There are a few things I noticed in the Final Fantasy XV Duscae demo that have made me a bit concerned for the highly anticipated upcoming addition to the Final Fantasy series. The automatic camera angles are jarring and have a nasty habit of changing right when you’re trying to […]
gaming
53 posts
Not long ago, Sam and I wrote about the monetary burden of performing critical work, and that and related issues have been a hot topic lately, with many discussions about gaming, cost, and access going down on social media. In the interest of continuing that discussion, and as part of […]
The very first time I tried my hand at streaming I was hit on. I had just returned from GameStop with my just-purchased gaming headset – I had never really seen the need for one before as I rarely game online – and was a bit giddy to get started […]
When I tell people I teach game design, they often immediately assume I do programming. And yes, I do some of that, but as anyone that teaches game design will tell you, it’s much more than that. Increasingly I think of my job as advocating for a compositional approach to […]
Romance can sometimes be a tricky and troubling thing, and it appears that this is no different in the the virtual world. In my review of Story of Seasons, a new addition to the Harvest Moon franchise that had to undergo a name change due to licensing issues, I described […]
In some ways my experience last week could have been the closing scene from a cheesy Disney movie: a girl enters the room and a hush falls across the crowd. The sudden arrival seemed to have fundamentally changed the character of the environment. Except, of course, it wasn’t a ball […]
I’ll never forget the moment, years ago, when I mentally “picked” a flower while walking into a Blockbuster Video. I glanced at their sidewalk planter, which had a number of beautiful pink and purple flowers in it, and I swear I saw a hand icon in my vision and heard […]
About two weeks ago, I had the privilege to attend the 2015 Game Developers Conference (GDC) through an opportunity at work. For those who may not be familiar with the annual gaming conference, GDC is the largest gathering of professional game developers. But rather than the industry trade show feel […]
As a young child, I played games with both my mother and father in different ways. I remember playing Ms. Pac-Man with my mother; there was a machine in one of the restaurants where she worked, and we huddled over it many an afternoon, taking turns navigating the mazes and […]
Fantasy Life, Level-5’s semi-recent contribution to the Nintendo 3DS’s impressive array of games, is all about (as the title suggests) living your role playing fantasies. Although light on plot and structure, the game’s numerous character classes and the ease in which you can transition between them makes it a memorable […]
I know that it’s a bit early for sweeping comments 2014 seems to be the year of a lack of female character creation options. Or, more specifically, the removal of female character creation options for the sake of the game’s “quality.” This not so pleasant instance in this year’s list […]
It may be a little odd to think of Super Smash Bros. as a stand-alone, legitimate handheld title. Although I had bought into the hype long ago and had already mentally committed myself to buying it, I had my doubts about the new Super Smash Bros. for 3DS. Super Smash […]
Recently I had a conversation with someone who mentioned that game developers were afraid to incorporate more diversity – specifically, in this instance, female characters – in video games. He went on to explain that, in their eyes, the costs often outweigh the benefits for them. No matter what they […]
I have a love-hate relationship with Harvest Moon DS Cute. For those who are (perhaps blissfully) unaware, Harvest Moon is a series of farming simulation games that incorporate elements and tasks of real, and even ordinary, life. In addition to planting and tending crops, collecting wild plants, fishing, digging, and […]
It was only just a few days ago that I watched NFL athlete and Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice attack his wife in a brutal case of physical domestic violence. I’d heard about the incident in passing but it wasn’t until someone told me about it in detail that […]
The various federations and organizations devoted to professional gaming and electronic sports, known appropriately as “e-sports,” strive for legitimacy and professionalism. Although e-sports continue to grow across the world and have seen a recent surge in popularity in the past few years with the online accessibility of big name events […]