gaming

LOW-TECH GENIUS

Brett McCallon — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:00:50 +0000

One of the best new games doesn't require a game console, an iPad or even a smartphone. After one quick download, everyone reading this can be knee-deep in "Digital: A Love Story", enjoying a surprisingly robust recreation of what it was like to be "online" in the late 1980s.

At first it seems that there is no real game at all, but simply a low-resolution computer desktop screen, controls for the background music and a single icon labeled "messages". Upon clicking the latter, players quickly gain access to an old-fashioned, phone-based modem dialer, as well as the phone number for a local BBS—ie, a Bulletin Board System, the message boards that pre-web modem users could use to communicate with other like-minded early adopters.

From this point, the plot develops rapidly—the player strikes up an online friendship that soon blossoms into love, all conveyed via the increasingly personal, flirty and emotional text responses the player receives from one particular BBS member (note that the romance narrative presumes players will be enticed by a mysterious female pen-pal). Almost immediately, this nascent relationship is endangered by a complex conspiracy of high-level hackers, the federal government and hitherto unknown Artificial Intelligence programs. The plot is too intriguing for me to spoil it. But the real charm of this game comes from its unique approach to gameplay and its quirky evocation of early computer use. read more »

GAME OVER, OLD SPORT

Andrew Stout — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 22:31:55 +0000

For children of the 1980s, the discovery last month of a seemingly long-lost video-game adaptation of “The Great Gatsby” evoked a few bygone pleasures. The grey 8-bit cartridge—familiar to classic Nintendo gamers worldwide—was said to have been found at a garage sale for 50 cents. An apparently personal website included a picture of the cartridge (describing it as “an unreleased localization of a Japanese cart called ‘Doki Doki Toshokan: Gatsby no Monogatari’”) and a plea: “If anyone has any more information about this please let me know!”

Shortly after news of the game went viral, bloggers revealed the discovery to be a hoax. The instantly legendary “Great Gatsby” game was, in fact, the obsessive handiwork of two friends, Charlie Hoey, a developer at Barbarian Group in the Bay Area, and Pete Smith, an editor at Nerve.com. For the designers, the game was an exercise in a kind of storytelling native to their upbringing.
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VIRTUAL SELF-IMPROVEMENT

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 17:52:19 +0000

Though devoted video gamers are often imagined as anti-social misfits, it seems there are real-world benefits to finding pleasure in a virtual one. Our friends at Babbage have highlighted an interesting new study published in Current Biology, which suggests that video gamers make faster and more accurate decisions.

According to cognitive scientists at the University of Rochester, playing fast-moving action games, such as "Call of Duty 2" and "Unreal Tournament", can lead to an improvement in decision-making skills. Players of these games were 25% faster at coming to a conclusion than non-action players, and just as accurate. Oddly enough, "players of 'The Sims 2', a game where one has to decide how to organise an entire simulated world, did not benefit this way." read more »

WHY I LOVE LEGO HARRY POTTER

Tom Standage — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 04:05:48 +0000

The appeal of the “Lego Star Wars” games is obvious. They retell the “Star Wars” saga in a cartoonish, Lego-brick style, mixing the gameplay with animated clips, wordless but witty, that move the story along. There are plenty of puzzles and a frequent need to build things out of scattered Lego bricks (scenes that, for some reason, did not appear in the films). And wielding a lightsaber, even a tiny Lego one, is curiously satisfying.

Finishing each level is easy enough, but what gives the games staying power is the quest to discover all the hidden pieces in each level, by combining the abilities of the characters in clever ways. This winning formula of Lego, storytelling, puzzles and treasure-hunting has also been applied to the “Indiana Jones” and “Batman” franchises, but it works best in the rich and complex “Star Wars” universe. And the new “Lego Harry Potter” game, due later this month, should be just as successful. read more »

ALLEVIATE STRESS WITH ZOMBIES

Brett McCallon — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:35:32 +0000

Many of you were only recently searching for the perfect gift, crushed amid a slavering horde of bargain-minded shoppers. Perhaps thoughts turned to clearing a path to the cash register with a few swings of the discounted Dyson vacuum cleaner. Video games can help you.

Few game enemies are as perennially popular as zombies. The undead offer a nearly guilt-free opportunity for indulging some violent retribution—after all, using a shotgun to create a bowling-ball-sized hole in a shambling corpse is only returning your once fellow citizen to his well-earned rest, right?

In any case, those seeking to purge the stress of the new year with the (virtual) perforation of non-breathing humanoids have two excellent choices. The first is “Left 4 Dead 2”, a new high-speed, high-intensity first-person shooter from Valve Software. The setting is a sketchily explained zombie holocaust, and the game pits you and three other survivors against a never-ending horde of monsters. This is something you can play alone, but it was created to be played as a co-operative experience with others, as you and your compatriots struggle against seemingly insurmountable odds, armed with assault rifles, Molotov cocktails and the occasional frying pan. read more »

NINTENDO'S MOTION SLICKNESS

Tom Standage — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:55:23 +0000

Do you have a heap of game controllers piling up around your television? Because Nintendo wants to sell you yet another one. If you’ve got a Nintendo Wii, you’ll have the wand-like controller and its plug-in “nunchuck”, used for some games. In fact, you’ll probably have two controllers, or possibly four, as the best Wii games are for more than one player. You may also have the “balance board” that comes with Wii Fit, which resembles giant bathroom scales and can be used for skiing and other balance games. Leaning up against that may be a plastic guitar-shaped controller for “Guitar Hero”. And perhaps the Wii Zapper, for shooting games. It looks like a gun, but Nintendo insists it’s a crossbow. Yeah, sure—a crossbow that can magically fire 6,000 rounds a minute.

This all adds up to quite a pile of white plastic. And now there’s more: the Wii MotionPlus, a small box that snaps on to the standard controller and dramatically improves its motion-sensing accuracy. This makes new things possible, such as sword-fighting games in which the on-screen action directly mimics the motion of the controller. (Many people, not all of them “Star Wars” fans, complained when the original controller couldn’t do this.) There’s a new set of games, “Wii Sports Resort”, to show what the Wii MotionPlus can do. read more »

FUN IN TWO DIMENSIONS

Brett McCallon — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:00:21 +0000

Before the heyday of the first-person shooter, gaming graphics typically involved two dimensions. Think of the original "Super Mario Brothers": Mario could move left, right or on top of an enemy, but he couldn't pass behind or in front of one.

Once three-dimensional gaming became all the rage, publishers and developers insisted that no one would shell out full retail price ($50-60) for a 2D game, and so entire genres languished. Now, however, as downloadable gaming becomes increasingly popular, developers can avoid the production and marketing expenses involved in producing and distributing game discs. This gives them the financial freedom to revisit older playing styles. read more »

ROCK BAND V GUITAR HERO

Brett McCallon — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:40:25 +0000

The year’s two big music games both came out recently. Their gameplay is similar, but everything else about them points to two very different ideas about the future of this popular genre.

To great fanfare, MTV Games released “The Beatles: Rock Band” on September 9th. High-profile reviewers greeted the game with breathless praise. Much of the coverage has concentrated on its unlikely creation. Ringo, Paul, Yoko and Olivia Harrison have jealously guarded the band’s legacy, and have chosen new opportunities very carefully. (The Beatles have yet to offer their music through iTunes, for example.)

Anyone who plays this game instantly understands why the band and their families trusted its developer, Harmonix, with the world’s most desirable music catalogue. The game is a love letter to the Beatles, offering both an exciting new way to experience their music and a sort of primer on their history. read more »

AN ADVENTURE GAME REVIVAL

Brett McCallon — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:58:59 +0000

Adventure video games, which prized exploration, conversation and problem-solving over combat, were among the most popular franchises of the late 1980s and early ‘90s. George Lucas-owned LucasArts published some of the best, including the "Monkey Island" series, "Loom" (Stephen Spielberg's gaming debut) and the "Maniac Mansion" games.

Lately some small development houses have been working to revive the moribund adventure genre. Telltale Games, a developer that boasts several former LucasArts employees, has gone about this in a very clever way: the company releases “episodic” gaming content, framing each game in “seasons”, like a television show, with new episodes released monthly. Each episode contains perhaps three to five hours of gameplay, and each is both self-contained and part of a larger narrative that extends through the entire series. read more »