Posts Tagged ‘videogame’

The Avatar Movie

Game Writer Thoughts on Cameron’s Avatar Movie
The Avatar movie is all the rage right now, and with good reason. Here are my quick, spoiler-free thoughts.

Gorgeous. The Avatar movie is simply gorgeous. It feels real, although it does have a heavy Halo texture to it too. To be fair, Cameron’s already trod this territory very well [...]

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A Game Hero Should Be Voiceless: Part Two

The Rude Game Hero
The voiceless game hero? He’s an ass.
Well, inadvertently. Have you ever noticed how a voiceless game hero fails to respond to mid-mission communications?
I recently finished Resistance on the PS3, and the game’s avatar, Nathan Hale, is a classic, cliche game hero with little to say and a lot to do. When he [...]

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Videogame Shoutout — From Sheep?

Videogame Kudos to Atari, with Love, from Sheep
Okay, videogame fans, you’re probably thoroughly confused by now, but this one simply has to be seen to be believed. Extreme shepherding re-imagined as vibrant performance art.

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Game artist: caught clipping

A game artist goofup
A game artist has a hard life.
You spend years – nay, a lifetime – honing your skills and craft. You sketch incessantly, driven by your passion for visual expression. You paint, you sculpt, you design, you draft.
After your traditional art training, you pick up the digital tools of creation. Your fingers [...]

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Game design innovation… in today’s market?

I guess a few game designers were paying attention
The game design plaint that I most routinely dispense is doubtlessly one you’re familiar with. Game design is a dying craft. Publishers have forgotten what makes great games. Sequels are the spawn of Satan.
But maybe I was wrong.
A few fresh game design ideas are out and [...]

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The videogame writing smackdown of the month

The videogame writing quandry
Videogame writing often gets overlooked in the modern videogame development process. There’s no hiding from the raw facts.
From EGM’s review of Alone in the Dark for Xbox 360:
AITD wants to emulate the presentation of serial television, but neither the writing nor the “performances” compare to even TV’s least-essential shows. Certain events benefit [...]

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JJ Abrams’ Lost Thoughts on Creativity

JJ Abrams’ Lost Thoughts, get it? Ha ha… sorry. Anyhow, a friend recently turned me on to TED.com, a site where you can view talks from the cognoscenti from all sorts of incredible fields and backgrounds.
On TED, I recently found this entertaining and thoughtful lecture by JJ Abrams, the creative guy behind Lost, Cloverfield, Alias, [...]

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