As a gamer, I'm often puzzled by decisions game designers make. This most often occurs with MMOs, where the eternal question of "poor decision or lack of resources?" seems to apply, but many console games come to mind, like the Gears of War magic chainsaw. Of course, as a gaming consumer, I am simply the target of disdain, condescension, and of course greed of the gaming industry. I sat pondering my frustration with the lack of two-way communication about design decisions in an era where second guessing the experts is the norm: we can go on WebMD and diagnose ourselves, yet I can't get a straight answer out of a game designer. ...

I think of Valve as both the most interesting and depressing developer we have.  Interesting because they are a shining example of what can happen when you give time, money, and freedom to developers.  Depressing because they are an increasingly obvious outlier.  If armchair analysis of the industry were a fighting game, Valve would be the character banned from tournament play.   It just wouldn't be fair. That being said, we can still admire their most recent bout of antics.  Earlier this week, the company released a series of parody images that inserted Valve characters into classic Apple advertisements.  That might not sound entirely clever, but this is Valve we're talking about.  They always have tricks ...

I cannot call this a review of Heavenly Sword simply because I have not beaten the game, but then again the reason for writing this is not merely to trash HS but to make the following point: people should be embarrassed more easily. Allow me to explain… I do not own a PS3. I do not own a PS3 because while deciding weather to purchase a PS3 or a 360 I discovered, with basic research and some help from Jay of videolamer, that there is much more variety and quality to be found in the games for 360 than the PS3. However, the one regret that I had about ...

How is it that nobody can make a good JRPG for the DS? Some remakes have been all right, and a strategy RPG or two have been good. But every original RPG for the system seems somehow tainted by the platform. Black Sigil, Nostalgia, Beyond the Yellow Brick Road - hell, even a Suikoden spin-off was barely up to par on the system. Sands of Destruction is sadly no exception. This isn't to say it's a bad game. Sands of Destruction's problem isn't that it's actually bad - it's just that it's never good. It manages to be almost entirely middle-of-the-road throughout, ...

Torchlight should be branded with a warning. The game is pornographic, it's number porn and clicking porn with a Tolkienesque fantasy fetish thrown into the mix. After loading the game there is a brief introduction to set the scene, and immediately the player begins clicking madly on everything moving. With each click the characters moan, scream, and produce other sounds juicy with stimulation. Of course it's not the meaning of the sound they make, it's the fact that each of these noises is calculated to be so brief and repetitious, fading in and out instantly and producing a peak at just the right tone. It elicits pleasure in the player's brain, and without thinking he or ...

Back when Microprose was still making games, they came out with a bunch of ideas for similarly themed titles spanning multiple universes. Although Master of Orion, Civilization, and X-Com were all well and good (that is to say, well, very good), my favorite was always Master of Magic. Master of Magic took the best parts of Civilization and being a wizard and put them together. You play a wizard starting with control of one city, and your goal is simply the annihilation of all other wizards. You pick a difficulty, pick which spell types and special enhancements you want, and go. A randomly generated map is created, and you get to start playing....