One of the hot topics at the moment is Double Fine’s Kickstarter project, with the mere words “a Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert point-and-click adventure” was enough to send some gamers into a donating frenzy – at this point a shade over 47 500 people have donated over US$1.6m towards the project. And there is … Continue reading
Filed under Game Design …
City of Heroes / Villains: The Killing of Statesman, And Where We Go From Here
Back in December, Paragon Studios spoilered their own story when they publicly announced that Statesman would be the one to die in the “Who Will Die?” signature story arc. That Statesman is apparently dying in part 5 of what I believe to be a 7 part story arc raises my Eyebrow of Cynicism +3 – … Continue reading
Looking (Again) At MMO / RPG Quest Types
A long while ago I looked at the types of quests that MMOs (and indeed, even single player RPGs) are limited to and came up with 10 different types. However, over time I’ve thought that the list was incorrect in a number of ways, especially since it didn’t consider the ‘reverse’ version of each quest … Continue reading
Reviewing My 2011 MMO Predictions
Time to see how right I was back when I wrote the following predictions about how things would turn MMO-wise in 2011. F2P titles continue to enter the market and other existing MMOs are likely to join them. Warhammer Online is a distinct possibility, as are titles in the position of Vanguard and Fallen Earth: … Continue reading
The Single Player RPG Versus The Massively Multiplayer RPG, Round 47
It happens with a frustrating reliability: a single player game RPG (you choose if the ‘R’ stands for ‘role’ or ‘roll’) is released that contains a large world to explore and threads of emergent gameplay, leading to a large number of people wonder why they don’t see the same in the massively multiplayer online space. … Continue reading
Bitching About Odd Narrative Things In Batman: Arkham City
I completed Batman: Arkham City (B:AC) recently, including the Catwoman DLC narrative content. There’s been a bit of controversy about the game’s narrative, but I wanted to experience things first hand before commenting on them (which is unusual on the internet, I know, and I promise it won’t become a trend). There will be SPOILERS … Continue reading
The Party Was A Bust: The Short Life of Playboy Party
Back in May 2009, I wrote an entry that covered the announcement of Jolt Online’s Playboy MMO and how no-one cared about it. Following that article, I’d kept half an eye on the (now offline) official site because I was interested in seeing what actually happened with the title. And I waited. And waited. And … Continue reading
McNamara On LA Noire Development: “Nobody Died Making It”
Brendan McNamara, former head of now-defunct Team Bondi, has been interviewed by Eurogamer. Part of that interview covered the end of the studio and his opinion about some of the allegations levelled at him as the head of the studio as being a “bully” among other things. You can read the interview here, but be … Continue reading
Goodbye, Joker! An Issue With Big Name Voice Over Talent
Mark Hamill has officially called it a day on the Joker voice which is a role that he’s made his own for near on two decades. For people of a particular age / interest in Batman, his Joker voice is pretty much the definitive characterisation for the Clown Prince of Crime, first appearing in the … Continue reading
Crunch Time Is Wrong, But Gee This Game Is Fun!
GameSpot’s Andrew McMillen has an article up on the working conditions of game developers and why gamers should care. but unfortunately is misses its topic on a few levels and fails on its most important point – making gamers care. The first issue with the article are the games used to showcase extensive crunch times (“crunch” … Continue reading
World Class Villains 