THAT Camp and “casual” games
Greetings faithful readers! 1. My gaming time this past week was comparatively light, because I spent the weekend at The 2011 Great Lakes THAT Camp talking about video games, rather than at home playing them. “What is THAT Camp?” you say? Excellent question! THAT is short for “The Humanities and Technology, and THAT Camp bills … Continue reading
Kirby and the failed motion control experiment
A few quick notes: 1. After writing about Kirby’s Epic Yarn last week, it struck me that I had neglected to write about the single quality that struck me the most when I started to play the game: for a late-generation first-party game on the console that pioneered motion control, it’s incredible that Kirby’s Epic … Continue reading
In color
I’ve been playing two games recently. 1. The first of the two is Kirby’s Epic Yarn for the Wii. I’ve been enjoying it a great deal. It’s visually imaginative. Each of the levels (at least so far) does a good job of asking you to master a slightly different skill in order to reach the … Continue reading
“Baseball is a turn-based tactical role-playing game”
If you read The Idler, then chances are a bit better than average that you enjoy both baseball and video games. If so, you will love, love, love “The gamer’s game” from The Brainy Gamer, in which he makes the case for why video game fans should love baseball. As I did. And do.
If you are a fan of either but not both, then you should definitely go read. I’m having a hard time not quoting the whole thing, but I’ll give you one salient and juicy point:
Baseball is a 9-stage boss battle, and the pitcher is the boss. To defeat him, you must hit him repeatedly or gradually wear him down. He has strengths and weaknesses you must identify and exploit. If you can successfully guess what he’s about to cast, you can use it against him and deal damage. Near the end of the game, he may be replaced by an even stronger boss with a higher ATT, but much lower HP.
And if you don’t love either baseball or video games, um, I’m not entirely sure why I’m talking to you. But go read it anyway, just for the joy of such unexpected but well-reasoned connections between two such wildly divergent pursuits.
Prime time presentation
Like many fathers with an artistically-inclined son, mine made great efforts to transform me into an athlete. He signed me up for a flag football league, in which I barely played. I wasn’t quite fast enough and my hands and brain were not on speaking terms. Besides, the team was terrible enough without me. We … Continue reading
Playing the penguin
It’s not uncommon for my daughters to be up before me on weekend. They’re pretty good at entertaining themselves—sometimes quietly and sometimes not-so-much—while their parents try to steal a few more minutes of sleep. This Saturday, after she thought that she had waited long enough, my younger daughter, who I will refer to as Bootsy, … Continue reading
Worth the wait
For years, Batman fans have suffered. Though many of us are avid video game players (it should be no surprise that a large portion of the demographics for comic books and video games overlap), we’ve been presented with subpar game after subpar game. Jump, run, throw things, and repeat until you get to the guy … Continue reading
The sun and the (Heavy) Rain
There’s fairly broad agreement that Sony/Quantic Dream’s Heavy Rain was one of the great games of 2010. IGN.com awarded it “Game of the Year” for PS3. It was a finalist for PS3 Game of the Year on Spike TV’s Video Game Awards. (It lost to God of War III, but c’mon, this was Spike TV.) … Continue reading
Mario gets old
If I had any illusions about holding on to my youth, they were dispelled by Nintendo’s hoopla surrounding the 25th anniversary of the release of Super Mario Bros. (And may I step to the side for a moment and comment on how much I adore the fact that the name of the game is “Super … Continue reading
