Sunday, September 28, 2014

And now a very special Steam moment

That moment when you know you're going to make a Steam purchase even if it's the end of the month and you know you don't really have any money.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

A Celebration of Carnage: Django Unchained and Hotline Miami

Watched Django Unchained again the other night with some folks who hadn't seen it before. About two seconds of a panning shot following a gunfight immediately brought the concluding sequences of each level of Hotline Miami to mind and provoked the thoughts that make up this post on the "celebration of carnage" represented frequently in Tarantino movies and in Hotline Miami. Memory is a funny thing.

Sarra says this post reads more like stuff I write when I'm writing well (as opposed to a lot of what I've written lately). She's probably write. She usually is about these kind of things.

A Celebration of Carnage: Django Unchained and Hotline Miami

Monday, September 22, 2014

I laughed

until I cried.

Review: Dead Rising: Apocalypse Edition

I've heard that some critics don't think that Dead Rising 3 is art.

Ummm... yeah.

You say schlock like that's a bad thing.

Dead Rising: Apocalypse Edition

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Astute author D. H. Lawrence say

"They want an outward system of nullity, which they call peace and goodwill, so that in their own souls they can be independent little gods."
--Chuck Palahniuk,Pygmy

I wrote a dissertation once a long time ago called little gods. I was unaware of this quotation at the time.

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Runers: What's My Motivation?

Shoot better and better and better. Then, shoot some more.

Runers: What's My Motivation?

Moving Pixels Podcast: Little Money, Little Games

We did publish a podcast on Monday featuring three little games available to play for free online, only one of which I think is worth playing. That is, of course, the brilliant little browser-based econ sim, A Dark Room

Moving Pixels Podcast: Little Money, Little Games

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Less Is Much, Much More: Making Do in Dead Rising 3

Kind of glad I wrote this critique of Dead Rising's lowered difficulty before I officially reviewed it because this is my only real complaint about the game. Frankly, it's as fun as always, just maybe too easy.

In this blog post, I discuss the problems of how the lowered challenge contradicts some of the genre's conventions regarding scarcity and its overall tension.

Less Is Much, Much More: Making Do in Dead Rising 3

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Monday, September 8, 2014

The one that makes me laugh, she said

Never was really fond of The Cure, despite my age and their significance to the alt scene of the time.

But I'm a total sucker for this still.

("Killing An Arab" is also good, though. Robert Smith's take on The Stranger.).

Moving Pixels Podcast: Transitioning to Transistor

Pretty imagery in Transistor. Somewhat forgettable game.

Moving Pixels Podcast: Transitioning to Transistor

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

The Artist's Medium Is the Rules: The Games of Edmund McMillen

There's this weird, character in black face in The Binding of Isaac called Steven. I never quite knew what he was all about, but I did know that he was a character from another game by McMillen, Time Fcuk. So, I finally sat down and played through Time Fcuk the other night to maybe see what Steven represents to McMillen.

Having played it, I'm still not sure why he is in what appears to be black face, but I did have a number of things to say about Time Fcuk and how it fits into the McMillen canon.

The Artist's Medium Is the Rules: The Games of Edmund McMillen

Monday, September 1, 2014

Bowie, Mercury, Kermit

This will probably seem kind of lame initially. However, it gets better as it goes along.