Hello friends. What a strange year: and it was a year in which, as well as moving country and finishing URR 0.8 and doing my usual academic work, I allowed myself some proper time to really play some games as the lockdown weeks stretched on (especially around the middle of the year, the height of … Read More
Commentary
How Basic is Basic Gaming Literacy?
I’d like to start this entry with an anecdote, which outlines the basic issue I’m pondering far more effectively than an abstract discussion. A few years ago I found myself in the position of trying to teach someone who had never played a single video game in their life – and had extremely limited experience of board or card … Read More
Westworld and Immersive Games
HBO’s new Westworld series is absolutely essential viewing for anyone with an interest in games. It’s a great mystery, a great thriller, and great science-fiction, but it’s also fundamentally an exploration of games. On one level it is obviously an exploration of immersive or pervasive games – games that expand past traditional boundaries to engage with the “real … Read More
Bloodborne, PCG, and the Unknowable
A Hunter is a Hunter, even in a blog entry… Regular readers of my blog may remember a comment I made a while back about a game I’ve been deeply anxious to play for some time. This was Hidetaka Miyazaki’s new masterpiece (or so the reviews told me) – Bloodborne. I know I’m rather behind the times … Read More
Perfect Dark Retrospective
A few years ago Perfect Dark was re-released on Xbox Live Arcade. Whilst it was generally met with a positive reception as an impressive modernization of a classic game, especially since the new engine was built ground-up to be as close a copy of the old engine as possible, several reviewers claimed the game’s level design … Read More