When making yesterday's "I'm so busy" excuses rationalizations for not posting frequently, I forgot to mention something else cool: I'll also be contributing some reviews to AV Club's Sawbuck Gamer section, where we look at smaller titles, many of them indie or off-the-beaten-path, that can be had for less than $10. I recently wrote for the section about Tyler Glaliel's IndieCade Gameplay Award winner Closure, which pretty much blew my mind. The agility of bite-sized, brilliantly-simple approaches to game design even as megabucks and mega-values continue marching on in the traditional console space never ceases to amaze. I'm glad we have both approaches.
On the same topic, Gamasutra had an interview yesterday with the co-founders of Odd Gentlemen, creators of upcoming, buzzworthy XBLA title The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom. Cool dudes -- you should read the whole thing, but this bit stands out to me when I think of Closure:
"It's like they get really impactful in 10 seconds, whereas you might play a Final Fantasy game, and you don't give a shit until the eighth hour mark. That's when it really connects to you. Who needs that? Exactly like you said, you can make a poignant, small experience that gets to the core of what you want to feel and experience it. It's wonderful."
"It's like they get really impactful in 10 seconds, whereas you might play a Final Fantasy game, and you don't give a shit until the eighth hour mark. That's when it really connects to you. Who needs that? Exactly like you said, you can make a poignant, small experience that gets to the core of what you want to feel and experience it. It's wonderful."
True that. Oh, we also had an interview I did yesterday with a guy from the Need For Speed games. The only "car game" I like is Midnight Club Los Angeles, but I didn't realize that the guys who do the physics in the Need For Speed series -- recent ones, at least -- get to go try the cars out all day on a closed circuit track with help from pro racers, so they know how it's supposed to look, sound and feel for players. Now that's gotta be a fun job.
In other news, some of you who follow me on Twitter may have seen me mention Kill Screen, the swank new gaming mag being assembled by some of the writers I respect most, in gaming or anywhere. Some of you might have even helped donate for Kill Screen's fundraising (thank you!) and secured yourself a copy.
Now, you can read a little more about the folks behind the project. I'm kicking in a small piece for the magazine too, which is probably news to my editor. Hey, Chris? When I said "this morning" I meant, like, Australia time or something. It's coming, cross my heart! I'm almost done!
2 comments:
Who needs that? No one, indeed. But who needs the opposite? I'd answer the same. I don't see anything wrong with slowly, methodically building up a foundation and telling a story in what I would consider a more "old-fashioned" way.
And why would someone want to play a game they "don't give a shit about" for 8 hours? In that case, either it's just a bad game, or you're playing the wrong game, as Leigh has brought up multiple times recently.
In general, my Final Fantasies have not taken long to start engaging me, the lone exception being FFXII, which I stopped playing well before the 8 hour mark.
I've experienced media that didn't get especially good until the proverbial 8 hour mark, but when it did, it was absolutely worth it. It's more common in books than in games, though. Lord Foul's Bane, the first book Stephen R. Donaldson's "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant" series, is much, much worse than all the other books. The trilogy "Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn" by Tad Williams also suffers from a tedious first book, but the second and third are wonderful. As always, the TV Tropes wiki has more to say.
Anyway, there are novels, and there are short stories, and both are good in different ways. One one hand, you have The Lord of the Rings. On the other, The Last Question. They both have their place, and I wouldn't want to be without either one.
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