The Miracle Is in the Execution: The Indifferent Kill in Assassin's Creed

Assassin's Creed has habituated me to play in a way that enforces a certain dramatic performance on my part.

The Miracle Is in the Execution: The Indifferent Kill in Assassin's Creed

Moving Pixels Podcast: Exploring New Vegas

New Moving Pixels podcast is up. For some reason, I only have the foggiest sense of what we all discussed during the 'cast. Well, I know that it is about Fallout: New Vegas, but the specifics elude me.

That may be my notion of playing the game though. I always feel a little distant from the universe of the Wastleland. Being trapped behind the eyes of a character for so many hours leaves me stangely more detached from "myself" than one would think should be the case in the "immersive" first person perspective. I don't discuss that in the podcast, however. Maybe I should write a bit about perspective soon, though.

Moving Pixels Podcast: Exploring New Vegas

Everybody Wants to Own the World

My wife says that the conclusion needs more development. I say that the essay is more a "talking point" than a full blown argument.

In any case, my "talking point" concerns investement simulations in a few recent action and RPG titles and the allure of possession of virtual property for the player, especially as it distracts from the seeming main goal of the narrative.

Everybody Wants to Own the World

Moving Pixels Podcast: Exploring Albion in Fable III

If you can believe it, the Moving Pixels writers have yet more to say about Fable III. Even when Molyneux doesn't succeed though (or not in the way you expect), he always produces work that is interesting and worth talking about becase he makes you reconsider what is possible in game design.

While there were a host of things that I wanted to talk about concerning Fable III, an inordinate amount of our time was consumed by discussion of the "menu" screen (which seems kind of fair given how much of one's time in Fable III is likewise consumed by this strange innovation) and the appearance of Reaver in the endgame, something that seems appropriate to me given Fable III's cartoonish moralism (but I strangely argue here has a "realistic" authenticity). In any case, stay tuned for the end in which Rick and I have a weird dust up over the whole Reaver issue.

Moving Pixels Podcast: Exploring Albion in Fable III

Mafia II Goes Retro with Joe's Adventures, Early 2000s Retro That Is

Mafia II is quite good. Its DLC has been dodgy at best.

However, Joe's Adventures offers a better experience than Jimmy's Vendetta. Sometimes frustration leads to satisfaction:

Mafia II Goes Retro with Joe's Adventures, Early 2000s Retro That Is

Moving Pixels Podcast: The Undead Invade New Austin

Some thoughts on Undead Nightmare from Tom, Nick, Rick, and myself:

Moving Pixels Podcast: The Undead Invade New Austin

The Best Flash Games of 2010

Tired. Exhausted. End of semester. Trying to get thesis proposals from students. Reduced to writing... lists.

The Best Flash Games of 2010

Fallout, the “To Do” List Simulator

Kind of a follow up to "Fallout: The Scrounging Simulator", this week's post concerns the sort of work that sidequests in Fallout: New Vegas entail.

Fallout, the “To Do” List Simulator

Moving Pixels Podcast: Role Playing Elements in Other Video Games

Hey, you got your RPG in my FPS.

Moving Pixels Podcast: Role Playing Elements in Other Video Games

Review of Rock Band 3

Guitar Hero 5 was better than The Beatles, but Rock Band 3 is better than Warriors of Rock.

Review of Rock Band 3

Call of Duty: Black Ops: Treyarch Attempts to "Modernize" Warfare

Maybe this is more of a review than an essay? I don't know. I categorized it as a review rather than as a blog entry this week.

Basically, it's a discussion of the single player campaign of the newest Call of Duty release, Black Ops. Mostly I do some comparison between Treyarch's approach to storytelling as opposed to that of Infinity Ward. While I realize that Modern Warfare 2's storytelling was not that well receive by the critical community, I still find myself more interested in what Infinity Ward does with the medium than Treyarch.

Call of Duty: Black Ops: Treyarch Attempts to "Modernize" Warfare

Moving Pixels Podcast: The Minecraft Experience

We recorded this episode quite a while back (around the same time that I wrote a post called "I Don't Know How to Play", which also concerned Minecraft). In retrospect, it was pretty bad pool to participate in this discussion only having played the browser version of the game, but I still think that just that experience was interesting in it own ways.

Anyhow, a bit more discussion of what it means to play generally and to play Minecraft itself:

Moving Pixels Podcast: The Minecraft Experience

Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare: A Little Incompetence Goes a Long Way

More review than any heavy analysis this week. I cover my experience with Undead Nightmare, a solid piece of DLC for Red Dead Redemption, especially given the $10.00 price tag.

Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare: A Little Incompetence Goes a Long Way

Review of Power Gig: Rise of the SixString

Rythym games are pretty big around my house. Power Gig: Rise of the SixString was not.

Here is why:

Power Gig: Rise of the SixString

Moving Pixels Podcast: All Those Necessary Supplements

A few weeks ago, Nick, Tom, and I got together to discuss DLC, especially the sort that extends the plot or universe of games. This week's Moving Pixels podcast is then a discussion of the necessity (or lack thereof) of various bits of DLC and how they effect the overall experience of game content.

Moving Pixels Podcast: All Those Necessary Supplements -- A Discussion of Downloadable Content

Fable 3: An Uncompromising Commitment to Whimsy

Ah, Albion. The place that I am obsessed with owning (by buying up and renting out every square inch of it). The place where I foment revolution by gaining followers through dance and patty cake. The place that actually seems enchanting.

This week I discuss whimsy and the Fable series. A sense of whimsy is so hard to evoke in any medium without coming off as sentimental and insipid. Yet, Lionhead is able to reach that sweet spot every time out.

More here:

Fable 3: An Uncompromising Commitment to Whimsy

Moving Pixels Podcast: Our Favorite Horror Games

Reporting a little late again, but the latest episode of the Moving Pixels podcast went live on Monday. It contains a discussion of horror games, which is not exactly a particular interest of mine (not that I won't play them--just not my genre of choice generally). Nick certainly has an interest though and is a great champion of the Silent Hill series, which doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

Moving Pixels Podcast: Our Favorite Horror Games

Fallout: The Scrounging Simulator

Returning to the Fallout universe in New Vegas is a reminder that some elements of interface can actually complement gameplay. Specifically, I find that inventory management, despite being menu driven, becomes an essential part of the experience of the world in both Fallout 3 and New Vegas. I actually take pleasure in managing my inventory in these games. It immerses rather than violates the rules of the world.

More thoughts on scrounging simulation here:

Fallout: The Scrounging Simulator

Review of Sonic 4

Hey, hey, my first ever playthrough of a game featuring Sonic the Hedgehog, which is weird because given my age, I probably should have played some kind of Sonic game before.

My experience, as you will see, was a little mixed:

Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1

Moving Pixels Podcast: Schooling the Video Game Tutorial

Yesterday's Moving Pixels podcast featured a discussion of game tutorials:

Moving Pixels Podcast: Schooling the Video Game Tutorial

Death Is a Strange Reward: The Gretel and Hansel Series

I'm really fond of New Grounds. sure, there's a lot of crap there, but you can filter a lot of it and get at the interesting stuff with relative ease.

I'd been playing around with Gretel and Hansel: Part 2, one of the recent featured games at New Grounds, which provoked some discussion between my wife and I about sanitized brutality in today's fairy tales. Gretel and Hansel is not one of those sanitized contemporary revisions of a classic tale, if anything it goes well beyond the Brothers Grimm or Perrault's most horrific tales.

I talk this week a bit about violence and morality as a result:

Death Is a Strange Reward: The Gretel and Hansel Series

Review of Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock

This week I covered the kitschy new iteration of Guitar Hero. The added "narrative" components of the game serve the atmosphere more than anything else, as do a few scoring changes, which add more to the illusion of being a "guitar hero" than they do in changing up play itself:

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock

I Don't Know How to Play

Today's post might seem like it is about me or about Minecraft.

To me, it is really about neither, it is about an old hobby horse of mine, the relationship between player autonomy and the authority embedded in games.

You can see what you think that it is about here:

I Don't Know How to Play

Moving Pixels Podcast: Ideal Evil in Video Games

Any excuse to post the above image of Sephiroth is a good one.

This week's podcast is intended as a follow up to last week's discussion of "real evil" in video games. In other words, that one was about villains modeled on figures with real correlatives (Nazis, the Mafia, and the like). This one at least began in my brain as an effort to discuss more romanticized and less realistic villains in games. However, thanks to an essay by Nick Dinicola, it kind of became a discussion of antagonism in video games in general.

You can see what I mean by listening here:

Moving Pixels Podcast: Ideal Evil in Video Games

A Couple of Belated Updates: Moving Pixels Podcast and Blog

I have been extraordinarily busy for the last week or so (grading papers, grading exams, and more grading). While I managed to crank out another podcast and blog entry (more of a review this time) for PopMatters, I didn't manage to mention these updates here at the "official" Neuromance blog.

So, if you haven't seen them, here are links to last weeks Moving Pixels podcast, which begins a two part discussion of evil and villainy in video games, and my own Neuromance blog entry for PopMatters, which concerns the new Professor Layton game:

Moving Pixels Podcast: Real Evil in Video Games

Professor Layton and the Curious Compulsion Towards Improvement

I should also be updating with a link to the second part of our "podcasts of evil" a bit later on today.

Game, Narrative, and Bristol Palin in Dancing With the Stars

Something kind of unusual for me this week, as I discuss a television show. However, Dancing With the Stars is a competition, a game of some kind, right? In my estimation, it also isn't exclusively a competition based on physical performance either.

It is the game-like qualities of this show that I wanted to explore this week, especially by relating the goals of players (competitors) with how one plays a game or why one plays a game. More specifically, I discuss my confusion about why Bristol Palin is a player at all in this season's mixture of game, narrative, and performance:

Game, Narrative, and Bristol Palin in Dancing With the Stars

Moving Pixels Podcast: Death & The Video Game Player

Death happens in games. A lot.

Well, or at least it used to. This episode of the Moving Pixels Podcast considers the changing face of death in video games as well as what kinds of roles death serves in games.

Is death about punishment, pleasure, pedagogy, or is it merely an immersion breaking illusion? We play around with a number of possibilities.

Moving Pixels Podcast: Death & The Video Game Player

Review of Mafia II: Jimmy's Vendetta

My take on Jimmy's Vendetta, the follow up DLC for Mafia II, is up over at PopMatters. My discussion is an extension of sorts of what I started talking about in my review of the full game, considering how Mafia II limits open worlds in certain ways and how Jimmy's Vendetta might serve to "re-open" the world but at the expense of the full game's strengths in having restricted certain experiences in Empire Bay.

Review of Mafia II: Jimmy's Vendetta

Moving Pixels Podcast: A Brief Review of This Year's Indie Games

This week Nick, Tom, and I discuss a few indie releases from this year, including Thomas Brush's Coma, Alexander Ocias's Loved, and Digipen's Solace.

You can find that discussion here:

Moving Pixels Podcast: A Brief Review of This Year's Indie Games

Samus Aran Has Always Been Sexualized

Samus Aran is a tricky one. Like many Nintendo characters, she has (in most games) been voiceless. As a result, there hasn't been a whole lot of character development surrounding this icon (though in some sense more than a Link or Mario). She still has this status as an important character in gaming history as a female protagonist in one of the longer running Nintendo franchises, especially with the heavy emphasis on her gender at the close of the original game.

That emphasis is part of the tricky presentation of Samus's femininity though:

Samus Aran Has Always Been Sexualized

The Name Above the Title

A few thoughts on educating gamers through the marketing of creators rather than merely marketing content:

The Name Above the Title

Moving Pixels Podcast: Masculinity and the Male Body in Video Games

A follow up of sorts to the Moving Pixels podcast discussion from last week. This week Kris, Nick, and Tom and I discuss a variety of male characters, their body types and personas, and how they relay messages about masculinity to players. In addition to traditional heterosexual constructions of male bodies, we also consider some of the presentations of homosexuality and the masculine.

Moving Pixels Podcast: Masculinity and the Male Body in Video Games

Prude Nudes: Prison Rape, Playboy, and 'Mafia II'

Concerning the inconsistent uses of nudity in Mafia II, especially as they concern the "mature":

Prude Nudes: Prison Rape, Playboy, and 'Mafia II'

Moving Pixels Podcast: Femininity and the Female Body in Video Games

In addition to the review of Mafia II mentioned in the post below, the other thing that I've got going on today is a discussion of femininity and the female body on the Moving Pixels podcast.

While both Rick and Tom were absent this week, I once again hosted (I think somewhat more capably than last week--though I lack the courage to listen to the episode again to check for sure) and was joined by Nick Dinicola and special guest, Kris Ligman.

It should also be noted that Nick is at the editing helm for this episode and the last one, which was a great boon as Rick (who in addition to hosting, usually takes on editing chores as well) has been away from the 'cast.

You can listen to the new episode here:

Moving Pixels Podcast: Femininity and the Female Body in Video Games

Mafia II: The Boundaries of the Open World Experience

I think that Mafia II has been getting mixed reviews. Those who aren't fans seem to be largely criticizing the game's linearity and what they're calling a "waste of an open world." For my money, both elements contribute to the game's strengths, especially as it is a game about acting under orders.

More here:

Mafia II: The Boundaries of the Open World Experience

Review: Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days

As I alluded to in my previous post, the new Kane & Lynch is a less than great game. My review addresses its weaknesses as a game, while still acknowledging its other strengths (which include a well drawn and engaging world). I am very torn about this title because there are definitely some great things about it. I just wish that, as a game, it worked.

My colleague, Nick Dinicola also published a similarly ambivalent discussion of the title and its interesting use of a handcam aesthetic, which is worth checking out too, while you over at PopMatters Multimedia section:

Review: Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days

"Real Ain't Pretty”: The Ugly Aesthetic of Kane & Lynch

Kane & Lynch 2 isn't a great game. The gameplay itself is redundant and boring. It does have a couple of great moments in part due to a commitment to a type of realist aesthetic that is more common to 80s comic books than video games. Frankly, most games strive for an idealized and romanticized reality.

Kane & Lynch is looking to present an attitude that is a little more cynical and a world that is a whole lot uglier:

"Real Ain't Pretty”: The Ugly Aesthetic of Kane & Lynch

Moving Pixels Podcast: Co-operative Gameplay

This week's Moving Pixels podcast is a discussion of the kind of dynamics created between players of co-operative games. We discuss a bunch of different games as well as a number of co-op styles (arcade, at home, online).

Rick Dakan, our usual host, is on vacation. As a result, rather mortifyingly it is my first attempt at hosting a podcast.

I'm not sure that I was really successful. I know for example that the closing of the cast is incredibly and embarrassingly bad. However, hopefully there is still some good discussion in there despite my occasional gaffes.

Moving Pixels Podcast: Co-operative Gameplay

Lara Croft: The Arcade Game, Considering Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

Man, I'm writing a lot this month. Wait, maybe that's just what I do every month.

In any case, my latest blog post, which is doubling as a review, is out. It concerns the Tomb Raider "reboot" Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, which I found to rather tasty fun. It also really wasn't at all what I was expecting.

This Lara Croft adventure (IMO) has a real coin-op arcade game kind of feel to it that is very different from the traditional action/adventure style that Lara helped to pioneer.

This isn't high art, but it is good fun. And sometimes that is all one needs from a new title (and also seems part of the point in the case of this game).

More over at PopMatters:

Lara Croft: The Arcade Game, Considering Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

Mountains of Men: The Mythology of the Male Body in Video Games

I guess as a sort of follow up to my essay on Chun-Li's Thighs (I say, "sort of", because I actually wrote this latest essay on male bodies before the one on Chun-Li--the publication was reversed) comes an essay on masculinity in video games that also features a discussion of the Street Fighter games to some degree. To some degree because I actually try to sample a number of games (including Metal Gear Solid, Red Dead Redemption, Darksiders, Metroid, etc.) to suggest a number of examples of some of the representational ideas that I feel like are embedded in male bodies in games.

It is my perception that discussion of the female body and femininity is a common enough topic in games, but I feel like the male body has gotten less attention (something Freudian here). A comparison of some of the body types that exist (male and female) seems to indicate a general kind of idealizing or mythologizing of bodies in this medium that is somewhat akin to the kind of representations that show up in comic books (some might attribute this to the immaturity of both mediums, I don't think that that is altogether true--though there may be a partial truth there).

Anyhow, this one might be more aggravating to folks than the Chun-Li business. On the other hand, maybe male bodies just aren't that interesting to folks. I guess we'll see:

Mountains of Men: The Mythology of the Male Body in Video Games

Moving Pixels Podcast: Dressing the Part -- Character Customization in Video Games

A podcast topic near and dear to my heart. This week's Moving Pixels podcast considers how character creation ond modifications of characters affect our experience of gameplay.

Check it out here:

Moving Pixels Podcast: Dressing the Part -- Character Customization in Video Games

Review: Crackdown 2: Playing the Fascist

It has been awhile since I have "officially" reviewed a game for PopMatters. Frankly, I haven't played a whole lot of games for the last month or so barring some older and newer indie games. Generally this has been kind of a refreshing break from madly powering through twenty to forty hour games, however, I do feel like I'd like to get back to something as involving as a nice long game by a big publisher.

Unfortunately, Crackdown 2 has been the game that I returned from my indie-centric hiatus to.

Nevertheless, while the game is pretty paper thin and repetitive, it at least has some things that are interesting to talk about. Notably its really weirdly sarcastic but fascistic tone, and its tendency to force you into being a kind of tool of the state (despite its attempts to, perhaps, make the relation between the state and player ironic).

Playing the fascist is just weird, man:

Review: Crackdown 2: Playing the Fascist

Chun-Li's Thighs

What got me going this week was a podcast over at Big Red Potion (a podcast that I generally admire very much) concerning sexism in video games. Much of the discussion focused on contemporary fighting games (especially the DoA girls and those of Soul Calibur). Additionally, this discussion focused largely on recognizing a trend in those games towards big breasts and skimpy outfits but didn't really pursue what those representations suggested besides being especially provocative.

Now, while I am aware of both series, I haven't really played a fighting game in a long, long time. So, I decided to return to what I tend to think of as the seminal fighting game, Street Fighter II, to, perhaps, flesh out some of the meaning of female bodies in fighting games. The fetishization of Chun-Li and her thighs seems to me a little bit different than what the folks I had been listening to were talking about.

My resulting thoughts can be found here:

Chun-Li’s Thighs

Moving Pixels Podcast: Further Explorations of Limbo

Just a quick note that the latest Moving Pixels podcast is now available over at PopMatters. Like many folks, we're still talking about Limbo, a game whose quality I am personally a bit mixed about. It has some really great moments, but I am not convinced that it is a cohesive whole.

For more thoughts (including some quite different ones from my own):

Moving Pixels Podcast: Further Explorations of Limbo

Brutalizing Children in Limbo

I’ll be posting an episode of the Moving Pixels podcast next Monday, in which we discuss Playdead’s Limbo. Having completed our recording it occurred to me that we had never discussed one element of the game: a little boy is dismembered in Limbo with an astonishing regularity.

To read more:

Brutalizing Children in Limbo

Moving Pixels Podcast: Max Payne in Love

Another week, another podcast. This week the Moving Pixels crew discusses the (in my estimation) excellent, Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne.

It also gets my wife's vote for "sexiest game ever," thanks to the inclusion of Mona Sax. I'm rather taken by the love story myself, which is something we discuss a bit on the show.

Moving Pixels Podcast: Max Payne in Love

Pac-Man Will Die: Cynicism and Retro Game “Endings”

A fairly brief and (hopefully) pithy little posting this week. This post reminds me a bit of some other blog entries that I have done in the recent past (such as The Satisfaction of a Switch and Elegance Is a Shotgun), in which I ruminated about some traditional video game tropes and their general strangeness in a narrative or aesthetic context. In this case, I got to pondering the weird consequence of narratives that lack win states, specifically in classic coin-op games. Mostly the inherent and inevitable failure of protagonists in arcade games breeds a weird cynicism in early attempts at adding narrative elements to games.

I probably say all this in a much more straightforward manner here:

Pac-Man Will Die: Cynicism and Retro Game “Endings”

Experiencing Waking: Thomas Brush’s Coma

Thia week, I kept things simple with a review of Thomas Brush's indie flash game, Coma. It is awfully engaging by the way:

Experiencing Waking: Thomas Brush’s Coma

Moving Pixels Podcast: Games We Want to Play

Based on screenshots, teasers, and gameplay demos, the Moving Pixels podcast crew discusses upcoming titles that look exciting, disappointing, and just plain intimidating (I’m looking at you Portal 2 gameplay demo):

Moving Pixels Podcast: Games We Want to Play

Why Is the Femme Fatale?: Considering the Four Faces of Lady Noir

We're a little light on reviews this month, and I've been spending time poking around New Grounds a lot in the last few weeks. I'll be posting a discussion of the very cool little flash game from that site, Coma, next week. In the meantime, I thought that I would write up a brief discussion of a flash collaboration called Lady Noir that was also posted over at New Grounds a couple of months ago.

It's a neat little set of brief vignettes all focusing around a femme fatale figure. What is cool about it is that because they have been collected together you can see some interesting similarities and differences between them that suggest what a traditional (or non-traditional) femme fatale amounts to.

As always, my thoughts can be found over at PopMatters

Why Is the Femme Fatale?: Considering the Four Faces of Lady Noir