Brandon Erickson's blog

Study: Violent crime caused by family violence, not videogames

By Brandon Erickson on March 19, 2008 - 12:11pm.
The debate over videogames and violence shows no signs of abating, and despite having grown a little weary of the topic, I'll admit that there's a part of me that remains ever intrigued by the latest research in this area. So in that spirit, here's another scientific article to further fuel the discussion.
» read more | 6 comments |

Dialectical realism: How Assassin's Creed killed its own potential

By Brandon Erickson on March 12, 2008 - 6:45pm.
Videogames are filled with absurd contradictions; and one of the most pervasive of these by far has to be the inability of game characters to interact realistically with their environments. It's precisely the inclusion of environmental interaction that makes Assassin's Creed so special. It's also a terrible shame that, having created such a remarkably realistic and tactile world, the game goes to such great lengths to undermine that very realism.
» read more | 17 comments |

Vibration enhances emotional impact of videogames, Swedish study suggests

By Brandon Erickson on March 5, 2008 - 12:06pm.
Despite former Sony exec Phil Harrison's ridiculous assertion that rumble is a "last generation feature," most gamers never really doubted the relevance of force feedback to videogames. As if Sony's recent flip-flop with the DualShock 3 wasn't confirmation enough of this fact, we can now point to science as well.
» read more | add new comment |

Videogame technology used to model crowd behavior in military training program

By Brandon Erickson on February 27, 2008 - 1:03pm.
While videogame technology has been used before to model enemy behavior in military training simulations, it has yet to be applied to modeling the behavior of noncombatants in war zones. But that's all about to change thanks to Dr. Frederick McKenzie and his colleagues, whose research is presented in the March issue of Simulation & Gaming.
» read more | 1 comment |

FPS players feel better after dying than after killing others, say researchers

By Brandon Erickson on February 22, 2008 - 12:06pm.
An article in the February issue of the journal Emotion presents some strange findings regarding players' emotional reactions to killing and being killed in a first-person shooter (FPS). Conventional FPS wisdom would suggest that players like shooting enemies and dislike getting shot. The research findings, however, paint a different picture.
» read more | 26 comments |

The importance of save systems in videogames

By Brandon Erickson on February 19, 2008 - 8:52pm.

Most anyone who has been playing videogames for any appreciable length of time is well acquainted with the agonizing distress of “dying” in a game and losing several hours of hard fought progress. Like it or not, save systems have a huge influence on our enjoyment of a game.

» read more | 2 comments |

Would a videogame by any other name smell as sweet?

By Brandon Erickson on February 6, 2008 - 7:13pm.
Does the “videogame” label properly capture what videogames have become? Will the term “videogames” still be used 20 or 30 years from now? Recent titles like BioShock and Mass Effect are pushing games to a realm of narrative and interactive depth that make the term “game” seem ill-fitting. As the boundaries of the medium continue to expand, I suspect that the “videogame” label will only feel increasingly inadequate.
» read more | 4 comments |

Moving away from mindlessness

By Brandon Erickson on January 30, 2008 - 11:10pm.
After listening to Jonathan Blow’s “Design Reboot” lecture last December, I made a small resolution that I would try to reduce my time spent on games that rely on meaningless reward systems. Putting it into practice, however, has proved tougher than I thought.
» read more | 11 comments |

Looking back on the Wii

By Brandon Erickson on January 23, 2008 - 10:05pm.
Now that the Wii's novelty has worn off, a number of questions come to my mind: Is the Wii really all it’s cracked up to be? Does the Wii remote actually improve the gameplay experience? Do motion-sensing controls really do all that much to increase the player’s overall enjoyment or sense of immersion?
» read more | 3 comments |

Trying to appreciate Halo

By Brandon Erickson on January 16, 2008 - 7:18pm.
Just as English literature buffs should be knowledgeable about the heavyweights of the Western canon—Macbeth, Huckleberry Finn, Ulysses, etc.—so too should videogame critics be acquainted with gaming’s megahits, games like Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and, yes, the Halo series. So, like the English lit student who struggles to wrap his or her head around Ulysses, not because it’s enjoyable but because it’s important, I decided that I should at least try to understand Halo.
» read more | 10 comments |
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