will poke and prod at all the design decisions that make up the Mass Effect trilogy.This will not be comprehensive; as much as anything, I hope … Continue reading
Author’s Note: This is the first entry in Critical Mass Effect, a compendium of articles on Bioware’s ambitious, troubled space opera trilogy. The next two entries will focus on everything wrong and right in the series’ first entry, but my … Continue reading
Every self-reflective games writer (and I like to think that’s most of us) is dogged by one question above all others: “How do you measure the value of a game?” When we review a game, the implication is that the … Continue reading
Earlier this month, Joel Goodwin published “The Ethics of Selling Children,” an article questioning the increasing prominence of confessional writing in games blogging. He expresses the ambiguity I feel better than I ever could, and so I won’t repeat his … Continue reading
Taking a page from Brendon Chung, I present one sentence on each of the games I played in 2012 (or at least all the ones I can remember – inevitably a lot of cool indie things will be left out). … Continue reading
It is not often that a film evokes such a response from me that I write a late-night blog entry immediately after seeing it. For whatever faults it may have (and it has its share), Prometheus is such a film. Below are my … Continue reading
I am going to tell you a story about an island. This island will soon cease to exist, and this will be no great loss, because no life resides on it. This island is, in fact, unimportant in every way … Continue reading
When it comes to pop culture, there seems to be a consistent nostalgia for whatever was happening 20 years prior. In high school my peers seemed convinced that the ’80s were an unparalleled period of great film and music. It goes without … Continue reading
Dan Pinchbeck, the British game designer/academic behind The Chinese Room and Dear Esther, was gracious enough to answer a few questions that popped into my head when playing the recently-released remake of Dear Esther. Most of these questions have to … Continue reading
