malvasia bianca

I was planning to mention With the Light in my blog post the other day on juvenile and adolescent games, but I forgot. Actually, though, I’m kind of glad I did, because it’s a good enough work to deserve its own discussion as a positive example of those themes. So I’ll discuss it (or, rather, […]

When Michael reviewed MySims Agents, I knew I had to get it for my daughter for Christmas, and my hopes for the game weren’t misplaced: it looks both fun and charming, she loved it, my wife blazed right through it, and I’ll give it a spin as soon as I’m done with Mass Effect 2. […]

Interesting discussion of female video game characters. (Via @Brinstar.) Amazing high-speed photography. (Via @ashalynd) Criticizing games without playing them. (Though, in the case of Train, I can think of one way to reduce the chance of that happening…) And here’s another one on the theme of unhelpful criticism. @kateri_t finally has a blog! Or at […]

I recently replayed BioShock‘s first couple of hours as part of a VGHVI gaming session. And I thoroughly enjoyed revisiting those scenes with the perspective that I’d gained playing through the game, and gaining new insights by listening to the other participants. But I was also sad, especially in the initial bathysphere descent. That descent […]

A couple of pieces of Vintage Game Club-related news: We’ve just started a playthrough of BioShock; we’ll follow this up with a playthrough of BioShock 2 when the sequel launches. The less-than-vintage nature of those games accurately suggests that we’re considering changes; we’ve opened up a discussion thread where we welcome your suggestions.

Various recent events have strongly suggested to me that I should broaden the range of games that I play. Which will, presumably, in turn broaden the range of games that I write about here. And this, in turn, poses a bit of a problem. I imagine that I’ll be spending more time with short games […]

Every year brings with it its collection of lists of top N games; I mostly enjoy reading them, though I have misgivings about their existence, but I’m not very well positioned to create one myself. This year is special in that it has also brought ‘games of the decade’. About which I have fewer misgivings: […]

I’m really not sure what to say about Noby Noby Boy. Coming in, I was aware that it’s more of a toy than a game, that you have to make your own goals. Which I did (and, eventually spent some time trying out the goals associated to the game’s trophies), which was pleasant enough, but […]

A cross-game comparison of play incentives. (Really via @smgrimes, though Twitter wants me to credit @john_carter.) Journalistic objectivity. Time for me to reread Manufacturing Consent? Massively collaborative mathematics. Game design as government. We The Giants. Kant’s Critique of Aesthetic Judgment and comics. (Via 37 Signals.) Going West. (Via Dubious Quality.) Omohide is going through all […]

I was intending for BioShock to be one of the first games I played on my 360 but, well, one thing after another came up, and it took me a couple of years to get around to the game. In the mean time, it has garnered some amount of discussion, so I’m fairly sure I […]

(First, a few notes: 1) I have a conflict of interest with respect to the game I’m discussing here. I haven’t worked on it and I don’t have any particular inside information about anything I’m speculating about here, else I’d have to be rather more careful about what I write, but obviously I want it […]

My heartfelt thanks to all of you who contributed to Michael’s and my efforts to gather money to fly Ben to GDC. We raised $935.50 from 40 contributions by the deadline, and a couple other people chipped in right after the widget closed to bring us up to the $1100 goal, making the effort a […]

I try to write a blog post after every game that I finish playing (or, in this case, take a temporary break from playing), but really: what more do I have to say about Rock Band 2? As Bill Harris put it, it’s “more of a lifestyle than a game”, and it’s a lifestyle that […]

How to lose an argument online. I’d been thinking for a while that ‘hardcore’ was only useful as a term in a polemic I had no interest in making. Three false constraints on game design challenges. I’m reluctantly coming to the conclusion that I won’t be able to avoid playing Dragon Age. (But I’ll hold […]

I don’t have a lot to say about Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box—it’s a great game (my wife and I both blew through it in a few days, and Miranda also zoomed through most of it), but it adds essentially nothing to the formula created by its predecessor. One thing that struck me: when […]

As I mentioned a couple of months ago, the Big Surf Island expansion expansion to Burnout Paradise got me appreciating the game in a rather more visceral way than I had before then: all the different gameplay options crammed together in one small package hooked me on the game fairly seriously. So I decided to […]

I would like to thank everybody who has contributed so far to our effort to fly Ben to GDC; it’s been a week, and we’re halfway there! ($557.50 out of $1100, as of this writing, to be specific.) Of course, the flip side is that we still have over five hundred dollars to go; we’ll […]

Gerald Weinberg is, sadly, in poor health. Never tried doing Rock Band vocals this way… (Takes 15 seconds or so to actually start.) (Via @dan_schmidt.) R.I.P., Brother Blue. (Via @scottros.) The difference between motion and action. (Via @harlan_knight.) An unforeseen design problem. (Via @shawnr.) Nice perspective on slow programming languages. Glad to see non-Miyazaki Ghibli […]

I’m sure that most of the readers of my blog are familiar with Ben Abraham. He’s been a key figure in the video game blogging community for the last couple of years, both through his own blog (most recently with his permadeath series) and his tireless participation in discussions in other blogs and fora (I’ve […]

Michael Feathers on testable Java. Good advice, that is of course relevant far beyond Java. Quite the Venn diagram. (Via @kateri_t.) James Paul Gee on games and teaching. (Via @HackerChick.) Lots to think about here; I hope the VGHVI folks can help me figure it out. A remarkable meandering about games, genres, Japan, and countless […]