Moving Pixels Podcast: Live Action Video Games

This week the Moving Pixels podcast switches from interactive mode to passive mode, as we look at some live action versions of video games. We discuss the episodic content of Assassin's Creed: Lineage and Mortal Kombat: Legacy. We also watched the short film Portal: No Escape.

It's surprising how much better these adaptations of games are (for the most part) by comparison to some of the things that Hollywood has attempted with games.

Oh, and Scott Juster and Jorge Albor are also in on the conversation, which, of course, makes it all the better.

Moving Pixels Podcast: Live Action Video Games

Moving Pixels Podcast: Investigating Anomaly

I haven't had the chance to write anything this week, so I guess that I'll just mention Monday's podcast on Anomaly: Warzone Earth.

Moving Pixels Podcast: Investigating Anomaly

A Love Letter to Ms. Pac-Man

Don't tell my wife, but there is room in my heart for one woman besides her. And that woman, of course, is Ms. Pac-Man.

I talked about Ms. Pac-Man on our recent podcast about video games, writing this piece was what partly created a desire in me to revisit arcade games with Rick Dakan and Mike Schiller.

I have a real thing for this particular arcade game, though, largely because I think that it represents what video games are in the most elegant way possible. I also think that it is rather masterfully designed (which is what lends itself to that elegant expression of the medium on the whole).

However, it would be easiest to explain my feelings by just getting to the mushy stuff more directly:

A Love Letter to Ms. Pac-Man

My Most Hated Video Game Foe: Fire

A couple of years ago, I wrote an essay called Elegance Is a Shotgun, in which I explained my experience with and love affair with shotguns in video games. Today's article on fire in games is similar (though it ain't a love affair that I describe--just the opposite).

New Games Journalism is a concept that I understand that a lot of people have compared to travel writing, writing about the experience of a place to engage readers (I think) in a way that feels familiar and relatable, whether you have been there or not.

I often think that "telling the story" of your experience with a video game (here's how I played GTA) is often thought of as being the core of New Games Journalism (I might be wrong, but I get that impression). I don't usually like those pieces. I don't really care what you decided to do when you were in Megaton during your playthrough of Fallout 3.

However, I do think that pieces that deal with your experience of a shotgun that attempt to explore why using one is so satisfying in Doom or pieces about how being set on fire in a game makes me always run and attempts to understand that phenomenon (which I think I am not alone in experiencing) is a good use of this critical approach. To me, it isn't place that is at issue, this kind of writing is about perspective and ultimately (hopefully) about a shared perspective of experience that makes this style something like travel writing.

However, maybe I'm wrong about this piece being New Games Journalism at all :

My Most Hated Video Game Foe: Fire

Moving Pixels Podcast: Top 5 Arcade Games of All-Time

I originally called this episode "Cabinets, Not Cartridges" but apparently someone didn't find that flashy enough. Its just as well, as few refer to arcade "cabinets" so much anymore, and it ain't like "cartridges" make a lick of sense anymore either.

This was a topic that I wanted to do, though, because I have been feeling the need to revisit the arcade game, especially because of my particular love of and appreciation for Ms. Pac-Man, a machine that I have access to because there is one at a pizza place about seven minutes walk from my house. I'll be running a column on Ms. Pac-Man and why I think it is important in gaming history soon, but in the meantime, you can catch myself, Rick Dakan, and Mike Schiller talking about the great games of the bygone arcade era here:

Moving Pixels Podcast: Top 5 Arcade Games of All-Time

The Limits of Retro Gaming Experiences

Still a bit sporadic on posts of late, mostly because of other writing projects and a lack of games that I am largely interested in. Mike Schiller wrote an interesting piece on his blog Unlimited Lives about Ice Climber, a game that I am fond of from childhood. His post considered how nostalgia colors our view of some games, which is a fair point, but it got me thinking about other reasons that games might fall short of our previous expectations.

The Limits of Retro Gaming Experiences

Review: Anomaly: Warzone Earth

The Moving Pixels podcast discussed Anomaly a bit when we did an episode on tower defense games. I managed to get my hands on a review code for the XBLA release and played through the whole campaign.

It's got one hell of a silly, macho presentation, but it plays awfully well.

Review: Anomaly: Warzone Earth

Moving Pixels Podcast: Gaming "For Freedom!"

The greatest super hero game ever made? Batman: Arkham Asylum? Batman: Arkham City? The Playstation Spider-Man? Maybe, Ultimate Spider-Man? No, no, no, and no.

It's Freedom Force.

Moving Pixels Podcast: Gaming "For Freedom!"

Moving Pixels Podcast: Mass Effect 3, Our Conclusions and the Conclusion

This is the follow up episode to last week's initial discussion of Mass Effect 3.

We began at the end, of course, by talking a bit about the much maligned ending of this, the conclusion of Mass Effect. However, we are interested in more of the game than just that.

Moving Pixels Podcast: Mass Effect 3, Our Conclusions and the Conclusion