3DS

The guys at Extra Credits discuss mechanics as a metaphor or "mechanics with meaning" and for a visual aid, they use an interesting game or non-game called Loneliness. A description wouldn't really do the game justice, but it is well worth your time to try it for yourself considering the game is free.

One of the more interesting things brought up in this two-part series though is the lack of trust game creators show the player. Modern game creators simply do not trust the player to fail, experiment or uncover any meaning (assuming the creators intend for there to be any) while playing. After playing Loneliness you might understand why. It is a pretty gutsy thing to attempt in a free game, imagine how it would be received should you require payment for a similar experience.

If you knew me back in 2005, I was a lot different. I was genuinely excited about console gaming, as I had been for decades before. I was still a big Sony guy, as I had been since the original PlayStation launched and won me over. I was also getting into the original Xbox, though late. A new generation of consoles was coming, and I was looking forward to it while also enjoying what was currently available. I was alternating my time between the Internet and reading video game magazines to stay as current as I could.

Adult Swim takes the innocent act of a child trying to make his NES cart work and makes it dirty... and funny.

Caution: Crude content

Recently, European courts ruled that digital property is the same as physical property. Extra Credits does a brief breakdown of what that could mean for games should such a ruling be held up on appeal and duplicated here in the United States.

The guys at Extra Credits look into incorporating imbalance in a game. Ironically, imbalance is just the thing that when worked into character classes, weapons, tools and gameplay rules can wind up giving both the wet-behind-the-ears newbie and grizzled veteran new strategies as each plays and progresses through a game.

Survival horror games aren't what they used to be. Once upon a time, they were about survival and horror. It makes sense. It's what the genre is called, after all. These titles would encompass qualities of mystery and exploration as the player fought to stay alive with every step. Over the years, they've increasingly become about action, gunfights, and an overload of cheap jump scares. I prefer the former, despite a plethora of the latter.

It's time again for one of my "house-cleaning" posts where I toss up a bunch of random bits and links to stuff and get it off of my computer.

I was listening to a podcast recently (and I've heard this same thing multiple times from other people over the last week or so) and I was shaking my head at the way the speakers were discussing recent Events Which Shall Not Be Named. Over and over, they were so insistent that reviewers are "getting paid off" for good scores.

In the wake of the success of Obsidian's Project Eternity Kickstarter, supporters are eagerly watching the stretch goals to see what promised goodies will be put into the game. Meanwhile, I am hoping to see one thing left out: voice acting. Done correctly, voice acting can significantly improve a Japanese RPG. However, recording voices for characters diminishes a Western RPG, regardless of the reading's quality. For this reason, I feel that Western RPGs should avoid having voiced dialogue.

Extra Credits has an interesting two-part discussion about the hero's journey, a concept explored by Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Thatgamecompany's Journey is the game example featured here (along with The Legend of Zelda) but this seems to be a concept exploited in all entertainment genres.