Search Results for “Amnesia” – Page 3

March 23rd

…of Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, so he went to the source, Dan Pinchbeck.

Robert Rath calls Ground Zeroes the first Metal Gear Solid game that gets, like the tagline says, Tactical Espionage Action right.

Leigh Harrison looks at the super lengthy Darksiders II and how that and its repetition are, in a way, something to be admired.

Stephen Beirne looks and the concept of exploration by eschewing the normative model of an open world filled with collectables for something far different filled with weird sights.

And Austin C. Howe wrote a defense of Super Metroid‘s…

No summary of a week’s games writing would be complete without Dark Souls: over at Kill Screen, Jordan Smith uses Dark Souls 2 as the springboard for a discussion about Kierkegaard and existentialism.

Still sort of on the subject of “dark things”, Gamasutra has a fascinating postmortem of The Chinese Room’s Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs.

Interesting Things I Couldn’t Otherwise Tenuously Connect

Robert Yang blogs about the discontinuity of indoor spaces: discrete ‘cells’ separated not just physically, but also by loading screens. A game that treats…

July 13

…talks about how Earthbound’s unique Mu Training sequence and the structure it uses horrify and confuse the player. Sam Zucchi talks about horror in Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. William Hughes talks about the function of repetition in games. William Hughes talks about the function of repetiti—sorry.

Katherine St Asaph gives a rundown of a New York Times article on Interactive Fiction (“There’s a distinct whiff of the trendpiece”). Merritt Kopas has more details about how great hypertext is.

Lindsey Joyce examines The Last Of Us by looking at the role of Ellie. S. Delling Dyre talks about…

May 15th

…intellectual engagement. The appeal of the new Fallout lies in pure emotional response, the recasting of a negative tension as pure pleasure. It is sublime.”

“This dawning Epoch”

Addressing hell, apocalypse and darkness in historical perspectives on history, these three pieces fit remarkably well together, providing a useful study of how grittiness can be placed into a larger history of literary and aesthetic forms.

This dawning Epoch, this age of reason — Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs and the fin de siècle | The Ontological Geek Adrian Froschauer traces the historical philosophies underpinning Victorian Gothic…

Calling for Critical Compilations!

…of a few days. But other games stick in our memory and invite discussion for weeks, months, and even years. That’s why Critical Distance has a feature known as Critical Compilations, which bring together all the best writing on the most prominent, hotly-discussed games like Braid, Bioshock, and Dark Souls.

To help promote the critical bodies of work which surround these important games, Critical Distance has decided to commission five new Critical Compilations. Here are some of the games we’re looking for:

Amnesia
Assassin’s Creed series
Bayonetta and Bayonetta 2
The Beginner’s Guide

…

New Call for Critical Compilations!

…most prominent, hotly-discussed games of years past. When we last opened a call for pitches in 2018 (yes, we know), we ended up with some absolutely astonishing compilations for games like Kentucky Route Zero, Assassin’s Creed II, and the Mass Effect trilogy.

What will we see when we open pitches this time? We’re excited to find out! Critical Distance has decided to commission ten new Critical Compilations. Here are some of the games we’re looking for:

Amnesia
Animal Crossing series
Bayonetta and Bayonetta 2
The Beginner’s Guide
Civilization series
Dear Esther

…

September 20th

…want.”

Narrative Threads

We’ve got two articles this week exploring the possibilities for narrative design in games.

Tabula Rasa: In defence of the amnesiac video game protagonist | Thumbsticks Hannah Copestake looks for positive potentialities for the amnesia trope in popular games.
Like Sands Through The Hour Glass, So Are The Days of Crusader Kings III | Paste Holly Green finds that it’s the emergent narrative twists that really give Crusader Kings III its staying power.

“They say truth is stranger than fiction, and that the best stories are the ones…

October 11th

…cosmic horror mystery game when real life already has an ever-present upticking Doom Meter.

Prometheus Was Right | No Escape Kaile Hultner examines how mystery and horror are baked into Marginalia‘s narrative struture, sound cues, and the subtle nudges in its environmental design.

First-Person Disconnect | Bullet Points Monthly Dani Maddox considers the original Amnesia as a competent horror experience, but ultimately cannot identify with yet another white man tortured to madness by his own mistakes.

“Evoking Lovecraft’s idea of a slow loss of mental stability is a cheap way to make subversive horror. It…

January 3rd

…whatever… what does your game have to offer me? I’ve already seen The Ritual. That one had a really cool looking monster. I’ve already played Amnesia and Layers of Fear.”

Retro Spectre

Next up, four very cool glimpses into the past await–one pair of games from the 80’s, the other from the 2000’s. Threading these pieces together is an emphasis on how systems, genres, design priorities, and franchises have aged, developed, and evolved over the ensuing years.

Lode Runner | The Digital Antiquarian Jimmy Maher delves into the history, design, and influence of Lode Runner,…

April 2021

…eurothug4000 (20:09)

Maria explores how a ‘camp’ aesthetic – following Susan Sontag’s definition – is conjoured from the mix of fashion and historical reference points of character and environment designs in Bayonetta. (Manual captions)

Frictional Games Reviewed: From Overture to Rebirth – Pim is Online (1:59:49)

In chronological order of release, Pim talks through each of Frictional’s games to date – from Penumbra: Overture through to Amnesia: Rebirth – along the way touching on issues like puzzle and narrative design in horror, the importance of soundtracks, and the recurring use of problematically gendered tropes. I like Pim’s

…