…when Mr. Lindsey suggested last week that Spec Ops: The Line is just a shooter, you’d think I would struggle to disagree with that. And he is right, to a certain degree. Its genre is pretty much an out-and-out shooter, a fantastically generic one at that. Run from point A to point B, shoot X amount of soldiers/insurgents on the way, pause here to recover your health. It’s all very Gears of War. To even attempt to argue the point that The Line pushes the genre forwards mechanically is fruitless because it is and always will be simply untrue. If violence is the only meaningful action you can make in a shooter, then the consequences of that are unlikely to be anything other than more violence.
And don’t think for a second that The Line presents any other choice. Violence genuinely is your only meaningful action in Spec Ops: The Line and, yes, it only ever begets more violence. To perceive of the game from only that perspective, however, is short-sighted at best. In Spec Ops: The Line, the actions you make frame the story and not the other way around. It is purely a context to convey a message. That message? As a gamer, you are a Terrible Person.
LOOK AT THIS THING I WROTE.
"Interesting, isn’t it, how violent games never flinch at themselves or spark much controversy (not these days, anyway) but sex, an act of love, is what terrifies people."
— Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, Extra Punctuation: ”What is Mature, Anyway?” (via hyrulechozo)
(Source: termina, via discovergames)
Good news everyone!
Over the past week or so, I’ve been in contact with the good people over at Pixels or Death and am happy to confirm that, once their new site is up, I will writing for them on a regular basis.
I have a feeling this will work out nicely. For one thing, from what I’ve seen of their previous output, my tone/style is a good match for them. Another, I’ll be working to deadlines and won’t say silly things like “It’ll be up tomorrow” when I mean eventually*.
Naturally I’m still intending on posting here as well. Just expect to see a few more links from now, mmkay?
*Seriously though, Braid piece. Soon(ish).
I struggle to understand how the whole world can take the Olympic Games so seriously - emphasis on games - and yet there is virtually no attention paid to computer gaming competitions, despite the fact that it is one of the biggest industries worldwide.
In terms of being a spectator, they’re effectively the same thing, right? Watching people display their skill at something they’ve trained in.
Where does this disparity come from? Is it purely an age thing? Is it that a lot of games are merely simulations? Or that we can’t guarantee consistent quality in item performance (i.e., buggy games, consoles crashing, etc.)?
Seriously, someone explain this to me. I just don’t understand.
Los Campesinos, London, 2012
In the lovely new issue of Oh Comely
I once ran into Gareth from LC! in my very first year of university, whilst he was still a student at Cardiff University. I didn’t realise who he was at the time, having been fairly terrible at being properly involved in the Cardiff music scene (a position that has fluctuated radically in my six years of living here). If I remember correctly, there had been a Quench Magazine meeting. As I walking down the stairs, I noticed the guy in front of me wearing a Xiu Xiu t-shirt, so I gave some sort of silly compliment (“Hey, nice t-shirt, brah!”).
It took about two months before I realised who that person was. I felt incredibly silly at the end of it.
True (dull) story.
(via ohcomelymagazine)
Oh, hey…
Did I say tomorrow for that Braid piece? I clearly meant ‘when it gets done’.
In all seriousness, apologies for the lack of…anything. I’ve sort of been dealing with some personal issues - namely unemployment, bills, and an increase in my medication (hear that, employers? I take pills! I’m not a liability in the slightest!).
Whilst my situation hasn’t exactly changed at all, I did want to make it known that I am still writing - albeit slowly and inbetween bites of sugary baked goods - and fully intend to make more of an effort for the good community of tumblr.
‘k? ‘k.
