Archive for the 'Gaming' Category

One of my favorite pieces of writing is by Subcomandante Marcos, the Zapatista leader, describing his initial journey to join the rebel group:

Perhaps you are asking what happened to my intention to turn back and abandon the guerrilla life, and you might suppose that the vision of that first dawn in the mountains made me abandon my idea of fleeing, lifted my morale and firmed my revolutionary conscience. Well, you are wrong. I put my plan into operation and went down the hill. What happened is I mistook which side to go down. Instead of going down the slope that would take me back to the road and from there to “civilisation”, I went down the side that took me deeper into the rainforest and that led me to another hill, and another and another . . .

Seriously though, read the whole thing, it’s pretty cool. But anyway, I just wanted to point out a thematically linked passage in this article about game design from a 2007 issue of Wired:

“This, he says, is bad: It means that people were wandering aimlessly instead of progressing through the level. “People were lost,” Pagulayan says. “There wasn’t much deep analysis to do here.”

To solve such problems, the designers must subtly direct player movement by altering the world in small ways. In this case, they decided to change the geography of the Jungle level so that in certain places players had to jump down a steep ledge to reach the next area. This way people can’t go backward, because they can’t climb back up the ledges. Pagulayan shows me a map from the next testing round, after the fix was implemented — and sure enough, all the dots are clustered in tight bunches, right where they are supposed to be.”

So it goes.

Has this been done?

The main character is a boring guy with a boring job/life. Open cutscene establishes this, has a few laughs, and then concludes with the main character thrown into a gripping, life-or-death situation. He makes it through alive, but comes to believe that there was another force or presence controlling him throughout the crisis. You (the player) are that force or presence. Eventually, the main character realizes that he can induce this kind of experience by intentionally placing himself in dangerous circumstances. He begins doing so regularly and also starts believing that the nature of these experiences gives him some kind of temporary invulnerability. Because of this he gets increasingly reckless in his risk-taking until the challenges become fundamentally impossible for the player to complete and he dies. Game over.

I dunno… Maybe it’s a bit too much like just putting a bunch of Peter Weir movies plus eXistenZ in a blender, but what’s the harm in that?

I got a Holiday e-card from Atari. It’s so intense! Still got nothing on the Infogrames Corporate Anthem though!

Just checking out the embed functionality on the new Telltale Videos site…

Being as that the absolute mutability of the details and specifics pertaining to the life of our lord and savior, the right honorable Jesus H. Christ, has long been embraced and celebrated by the fathers of the church, (Christ’s love of and/or distaste for whores, prawns, the diseased, homosexuals, bitchin’ Camaros, every nation on the face of the Earth, various professional sports franchises and a variety of other topics having been well-established by both the papacy and angry, drunken guys on the BART as a persuasive argument for the separation of fools and their money) I would submit that it should not be a controversial action in the least part to amend or modify the scriptures in such a way to suggest that the Holy Spirit’s seminiferous indwelling took place not in the dewy, April springtime of the Virgin’s immaculate womb, but in the cold, dark night of deepest October, perhaps as part of the ancient Judaic rite of Challahween.

Having thus transposed the date of the blessed, non-consensual event, it naturally follows that the embryonic messiah’s glorious gestation should have reached its conclusion not in the chill of winter, but instead as summer’s lush and languid treasures are revealed. The star of Bethlehem holding sway over the armies of commerce and tradition, Norse mythology and the rumours of the Pagans shall be swept away and as families gather round the twinkling fronds of the ceremonial palm tree, exchanging gifts and season’s greetings to the calypso rhythms of their cherished Christ-mass carols, their brethren in the business of electronic gaming will heave a healthy sigh of contentment, pleased to be spending the life-affirming months of warmth and sunshine in the company of friends and loved ones, instead of slaving away at the manufacture of their computerized diversions, all of which must previously have been delivered to the merchants of plastic and sorrow at Summer’s end, such that the wicked houses of Replication and Compliance might have the opportunity to perform their bizarre, occult rituals before placing them on the mythical “shelves” as a tribute to the Lord (and his fondness for sci-fi themed FPS titles).

And yet, even as I compose these thoughts I am filled with a dark and ominous dread that my words may be twisted and employed towards nefarious ends by the followers of Mammon. And so I shall be unequivocal in my admonishments: NO!!! This is NOT to say that the margins of (the) prophet shall be widened by the elevation of a second Son! There shall be NO talk of “Christmas 2.0” or ANY synergistic re-imagining of other hallowed Summer festivals (such as Independence Day or the “Vans Warped Tour presented in partnership with Boost Mobile: Boost… Where You At?”) as justification for the further perfunctory exchange of gifts. Let the specter of “Sweetest Day” haunt our memories and remind us that the unchecked inflation of “holy days” can only serve to multiply our woe. And let us also take this opportunity to address various other clerical errors in the story of Jesus, including the unfortunate transliteration of his surname as “Christ” instead of “Cruz” and the oft-mistaken belief that he took the form of a human being, and not a monster truck, as was told in the original Aramaic.