Quest to Nowhere

Playing Red Dead Redemption I found myself thinking a lot about the story, specifically within the context of the objective vs. subjective storytelling (which I discussed in a previous post.) The one thing that I kept coming back to was that within the game it seemed that there were two John Marstons, the one that Rockstar created for the game, and the one that the players create for themselves as they play the game. The players’ John Marston exists between the cut-scenes and in-game dialogues between characters, while the Rockstar John Marston exists in those scripted moments.

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I have spent more time then I care to imagine playing videogames, a lot of that has been playing multiplayer shooter games like Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament, Perfect Dark, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and the like. As such, over that time I’ve come to some derive some theories on how multiplayer levels should be designed, based on my experiences.

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While I was at GDC this past year I went to a lecture called “Get Your Game out of my Movie! Interactive Storytelling in Mass Effect 2,” which was being given by Armando Troisi of BioWare. The one thing he said that has been stuck in my head since then was this idea of objective and subjective storytelling.

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I never finished Mass Effect 1, at least until the day Mass Effect 2 was released. I picked up ME1 on PC during Steam’s holiday sale intending to finish it so I would have a save to import into ME2. I played ME1 on 360 originally but never finished it, so the Steam sale provided a nice way to play the game over again, and get the save to import.

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I finished Bayonetta a few nights back, but I couldn’t really rationalize it until the day after I finished it. See I completely enjoyed the game while I was playing it, not just the fighting but every part of it, but I couldn’t figure out why.

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Well its that time of year again, when everyone is putting out their lists of the best videogames of the year. I contemplated putting out just a list of my favorite games from the past year, in no particular order, but even so there was still one game for me that was just seemed to be better then all the others, in my mind. So I’m going to do both, honor my favorite game of the year as well as give a list of my best games of the year.

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I’ve been meaning to write this since Friday. I picked up the game Friday (for 360 since they ruined the PC version and whatnot,) and aside from a break to have dinner beat the single player in one sitting. It is a bit short, but I don’t really think that’s a valid complaint.

See as much as I want to hate on this game, it is really really good. The single player is really tight, and constantly has you on the move in new locals, with new things to do. And of course its full of amazing set pieces, that make … Continue Reading

I’ve been having trouble getting into Brutal Legend, not that I’m having trouble in the difficulty level of the game, but rather that I’m not really wanting to play it. I haven’t been able to figure out why, I figured that perhaps playing it after Uncharted 2 was clouding my judgement of games. I mean everyone I know has been raving on it, and I feel like I should really like it, but for whatever reason I couldn’t figure out my problem with it. Then I watched Yahtzee’s review of the game, and it all sort of gelled together … Continue Reading

I signed the petition against dedicated servers being removed from the PC version of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I was signature 121,594.

I signed it after reading this editorial by the editor of PC Gamer magazine.

Infinity Ward rather stealthily announced a few days back on a CoD fan podcast that in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 that there would be no dedicated fan run servers, because they want everything to be done as matchmaking through their servers. Of course this has caused quite a kerfuffle on the ol’ internets, leading to (last I checked) 85,000 people signing an online petition asking IW to reconsider.

Although I can understand to an extent why they are doing this (helps to prevent piracy, more ad money from ads on their servers, etc.) it seems to me that they … Continue Reading