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N00b Diaries: Bioshock Chapter Three – The Wide Road to Hell

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Day Eight:

By this point, I thought the game had etched the peripheral line past which other games fear to tread; etched that line and stepped boldly over it. Then I got to the theater level, and found that Bioshock had actually power-vaulted over said line. About the time that I hear Sander Cohen’s reading of “The Wild Bunny” while transfixed by the mask on the wall perched in front of the statued man, I really understood that all bets were off.

But this isn’t profanity for the sake of mere shock value, or the macabre as seen by the sane. This is gorgeous and unmitigated insanity! For example: I had to stop in the flooded men’s room for the purpose of admiring the shadow play of the three arranged figures. I was not at all ashamed to say that it didn’t matter when Don intoned “You know those are real people, right?” I was impressed by the distinctness of the inverse shadows on the back and front wall, how one perspective showed the three characters dancing separately and the other combined them into something like a mythical three-headed creature. →  SaGa 3: Shadow or Write

N00b Diaries: Bioshock Chapter Two – Splicers Beware

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Day Four:

I have ammo. Lots of ammo. I am having a great time finding all the little crawl spaces, hacking every safe I can find and robbing every corpse rotting up my path. I already have the three photographs of the Spidey Splicers, have had them for quite some time. Got a really cool action shot of one, on a hunch; just turned a corner and clicked. Yeah, I’m a regular Mama Weegee over here. But despite the urgings of my rather vocal spectator to “follow the damn arrow, that’s what it’s there for”, I decide to go on a treasure hunt and take in the scenery.

I am still dumbfounded by the simultaneous beauty and sheer creepiness of this world. I have to pause to look at the ceiling of the bathroom and stop by the windows every once in a while to gaze through the aquatic distortion at the city scape beyond. I hear a Big Daddy coming and I crouch in a good hiding place. →  Now bear my arctic post.

N00b Diaries: Bioshock Chapter One – Getting Comfortable

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Day One:

Dear Diary,
I want to become a more knowledgeable video game player. I have expressed this, and have found that I have an excellent source of tutelage in my long-time gamer boyfriend. He has compiled a list of games that he considers the “must-play” list, and today I begin my journey, starting with: Bioshock!!! (Da-da-duuuum!!!) I begin by treading water for longer than I could possibly manage in real life. I spend as much time as possible taking in the flames, and then the desperately black horizon in every direction but one. I like it already. Entering the lonely lit monument, I try to grasp what the hell could possibly be going on and if the entire game is supposed to take place on this island.

Quick prologue: unlike 99.9% of the gaming populace, I have no idea what this game is about except for the word “Big Daddy”. In fact, I was instructed to play this game when I picked it out of my boyfriend’s collection one day and remarked upon the “cute little mining guy” on the cover. →  Welcome to the Fantasy Zone.

Lamecast #11 – So they went and entered the house of a prostitute

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Doing the rounds at breakneck speed, our briefest Lamecast to date makes quick work of your sanity. Don covers the failings of multi-platform gaming, we collectively analyze why the guy behind the counter at Christian’s Gamestop needs to NOT share his feelings, Casey’s confounding lack of history with Dungeon Keeper, and would Alexis kindly step away from the pointless hacking.

Lamecast #10 – And after the whole nation had been circumcised, they remained where they were in camp until they were healed

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Celebrate the tenth lamecast with us by listening to the crew bash just about everything and everyone they can think of. Christian reveals his angry side, Alexis stands up for a goddess in a game she’s never played, Casey is ashamed of his Sims, and Don will soon be engaged in a lawsuit with George Broussard thanks to some creative editing.

What did the Next Gen ever do for Us?

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The tagline to the above title being when does next gen become this gen? Yes, already there are rumours abound of what the next generation of consoles might bring to the table, even though for many veterans is still feels like the current generation barely got started. For those of you who remember the last brave days of the PS2, Gamecube and Xbox, it was with bated breath that the new generation was unveiled before our own eyes. And what of it? A number of years down the line (and with a few false starts) how has console gaming really changed and what can we anticipate the next generation will bring? Here’s the topic dealt with in the time-honoured list format.

Crates and/or barrels.
It was our personal hope that we would see the last of the crate and of the barrel, which were ubiquitously used to build generic levels, block pathways and for the henchmen to crouch behind (although to be fair this use was only really for the red barrels). →  The King of Articles 2002: Unlimited Match

E3 to the Grave: Forgetting Good Old Games

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E3 has started. Some gamers are excited. Some gamers are jaded with it all. Either way, the lifecycle of many games will start this week. Almost. Well most of them were revealed, hinted at or leaked already. So this is games at their birth. First comes hype, then months of reveals, then reviews then bam! Japan gets the game. Then America. Then Australia. Then most of Europe. Then the UK. This is the beginning of a lifecycle for a game. But what happens at the end? When the game has been played by millions? Bizarrely it appears they dissapear from sight, only resurfacing on the second hand market. Don’t believe me? Check the official sites for Nintendo, Capcom, Microsoft games, Sony, Ubisoft. Mostly filler sites at best with the rare piece of news before Kotaku gets it. On most of them you can’t even buy the games from the site. Want to pick up Super Mario Sunshine from Nintendo directly? Tough. →  Katamari Damaread

If we all work together, we might just get out of this thing alive

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Things have changed. Co-Op is now a big deal in the world of games, and, as ever, there is an exact moment at which a well-informed observer such as myself can point and say “this, this is where the trend started.” Imagine there’s a timeline projected on the wall, and I’m probably wearing a suit, and with a laser pointer I confidently direct your attention to Halo: Combat Evolved, way back in 2001.

That’s right, before Halo there was literally no such thing as Co-Operative campaign mode.

Okay, fine, so that’s not strictly true. Or true in any sense. But Halo arguably marks the start of Co-Op gaming moving into the mainstream so that today, as we stand here in 2009, you literally can’t walk over a pile of games without tripping over one that has a Co-Operative mode. There were great games with Co-Op campaigns way before Halo of course, classics like Perfect Dark and System Shock 2 offered it years earlier. →  Silent Post 2