Search Results for:

fallout

September 20th

…a useful break-down that I’ve been thinking about myself for a while – describing the different levels that non-linearity can happen as ‘micro’, ‘macro’, ‘structural’ and ‘meta’. I think this is a seriously fantastic discussion and it’s this week’s must read. I should add that I discovered Lyndon’s blog via his pacifist play-through of the original Fallout. It’s also an engaging read.

Michel McBride does a really nice analysis of the character and role of The Riddler in Batman: Arkham Asylum and how the old spectre of Ludonarrative dissonance comes back to haunt.

When the hand-to-hand combat

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Grand Theft Auto IV

…Wes Erdelack argues that part of the problem is that vast open worlds with epic stories, like those of GTA IV and Fallout 3, simply cannot deliver taut pacing throughout unless the mechanics of gameplay develop a player narrative that matches the developer’s. Justin Marks uses the example of GTA IV, among others, to argue that developers ought to make the gameplay into the narrative, rather than imposing the narrative as packaging through the use of cutscenes. Chuck Jordan points out that the game doesn’t do a good enough job early on aligning the player’s view of the narrative and…

October 18th & 25th

…have just played Fallout 3 or waited for MW2. Talk like this always reminds me of this song by The Herd. Dahlen also wrote about the Sonic The Hedgehog comic book in a more recent, delightfully-tangential-to-gaming, column.

Do you fancy an interview with some of Independent Gaming’s best composers? This Game, Set, Watch interview is for you then.

Lewis Denby talked about ‘How possibly to do good games journalism maybe’ and I read his part four article. Which was good. In it, Denby seems to suggest that games journalists’ opt out of “reviews” for more in-depth features and…

January 31st

…feel safe recommending it.

In ‘Zompocalypse Now’, Mike Hanus examines the connection between the western film genre and modern apocalypse films (and by extension, games) suggesting that those like Fallout 3 are a continuation of the western genre:

I think that the current surge in apocalyptic movies and games is the second coming of the Western genre, and this accounts for this recent popularity. These games and movies share similar characteristics, they establish a frontier, they create a lawless world and they present the player/viewer with main characters who must create their own law and rules in

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May 9th

…derogatory stereotypes.

Emily Short, in her ‘Homer in Silicon’ Game Set Watch column, writes about “Character Creation and Fallout 3”. She suggests a radical re-thinking of the process of character creation, saying:

I would make different and more interesting choices if, instead of doing character-building in a clump at the beginning, that process were more gradual.

Fraser Alison at Red Kings Dream writes about multiplayer online Halo [dead link, no mirror available], relating a particular first-hand experience with ageism.

On Friday, Jim Rossignol had a bit of a think about the nature of DLC…

May 30th

…the Western than videogames. Think of it as an opportunity to brush up on your French.

David Wong, editor of comedy website Cracked.com, lists 5 no-nonsense reasons why it’s still not cool to admit you’re a gamer, and it’s hard to disagree.

John Radoff has a brief pictorial & narrative history of social games [mirror] on his blog this week, locating social games like FarmVille in a broader social context.

“You say apocalypse, I say retro chic” by G Christopher Williams of PopMatters is a comparative look at the worlds of Fallout 3 and Bioshock that notes:

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September 19th

…in art to architecture and space.” It’s a dense treatment of a complex subject but, as with much of Jeffries’ writing, it’s worth the effort.

Adrian Forest at the Three Parts Theory blog elaborates on the contaminated water that functions as a barrier for the player in Fallout 3 and how that relationship changes in the ‘Point Lookout’ expansion:

The prevalence of water in the area and the necessity of crossing it to explore serves to reduce the player’s aversion to water, to retrain them and accustom them to their new capabilities. Having to cross the water

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September 26th

This Week in Videogame Blogging, now in rapidfire-mode since there’s so much to get through:

Fraser Alison at Red Kings Dream writes about ‘A grammar of games’ [dead link, no mirror available].

Tom Francis writing for PC Gamer informs us of some Spade related violence in Fallout 3’s Point Lookout DLC. That’s two weeks in a row someone’s mentioned Point Lookout. Elsewhere, Francis has been reflecting upon and what his efforts with programming game AI have taught him:

It’s easy to code what you want. But you don’t really know what you want until you’ve

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December 5th

…of storytelling [mirror], comparing the freeform storytelling of Red Dead Redemption and other games with Jorge Luis Borges’ short story, The Garden of Forking Paths.

James Bishop at Hellmode picks apart the morality and karma systems [dead link, no mirror available] of Fallout: New Vegas, and asks why the simplified morality in games fails to reflect the ambiguity of real situations.

“Game designers have been telling us what is good and what is evil within the context of video games for years, often ignoring the various complexities of situations and generalizing on a large scale. This can

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December 12th

…shit if games are art.

IGN UK’s Michael Thomsen, the same man who declared Metroid Prime to be the Citizen Kane of video games, writes a lucid Contrarian Corner post on Fallout: New Vegas [mirror].

Jose Gonzalez Bruno on his blog gamereader (which he should tell some people exists) writes about the “Tyranny of the Masses” [mirror] with regards to the Mass Effect 2 player data, saying:

As we have seen, publishers and developers have profoundly different ways of looking at the world, and this creates the possibility of conflict when it comes to interpreting player

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