Search Results for “journey” – Page 9

July 1st

…able to carry meaning without text and without temporal markers. Change itself, whether change in one location or the change that comes from progressing to one location from another, is enough to tell story.

Following in Bembeneck’s wake, Robert Hunter offers up another look at Journey and how its physics and interactions bring us the impression of “water in the desert.” Very evocative.

And speaking of evocations, much has been made of Steven Boone’s recent piece criticizing E3 darling The Last of Us— so much so that he’s back now with a followup further extrapolating on his…

August 19th

…Parts Theory, again on the changing nature of city space from above and from the ground and the transition between the two as exemplified in the Prototype games.

Jamie Dalzell at Pondering the Pixels blog, decided that ‘Journey is a Game About Fear.’

Rob Parker writes a personal account that ends up talking about Tribes: Ascension, but there is more to it.

And finally I’m closing out on something fun. Two somethings in fact. A short movie by Eran May-raz and Daniel Lazo on what our future looks like with the new “iPhone.” And some ukiyo-e woodblock…

October 21st

…time to weed out junk information, how can I weed out junk games? What qualifies as a worthwhile game, something that I’ll be glad I played afterwards? What criteria can I start using other than, “That looks fun”? How can I make my gaming life saner, more grounded, and more human?”

FEEL ALL THE THINGS

Alexandra Geraets discovers an uncommon feeling of peace while playing Journey: “A video game is the last place I’d ever look for a peaceful, borderline spiritual experience, and yet I had one, a truly powerful, emotional adventure.”

INCLUSION

Maddy Myers…

October Roundup

…Is it just me, or is there something inherently creepy about those screenshots, phobia or not?

Nathan Blades compares the demonic shopping mall of Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey with the real-world horrors of the London riots. He goes on to talk about Westfield Stratford: I’ve been there too, and let me tell you, the queues in that Primark are nothing short of terrifying.

Cody Steffen offers an omnibus of his experiences with horror games. Like Kim, Cody explores the idea of heightened interactivity keeping our eyes fixed on the television instead of cowering behind the sofa.

…

November 11th

…kindle bonfires. Trade for useful items, level up covenants. And last of all, quite simply: kill everyone.

As someone who hasn’t played Dark Souls, I would nevertheless highly recommend this. Without a doubt, one of the most compelling articles from this week.

Edge has a great retrospective up on cult RPG Vagrant Story. Our own Eric Swain finds that pleasure is in the details in his repeated trips through Journey. And Dear Esther dev Robert Briscoe shores up a wonderful post-mortem on the game.

WHAT IS A GAME? A MISERABLE LITTLE PILE OF SECRETS

Adrian…

Spec Ops: The Line

…the shooter genre broadly, but to Bioshock specifically in his journey from Rapture to Dubai.

Breaking It Down

Various other writers dissected the game in great detail, or took elements or themes of the game and discussed those at great length. At Twenty Sided, Shamus Young and some companions have several long and detailed posts looking in-depth at various aspects of The Line. The first two posts break down the entire game, bit by bit. Another post looks more generally at The Line’s themes and how it conveys them, and another post looks in-depth at The Line’s visual…

January 6th

…gaming with Journey.

Communicating the passion, the beauty; the romance of games to non-gamers is a task that can oftentimes seem impossible. How do you explain the draw of sneaking down a corridor, slowly losing your sanity, in Amnesia? What’s so appealing about repeatedly dying and becoming frustrated with Dark Souls? Why bother to learn new and confusing button configurations to play Uncharted, when you could just pop Indiana Jones into the DVD player? How do you explain to someone why it’s fun to massacre wave upon wave of seemingly helpless bad guys?

Elsewhere on the…

Prince of Persia

…would be scrutinized extensively. Perhaps it was held to too high a standard, as Scott Juster thinks, but fairly or not several of the decisions in the new game’s design have proven widely divisive.

A gentle journey upstream

Among hardcore gamers there is little doubt that Prince of Persia is easy to play, but a debate rages over whether it is too easy, whatever that might mean. The game is devoid of punishing “Game Over” screens or unforgiving platforming puzzles in the mold of Sands of Time‘s Tower of Dawn. The Prince’s companion Elika has streamlined the experience…

January Roundup

…assertion that “games that aren’t challenging are dull”, though. Ever played Journey?

Sinclair Target is also a proponent of the “challenge is fun” school of games philosophy. To be honest, a piece containing the sentence “Dear Esther isn’t really a game” and using the anti-description ‘gameplay’ is a good way to troll your humble curator, but I can acknowledge the argument that challenge is a useful way to analyse mechanics- separating Bayonetta from Barbie, if you will.

Ben Hallett thinks the consequences of failure in XCOM and Dark Souls separate them from the inconsequential Civilization V and Arkham…

February 10th

…experience plays in games writing.”

BUT CAN ART BE GAMES

Why yes, says Alexander Feigenbaum. And here’s an interesting essay on Pippin Barr’s “Duchamping” of the medium in Art Game.

Samantha Allen (say her name three times and click your heels) also turned up on Kotaku this week to pose a different hypothesis: maybe games are like a certain kind of sex.

Writing in his regular Moving Pixels column, Nick Dinicola poses that Journey’s co-op is effective in the later levels because it provokes “the more subtle emotions of safety and reassurance.” Elsewhere on the topic…