Watching As Gameplay: L.A. Noire Merely a Visual Novel?

Some additional thoughts on L.A. Noire and the criticism of it as being more a visual novel than a game.

Watching As Gameplay: L.A. Noire Merely a Visual Novel?

Moving Pixels Podcast: Reflections on E3 2011

Well, it's an inevitable to hve to at least acknowledge E3, I suppose (I'm actually more fond of kind of vastly different approaches to the topic, like Kris Ligman's article from last week). So, we did sit down for a podcast on the expo's major announcements this year. I think that I like the discussion (sort of towards the middle) about Tomb Raider the best because the playthrough video was probably the thing that most intrigued me and maybe worried me a little.

Moving Pixels Podcast: Reflections on E3 2011

Great Games and Podcasts for Summer Fun

I'm responsible for a few blurbs in PopMatters's feature on games of summer. I was under the impression that we were trying to highlight games with a "summer vibe." Thus, my picks... I think.

Anywho...

Great Games and Podcasts for Summer Fun

The Comforts of Home: Defending Applebee's in Modern Warfare 2

I feel strangely between games right now. While I am in reality in the middle of a bunch of titles, including Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes, Bayonetta, Alice: Madness Returns, and The Witcher 2, somehow I don't feel moved to talk about any of those titles right now. So, instead, I returned to 2009 to talk about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in part because I got thinking about it after seeing a Modern Warfare 3 playthrough at E3 and in part because there is something that I intended to express about it (besides my thoughts on "No Russian") for a while now.

I'm not quite sure that I exactly nailed my thoughts on the way that MW 2 attempts to personalize its warfare, but here goes anyway:

The Comforts of Home: Defending Applebee's in Modern Warfare 2

Moving Pixels Podcast: A Look at Inclusivity in Video Games

Today's Moving Pixels podcast includes a host of guests from The Border House and GayGamer.net, including Alexandra Raymond, Denis Farr, and faePuck.

Moving Pixels Podcast: A Look at Inclusivity in Video Games

The Best of Thoughtful Gaming Podcasts

A simple enough post this week--a shout out to a number of podcasts that I like.

I don't realy listen to gaming news podcasts or any of the big review sites, as I tend to be looking for more analytical discussion, so I guess in the spirit of being a little anti-the-hullabaloo-of-E3 I figured that I would mention a few folks that talk about games in a broad and thoughtful way, rather than emphasizing those excited only about the latest and the greatest.

The Best of Thoughtful Gaming Podcasts

L.A. Noire: The Fatalism of American Sticktoitiveness

I'm in rather bad shape this week, as I'm recovering from a tonsillectomy. I did spend much of this time playing L.A. Noire though, a game that I really felt like I had little to say about initially. I kind of disliked it at first, but it slowly grew on me as I spent more time with it (maybe its overall slow pacing was perfect for someone that is trying to just take it easy while his body recovers). It gets better as one grows accustomed to its "vibe."

Having heard some criticism of the game's tendency to be more of an interactive narrative than a game, though, got me thinking about how that tendency matches the overall tone and attitude of typical examples of hardboiled fiction. So, I grabbed a copy of Raymond Chandler's "The Simple Art of Murder" (an essay on Chandler's sense of what a detective story should be) and talked a bit about L.A. Noire in terms of genre conventions and why its inevitable momentum towards solution may be entirely appropriate for its genre.

Here is the result:

L.A. Noire: The Fatalism of American Sticktoitiveness