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Huey and the News
Two friends are talking. The first says to the second: “Let’s suppose there is a heaven. I mean, like, one of those heavens you read about in children’s books where good people go when they die and there is no sadness, hurt or danger.” “Okay…” “Well, if this place is perfect and humans who end ...
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The Colours Red and Blue
This video tries to demonstrate how competent the Crytech engine is at recreating reality. But, teapots or no teapots, in their misguided boast I find only vindication. (Although, in the comments over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun (where I first saw the video posted) it made me smile when one commentator answered the question, “Wait, so ...
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Metacritic and the New Power of the Game Journalist
Last July the New York Times published an article that claimed top-rated videogames sell more copies than poorly-rated ones. The piece was based on the findings of a 8-page UBS Investment Research document called “Q-Series: Video Game Quality Rankings” by Benjamin Schachter. Schachter and his team reviewed data for more than 1,500 games released from ...
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On Being a Stereotype
Typical. The week I publish a post urging readers to listen to This American Life is the week I read that such a recommendation places me in the centre of a young (-ish) white, affluent, middle class stereotype. Stuff White People Like is a blog that has been going for just over one month but ...
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Tex Avery Predicts Sega Bass Fishing
This Tex Avery animated short from 1953 sees the cartoon genius presenting how the television might change people’s lives and the features the technology might, in time, come to include. It’s a fascinating piece of speculative entertainment not least because Avery investigates the ways in which people might interact with their sets rather than just ...
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The Man with the Golden Fun
The current buzz surrounding Goldeneye’s will-they won’t-they appearance on Xbox 360′s Live Arcade platform has got gamers keenly debating whether such a re-release would actually be a good thing. Widely regarded as the finest console-based first person shooter of the 1990s, the unexpectedly good Bond movie tie-in holds a special place in the hearts of ...
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When Journalists Make the News – This American Life
Once a week I listen to the latest This American Life podcast and once a week my life becomes a little bit brighter and a little bit better. A product of Chicago Public Radio, each week the show chooses a theme and tells a variety of stories on that theme. It’s mostly true stories of ...
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Wisdom re-applied #9: The Bible on HD-DVD’s Downfall
“…the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.” Ecclesiastes offers its melancholy perspective on the outcome of the next-generation video format war ...
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Pikachu Symphony
Recently, Ste Curran and I scoured Brighton’s charity shops in search of musical toys suitable for circuit bending. The upstairs of one pound-store we visited was filled with plastic pirate swords that were triggering their swishing sound effects at random. As we’d pick one off the rack to check that the trigger button wasn’t stuck, ...
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Funeral for a Goose
After the muted explosion its long white neck held fast, a single red badge of blood the only interruption on an otherwise pure sheet of feathers. If this was Looney Toons the goose would have staggered like a drunk, it’s head swerving with drama before one upturned webbed foot swung 180 degrees around and the ...
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Reformat the Planet
New York’s Blip Festival – a music event for chip artists who make music using Gameboys, Famicoms and other assorted 1980′s videogame hardware – is the subject of a forthcoming feature length documentary, Reformat the Planet. The makers say of the film: ‘Using New York as a microcosm for a larger global movement, Reformat the ...
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Bow Street Runner
Over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, Jim Rossignol picks up on Channel 4′s forthcoming point and click adventure, Bow Street Runner, an online title I wrote the Game Design Document for a couple of months ago. The aim of the game is to educate players about the work of the formative British police force, The Bow ...