mass effect

…wrote about the TCBAG (This Could Be A Game) Syndrome while I was away, prompting much admission of similar conditions by his readers. I can’t say I actually suffer from it that often: instead I more commonly get TCBABP (This Could Be a Blog Post) Syndrome and feel guilty when I don’t write anything about whatever inspired it.

All the way with LBJ this week, as he looked at Mass Effect and looked at how it separated its combat mechanics from its dialogue choices and ended up with a less judgemental game. Okay, so that’s not word-for-word what Jeffries…

…of other genres– like action games.

Over at Play the Past, Roger Travis has embarked on a multipart series on the Mass Effect franchise. In commenting on the series’s interaction with ideas of player agency, Travis (perhaps coincidentally?) echoes the grand dame Janet Murray herself:

[T]he way the game produces its effect is little different than JM Barrie’s famous ludic moment in Peter Pan: choice matters because the player convinces him or herself that it matters; the story can’t proceed unless choice matters, because the story proceeds when the player makes choices.

Following that path, we…

…murder. And thought notoriously painful, Brendan Keogh also reflects on his isolated nature in games and how Dark Souls complicates his single-player experience with multiplayer influence.

The Bonds Between Us

Relationships and intimacy is a long standing fascination of game critics, and writers continue to push our thinking on how relating can happen in games. Jordan Rivas speaks to the Citadel DLC of Mass Effect 3 and how it created a feeling homecoming, of friendship that essentially fulfilled your needs for some bonding. This time on Medium Difficulty, Mark Filipowich renews the conversation about intimacy in games through…

…for the idea that sex sells and anything else is doomed for failure.

Mrs. Dawnaway wrote a piece for Big Tall Words about the implications of makeup in Mass Effect.

And Mike Rose delved into the seedy world of digital gunrunners who circumvent the Steam trading system to make a quick buck off of Counter Strike: Global Offensive.

This is where everyone sort of wanders about towards their own interests

Edward Smith wrote a trio of posts about Silent Hill 2 looking at the long intro walk in the woods, the character of Laura and a…