During a read of an enlightening edition of the monthly publication, Game Developer, a few months back, I came across a particular interesting quote from an article within its binding constraints. Entitled “A Sense of Fun” and written by Parappa the Rapper creator, Masaya Matsuura, Matsuura’s focus first lies with concern for the evolution of the “music videogame”, prompting a change in innovation versus excessive music label licensing. While this thought did encourage serious contemplation (Hello, Activision), Matsurra segues into a brief session about peace in videogames. To summarize Masaya’s apprehensive comments, he states, “I don’t think the future is bright for this (videogame) industry if we continue to focus on games that motivate the player by using gameplay that employs physical attacks as a way of establishing levels of superiority and inequality.”

Aggression and violence are staples inside of our industry and it addresses rudimentary needs to many gamers who participate in relatively appropriate arenas. Generally, the reception of physical weapons and magical powers are endowing acts from game creators with the sole purpose of “establishing levels of superiority and inequality”. This imaginary “superiority” that videogames instill into players produce an empowering feeling that generates the return to similar titles for different experiences, but the same sensation of predominance. I’m not going to feed anyone some concocted scientific formula to explain why people like dominating one another (or anything else for that matter), because the answer is written in the statement. People like power (surprise). Videogames cater to those who crave a closer step to satisfying this natural, disruptive emotion, without strings attached (jail time). I feel that these are important, subconscious reasons that many players enjoy favorable pastimes such as: zombie mowing, spartan fragging, dragon beheading.

Aggression eliminates the stress that a game’s enemies cultivates (kill stuff=happy time). Regardless, Matsurra’s side gradually whispers it’s quiet argument (not going to ignore the “Madagascar”/”High School Musical” enthusiasts). Violence is beginning to dissolve as the core concept of the generic videogame. Many games have gotten away with violence at a minimal level (if none at all). Braid and Pixel Junk Eden were two of many recent games that gathered a following of players who prefer an experience that escapes the concept of shooting and stabbing. Developers are discovering effective ways to extract significant emotions aside from that of anger and capitalize on such actions. They have begun to focus on extirpate emotions and concepts ranging from compassion to musical composition to relationship management.

Underneath the landscape of many “passive” games still manages to breed destruction to some degree. While in certain games, physical attacks aren’t supplemented with important emphasis, one could still argue that there lies aggression in Braid’s trouncing of the goomba-esque monsters, as well as the Guitar Hero franchise’s battle mode where one uses instrumental attacks to abduct the opposing player’s chances to perform to the best of his/her capabilities. Purposefully, I read deep into these examples to express the fact that rarely mainstream videogames exhibit no violence at all. When referring to the very concept of creating videogames, I often remember Hirokazu Yasuhara’s interview discussing videogame design psychology. Games produce fearful situations while addressing the basic desires of players to reach “freedom from the fear”, and one way to way to please the appetite of taking on a challenge, and easing the stress or, fear, that the challenge causes is by destruction. (For example: “For example, in Pac-Man, you’re eating dots — wocka-wocka-wocka-wocka. That is erasing, and it’s also a form of destruction. You’re destroying everything in your path, and you’re leveling out the entire play field.”)

Out of all of my time spent with my head buried inside of this article, the “peace” quote (see opening) engaged my echoing glance because I can’t imagine a videogaming universe without the inclusion of the “negative emergence” that violence brings to the table. A world comprised of nothing but music games and puzzle do-hickies do nothing but aggravate me at the thought of its wretched, yawn-inducing existence. Violence will always have a part in the videogaming world, just as long as it will always have a part inside of the world outside of videogames. Consistent peace is nothing more than a pipe dream, but a break from screaming and swearing into your headset should always provide a breath of fresh air.

mc chris (yes, no caps or dots, he’s gangsta like that) is coming to Atlanta, Georgia on the 3rd of November (out-of-staters, other tour dates are listed below). The notorious rapper, whose lyrics center around pressing matters of the Star Wars universe, peeping toms and zombies, provides an exciting (and more importantly, cheap) show to his supporting fans, as well as the curious, as his unique style and voice often raises eyebrows and draw attention. Undoubtedly, his captivating lyrics and unparalleled voice tends to grow on you if your interests lie along the lines of videogames, comics or science fiction (which, if you’re hear, you fit in that description somewhere). If you’re familiar with his music, stay stoked, join us weeks from now, as we will be there, rockin’ out and what not. If you’re wondering what we are talking about still, but interested in coming: mc chris=great artist, rapping about Animal Crossing and bounty hunters. Either way, November 3rd, Monday night, clear your calendar, TiVo Heroes, and come chill and listen to some great music. You won’t regret it. Ticket info below.

mc chris/Atlanta info

Doors Open at 7:00PM
mc chris
The Masquerade
695 North Ave NE
Atlanta, GA
Mon Nov. 03 2008 7:00PM

mc chris/elsewhere (Check for tour dates, there are quite a few in many cities)

Written by “SmithSpot”

 

Killers
Originally uploaded by tuhlask

For years now I have been noticing the slow death of human interaction due to online play. Now it seems no one prefers to have face-to-face interaction with their friends while playing video games. Now friends rather meet up with each other online and play with each other. I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but even game developers are following suit, if not forcing the online play onto the gaming community. The implication of online capabilities has risen in many games. In some instances during development, a game may be frowned upon because of its lack of online support, but what about the “offline support”. Did our trusty developers seem to sweep offline gamers under the rug that was rolled out by Xbox Live?

Battling in close quarters in the same room as your opponent can cultivate the excitement that is deemed important to the relationship between foes in the player vs. player atmosphere. From raging outbreaks to victorious cheers, the face-to-face interaction holds much importance to a videogame title and the emotional investments players make into it. The anonymity that online play generates dissapaears as players realize that they are not just competing against another similarly suited avatar, they’re facing human beings. Whether this realization creates joy or havoc, it destroys the robotic assumption one has towards the countless drones one encounters during their repetitive play online. The games listed below of few of an increasing number in games that have ignored those of us who actually have gamer friends outside of Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network.

Call of Duty 4: Not being able to play with four players on a local connection destroyed the longevity of the game to those who share the preference of face-to-face gaming. Although Actvision does allow us to play head to head, free for all, and/or 2 on 2, they do not allow you customize your own weapons like you are able to do in online play. You are force to play with the default setting and the combos they decide, which detracts from the full experience that is secluded to online arenas.

Burnout Series: Ever since the game was first released it was an two player capable game. I remember playing my brothers and my cousins in the game. Speeding pass them and causing them to crashing into the back of a tractor-trailer. But the latest version “Burnout Paradise” is strictly a one player game. Yeah sure you can compete against other, but guess how? You’ve guessed it. It’s only allowed online.

PlayStation Home: Now you want me to revert to interact with people who live throughout the eyes of their virtual avatars? I don’t need to even explain this one, it’s a given.

People continue to criticize the popular Nintendo Wii because of its lack of online play, graphic power, “gimmicky games”, etc. What people fail to realize is that the popularity of the system is contributed by the offline capabilities of the game. It forces people to play amongst one another. With its elementary control system, Nintendo’s console allows any human being with a functioning brain to play along appropriately. I don’t know if any of you have children, but seeing the smile on my 2 year old daughter when she plays Wii Sports with me is priceless. It also goes the other way. You just don’t understand how enjoyable it is for the child to have their parents, aunt, uncle, and/or grandparents play along with them. Generally, the parent’s stereotypically mediocre performance is irrelevant, as the child typically enjoys the bonding that is now missed because of longer work days, more homework, television, etc. I enjoy playing the person face-to-face rather than over a mic.

It’s nice, sometime fun, and conveinant to play online, but there is nothing better than having a great game on Madden and having others see it, witness it, and cheer you on as you make that one incredible catch in the end zone to take the lead with 10 seconds left in the game. In our gaming universe, nothing is more cordial than being able to say “good game” with a hand shake rather than sending a “GG” message over Xbox Live. Human interaction is far more sincere than the experiences Xbox Live or the PlayStation Network offer. Stop sending friend requests and start getting to know the gamers in your neighborhood a little better.

Georgia and similar surrounding states in the south continuing to rebuild a fragile gaming community is as reinvigorating as ever as hoards of gamers flood the Georgia World Congress Center. As you’ll soon see, the Impact Clash series has grown immensely, drawing fighting gamers from every crevice of the southern gaming nation. Pictures of Georgia awesomeness ensues after the jump.

Will post more pictures later on tonight…apparently, the Internet Cafe (Wi-Fi is $75 for 24 hr, so this was the cheapest, less lame option) is being overrun my business convention junkies, and I refuse to wait in this line again.

Edit: Here are the rest. Enjoy! (By the way…all of the blurry pictures, let’s just imagine someone kept bumping into me every time I took a picture, just for sake of argument/embarrassment of my shaky hands.) Also, next time we’ll do more conventional things, i.e. taking pictures of winners, taking a bit of video, etc.

Had a lot of fun. Hope to see you all at IC3!

Few things in the world are more entertaining than groveling fan boys trying to get in the way of power-hungry businessmen. The aggression that channels throughout the tie-wearing monsters is fueled by money, and where there is new money, there is interest, which can ultimately lead to overbearing acquisition. There are plenty of pros and cons to what will become a familiar situation, but one thing that needs to be understood is at the end of the day, consolidation is a vast part of industries of any kind.

Ironically, consolidation prompts…consolidation. From aggressive fan bases to methodical stock-wielding suits, videogame publishers/developers are exceedingly competitive, and if there are advancements from one side of the map, there will be similar retaliation from the other. Publishers are currently (yes, probably this very second) in the process are buying this, merging that, wisely out of fear that their similar competitors are doing the same. Unfortunately, this fear and what it generates is an important part of our business, as it is a large contributor of cultivating the advancement in technology and industrial design. Before the early days (Computer Space/Tennis for Two) of the videogame business, there weren’t so many options to choose from for specific gaming experiences, but now, there are so many choices that publishers/developers must aggressively pull out many stops in order to convince you to consider their game before any other.

Not all aspects of consolidation are negative. I don’t mean to toot an old horn, but rising costs in videogame development require drastic measures to be taken from struggling developers in order to survive the production of the inevitable wave of future-gen software. The upside is the ability to pay rent, and heightened with the possibilities of producing AAA titles in order to keep afloat and start making profit. The downside (apart from the obvious, which is failing altogether) lies with the effects that the drastic staff/company changes will undoubtedly have on the company’s infrastructure. Merging companies are also proposed with the possibility of losing original vision and an even deeper loss in the ability to create distinctive and innovative titles.

For those companies who are deep in the pockets, and don’t need petty mergers to help them keep the lights on, may take the other route: buying the competition. To understand this core concept of acquisition, it requires particular understanding of the concept of progression. The key here is to excel at, what should be a dominant goal at any big publisher, maintaining a dominating, household brand. Building/buying growth can reap specific benefits. For instance, diversifying your company’s portfolio by way of acquisition aids in the overall goal to have a greedy hand in every lucrative trend, fad, etc. that makes its way in and out through the videogaming industry.

It doesn’t aid the argument against consolidation that the one most related industry across from videogaming (movies) has a small list of controlling media infrastructures that overlook a vast majority of the content that escapes into their main media outlets (movie theaters). Generally, if you have seen a movie in theaters in the past five years, you have undoubtedly at least one logo that ultimately leads tracks back to the homes of “The Big Six” (Fox, Paramount, Sony Pictures, NBC, Time Warner, Walt Disney).

Drawing comparisons from other entertainment industries, such as music and movies, in due time, the hope of an innocent, free-spirited nation of indie-producers came to an end, just like the videogame industry’s arrangement of games escaping from so many separate directions (publishers) will be over in due time. Luckily for this generation of gamers, this will not happen in the near future, as it will take years for big publishers to continue to lose enough money to be put into the desperate position of being up for sale.

Eager ears catch wind of innovative work, attempt to snatch it up (or outright, steal its idea) and devour what was once pure and transform it into a sequel-riddled debacle. Games are all about imagination, and creating astounding experiences that exist outside of our normal livelihoods, but the captivation of the videogame industry under a few selective roofs could threaten that very idea. Luckily, whether in the regards of programmers, designers, etc., we’re all artists at our craft (How good of an artist some of us are is a question for another day). The videogame industry primes and births artists, aesthetically and technically, and we can only hope that our industry’s best continue to express themselves throughout this wave of consolidation as it steadily begins to infest our industry’s DNA. Irregardless of whatever transpires, as long as there’s someone with the dream and drive to create personal games that deviate from industry trends, we’ll always have our “indie darlings”.

Recently, Atlanta, GA played host to the annual blowout nerd-festival, Dragon Con. From Friday until Monday, The GameBlurg staff was there in full force tirelessly supporting our growing scene. Regardless of a substantial lack of gaming talk, there were a few high notes (Epic’s Mike Capps’ Q & A session was pretty honest and insightful) for console gamers at the anime and Jedi infested arena. Anyways, to put it clearly, we’re exhausted. So we’ve taken a few days to reload, and resume our regular barrage of awesomeness on your brain. We will be back, but in the mean time, look through some of our other content if you can’t stand to be without your daily fill of GameBlurg hotness.

Puzzles Puzzle Me

Of all the things I’ve played the most over the past week, naturally, Braid intrigued me the most. If you haven’t played it yet, there’s no doubt that you’ve heard its name being enthusiastically expressed somewhere. (When a game reaches such a level of enthusiasm as Braid has, I tend not to peek at reviews out of fear of spoilers and awkward subjectivity.)

The only thing that I would like to touch on is the constant pitching of the word “pretentious” at conversations about the Xbox Live title. The “pretentiousness” surroundings in games have never bothered me (barring poor execution): i.e. when they take themselves seriously. Outside of the facade that a “game” inherits because of it’s nature, some games carry implication of an earnest atmosphere generated by artistic style, gameplay or its story. Instead of a mere distraction from the normality of our livelihood, what’s wrong with diving into a methodical environment and discovering the extremities of the unfamiliar?

As far as my position of “liking” the Braid or not, I did enjoy it (I haven’t finished it yet though). The game’s time traveling mechanic enraptures the gameplay, allowing you to tinker with the game’s time line at your own will. The inclusion of its power in the story line produces a realistic feeling toward Tim’s, the main protagonist, power, as if it’s not just a randomly placed skill, but a power that the main character posses and exploits in game, and throughout his own personal life. The puzzles evoke meticulous preparation and mind consuming thought (for which, I was lucky to play with friends). I’m not going to drown this paragraph in a bunch of adjectives to describe its disposition in my line of new games (we’ll save that for later), but I recommend a trial download to those who haven’t tried it as of yet.

A Stale Franchise No More

As a stereotypical American, I too enjoy our little national game centered around silly hats and dog piles. To extend my love for the game (football), I ended my 3 year “not-giving-a-crap-about-Madden” drought to simulate my favoritest sport in the whole wild world. Madden 09 was recently released, celebrating it’s 20th year anniversary. I don’t know if it was public relation’s consistent badgering from Electronic Arts, hopelessly addressing their continuation of their successful 20+ year franchise, or Brett Favre on the cover, or all of the positive buzz generated from it that warranted at least a try. Being that I haven’t extensively played the game in so long, I can’t personally report improvements of the franchise, but I do know that I actually had an exciting time playing. Wow…that isn’t helpful for sports game fans at all is it? Well, in a sad attempt to appear knowledgeable about the game, here’s a link to new discoveries about the game.

Hoodie Ninja

How about something that I do know about? Star Wars: The Force Unleashed demo was released on Thursday this past week, and finally, after the dust and bandwidth have cleared, I was able to get my chance to wreak havoc among the somewhat, familiar world that is the Star Wars universe utilizing the powers of the main character, Starkiller. I have purposely ignored every piece of concept art, story detail, etc. because ever since my eyes darted to the E3 2007 trailer, I’ve wanted everything in this game to catch me by surprise. Thank god I’m not a journalist (yet). Although I didn’t want to spoil it for myself, when the demo glided into the Xbox Live Marketplace, my patience and will power had worn thin. Seeing as it is a demo, all I feel comfortable talking about is the small amount of time with it, my expectations, and my fears.

The first thing I noticed was the Starkiller’s artillery. In the beginning, I felt an overwhelming emotion of freedom and power because of the seemingly limitless power I had been endowed. The ability to retract nearly any item/person Force’s reach is remarkable. Obviously, there was an immense focus on this portion of the gameplay: as a vast portion of its physics engine revolves around the player’s ability to physically manipulate and bewitch objects/people in your area. Initially, the powers were exciting, but easily was reduced into skepticism. Was I “too” powerful? Although it is a demo, and LucasArts continues throwing all of these powers in my direction in an attempt to sell the game to me, I’m assuming that it won’t take long for these rudimentary “dark side” powers will become a part of my arsenal relatively early in the retail copy. After all, what’s a sith lord without his Force Lightening? As I dove further into the demo, I found that this was not the case. Although my foes did not wield the same power, they carried what I lacked: numbers. It balances the overexhuberance of Force powers out a bit, but I do pray for saber-to-saber battles in the longrun. The game also seemed to disregard skill and award random button patterns. My personal gameplay style revolved around the Force Grip power (something about throwing Stormtroopers into…Stormtroopers makes me giggle), but upon further feedback and experiment, you could get through the demo just fine by mashing your X and Y buttons without regularity or pattern and survive the droves of enemies. The inability to block stray bolster shots and run simultaneously also hurts the ebb and flow of the game, causing you to pause and rely on defense when being bombarded by random infantry.

Weighing out the awkward and the good, the demo’s done good things for the upcoming performance of the title. The BioShock-like endowment of a multitude of potent powers have excited Star Wars fans, and generated curiosity from those who haven’t already succumbed to the avaricious pockets of George Lucas.

Unfortunately I have yet to try Too Human, SIREN: Blood Curse, Galaga Legions, or any other game that costs more than “free” (college student johns).* From what I’ve heard, they’re worth the babbling or two.  For now, deal with talk about popular games that you’re probably already sick of hearing, or send us some games. The latter excites me.

Note: However, I did play through a bit of Pixel Junk Eden. Wasn’t all too excited at the end of the 2+ hour session. Am I missing something?

Subliminal Nonsense: New Slipknot album is out, go buy it.

Silhouette
Originally uploaded by girlshapedloved

It’s daunting to dismiss the fact that our world is absorbed with the “bad guy”. Documentaries of Adolf Hilter air on the History channel quite regularly, 60+ years after his dictating reign ended. Sephiroth is highly regarded throughout the Final Fantasy universe as one of, if not the, best character among the franchises’ collective roster. All the cool kids agree that local badass Darth Vader is all the rage. Most recently, movie goers were infatuated by the neurotic and deadly antics of The Joker in the Batman: The Dark Knight. For some characters, there is no love between the audience and the characters, but with all, there is an undeniable feeling of…attraction.

These men listed above are the opposition: the easy foe to hate, but they are also, in a word, sophisticated. They are not bumbling fools; they have agendas, goals and dreams. These men also share one similar, important element, vital to their empires: power. Behind them lies a trail of destruction, lit ablaze by short tempers and a lack of tolerance for failure. This all sounds a little fun, now doesn’t it? A creation of havoc and disorder among adversaries without regard for rules or morals. If there were only some form of an interactive entertainment where you could take advantage of adapting the role of an ideal antagonist…

It would be interesting to explore the complexities that reside inside the minds of murdering psychopaths through our medium just as Edgar Allen Poe captivated audiences with tales of his own. Obviously, I am not a rabid lunatic (most of the time), but indeed, I curiously wonder what turn of events can derail rational thought. What makes these types of individuals tick to begin with? How does this deranged stature of mentality become routine and manifest into ones’ thought patterns and become his normality? The videogame medium holds the ability to engage players to participate in a characters’ livelihood, access their minds and experience their perspective, but should this mean that it always has to be the predictable perspective from the eyes of the hero?

Objectively wondering about inheriting the title of “bad guy”, few thoughts came to mind. There is of course, the universal hatred that comes with the title of “enemy”. The rage, or fear that spreads through the air as your name whispered could be undesired. It could be the conditioning that fantasy stories have embedded into our head: good guys always win. Or it could be the unwilling approach to the apparent negativity that lies within the adoption of such a role. To adapt the role of an uninvited being could produce skepticism among passive gamers who prefer the status of hero and doing the right thing. Killing the bad guy, and getting the girl is fun the first hundred times, but it’ll only take so long until you get exhausted from saving worlds and princesses.

Obviously, there are options that presently allow the player to see the world through the eyes of the antagonist, but as this role begins to birth, titles barely explore the intricacies of their reasoning. Kane & Lynch: Dead Men is a good example of the deviation from the normal role that the player adapts. Excluding its trite expressions and cliché-heavy dialog, its premise is an appropriate example to this article’s argument: play bad guys. You kill what they want to kill. Past occurrences are also presented to the player to represent background that explains the character’s current emotions, agendas and actions. The possibilities for this exploration throughout other potential franchises are prodigious. Story + killing stuff=super-fun-time. We’ve had the “killing stuff” part right for years, now how about that story?

In short, I want to tyrannically destroy anything that opposes me (”killing stuff”), and then discover why my character wants to do the same in his world, and the incentive (”story”) to destroy that lies in him; all in one, playable experience. Bad guys have a indistinguishable feeling of freedom, disregard for humanity that we all might crave from time to time (in videogames, of course). The angry emotion that generates a lack of control that breeds unwarranted chaos, and simultaneously gets the job realized. I want to experience the power and ruthlessness that comes with the territory. Just one, small taste.

Note: I haven’t mentioned titles that have the option in choosing sides (i.e. role-playing games) : due to the context, I’ve considered those as potential “cop outs”. The role-playing genre poses a fantastic opportunity for players to traverse through various fantasy worlds with a mindset other than saving something or someone, but I don’t even want the “choice” to see the world as a hero, in this instance. I want to (this probably sounds a bit negative) be forced to play the villain, without any opportunity of crawling out, earning some good karma, and turning away from my character’s “darker” path. I r complicated.

Bugs, Navigation, Jelly Beans:

From the feedback I’ve received, it’s relatively “easy” to loose yourself in the content that we have from the home page. The GameBlurg staff is in the process of creating an easier navigation tool for those who might find difficulties in walking throughout our little world.

1. Scrolling over the small numbers below the ‘banners’ are necessary to present certain stories, features, blog posts, etc. For example: scrolling over slide number ‘3′ will generate “On Life Support…”.

2. I’ve always felt a inherited duty to credit original artists with their work by appropriately linking the photos back to their original homes (usually Flickr). Apparently, this wasn’t so…apparent. Don’t click on the first picture, and generally, click the inverted counterpart that follows.

3. Of course, with this site’s soft re-launch, we’ve encountered a few bugs, and we are sure that you, the reader, will as well. Stay tight, as we are working on them. If you are ever so kind, and happen to find some of these bugs, please report them (mauriciobowers@gameblurg.com).

4. If you are an Internet Explorer user, don’t stray. We’ve seen your pain, and will fix the mess that is our CSS coding to better suit your viewing pleasure.

5. Lastly, we’re well aware of all of the small things missing from the old theme: Twitter, Videogame Diary, etc. It’s all coming back. It’s all just coding nonsense, but it’s coming back, along with some new goodies.

The main reason we worked so hard to create this theme was to cultivate a distinctive “feel” when even thinking about GBlurg: the site’s content deviates from the normal and routine, and we felt that it’s exoskeleton should disperse from the external looks of a normal videogame blog as well. Not to mention we like pretty stuffs.

Hope you all likes. After all of this designing mumbo jumbo, we’re ready to start talking about games again!

I’ve expressed my feelings on critiquing videogames before. The self-induced caveat in posting about reviews this lies within crying about antiquated problems about the dire need for intense interpretations in videogames, but that’s fine. Hopefully, you’ll understand how strongly I feel about the dismissal of the core experience that flutters amongst dry videogame examinations and realize that this isn’t just another rant. To put it quite clearly, I don’t personally enjoy stereotypical reviews because now that I have an understanding of the elements of videogames, I don’t need to rely on an external source to enlighten me about the monotonous elements that cohesively create the experience: game controls, graphics, longevity, etc. These elements are the easy part that lies with creating a game, as well as the easy part that lie within creating a review/analysis.

Naturally, from a developer’s standpoint, in order to create a functional game it must contain concise controls, appealing graphics and technological housekeeping (steady frame rate, lack of graphical malfunctions, etc.). The underlying challenge lies within generating a desire in the player to discover an artificial universe and mold it into his/her personal playground. Not necessarily promoting “freedom” and interactivity, but promoting the feeling of embracing a role with the identical passion that rivals that of its creators. The latter is what I want to discover as I read about games that I’ve expressed interest in playing: a logical, comprehensible and precise discovery of an experience through another’s eyes. The effects that the game will have on the player’s psyche, the discovery of why adopting certain roles is rewarding, and other things beneath the radar should be addressed in order to assess situations such as why it’s so appealing to murder aliens, play the bad guy or why the gamers enjoy chilling, scary experiences.

I personally haven’t been able to discover a consistent source for introducing personal experiences that one has felt while playing the game. Questions such as: “If you know enough about the game, then why don’t you just play it for yourself, instead of relying on someone else’s opinion?” are valid, but I don’t believe reviews and critiques have one simple goal of merely explaining how good or bad a game is.

Much like movie critics, videogame journalists have the inherited objective of preserving videogame history. Being that I am fairly young, I am dawned with the fact that I could not have played older acclaimed titles such as Panzer Dragoon Saga (1998) or Vagrant Story (2000) when I was younger and use reliable information to judge videogames with influences other than the “cool” box art. Critiques should have the distinctive goal to explain why the entire experience is either a timeless, engaging tale of glory or a rotting pile of cringing embarrassment. From reading the text, critiques should evoke an emotional response, cultivate interest and lead to the direct discovery of the videogame.

I am not upset about the current state of reviews, I am just in the mood for something different that holds my attention as a growing “gamer”. My ideal critique (reading, or writing) would just encompass the ability to clench readers and allow that reader to adequately understand the critic’s train of thought as they transgress throughout the complexities of specific stages of the game. However, there are a few bumps in the road to the transfer of these experiences from one to another. The global vernacular, or lack thereof, that enables journalists to educate and inform videogame industry veterans and passive games alike is the partial blame for thea absence of penetrating views of videogames. Another attributing portion of our problem could be that some games are on such a minuscule scale that some believe that the lack of substance doesn’t warrant a profound analysis. Possibly the “vultures” of our community of online users who swarm from source to source in search of quick material that can be digested within minutes could be the cause of the disregard of long & thoughtful summaries.

In the end, it’s merely my curious appetite that greedily lurks about the endless resources that the internet and publications provide, searching for more than just the graphical capabilities and controls in a game. There has always been speculation, and attempts, but the concept hasn’t gained an audience, or a performer for that matter. Partially this path is abandoned, out of fear, and partially out of an obscure road that hasn’t proven to become successful enough to accompany (or rival) the platitudinal review system that comfortably resides without a physical threat to suggest change. Maybe “we” should just…try? That is, afterall, what these platforms of unsupervised expression are for: to let go and express new intriguing ideas. So we’ve decided to do so, and give our opinions on what you all truly care about: videogames. In due time, we’d like to think that GameBlurg will become a source for intelligent analysis. Surely, there are people with experience in our field that eclipses that of our own, and there are those who are more than capable of delivering comprehensible experiences, but instead of continuing the wave of countless whining (except for what’s above!) and speculation, we’re just going to give it a shot. The road will probably be shaky, but if you’re not making a mess, then you’re probably approaching your problems a little too carefully. Look for more information soon and wish us luck!