News & Views
2/27/16-3/4/16
A gloomy, rainy
day marks the end of a week that felt far too long. It’s finally the weekend!
There’s no better way to slip into the comfort of the weekend than with a
compilation of the week’s best video game writing!
News &
Views has the week’s most interesting gaming stories, all in one convenient
place. Check out the links below for stories about how parents should handle VR
violence, the monotony of video game romance, how to get procedural generation
right, and a look into the mind of a devious Nintendo hacker.
And of
course please check out the brand new episode of The Impact Factor podcast that
was posted today! You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, or if you prefer other methods,
check out our SoundCloud. We’re on YouTube too!
Spotlight
Brendan Caldwell, Rock
Paper Shotgun
Worth Reading
Chris
Pruett, Dream Dawn
Amr
Al-Aaser, Harlot
Ben
Kuchera, Polygon
Keith
Stuart, The Guardian
Michael
Cook, Rogue Process
With Comments
Holly
Green, Paste
A few days following Firewatch’s release the internet flooded with an overwhelming disappointment in
the game’s ending. That disappointment, in my interpretation, stemmed largely
from the unfulfilled romance between the Firewatch’s central characters. I found the ‘resolution’ to their courtship
inherently satisfying, largely because the game made the bold decision to have
no real closure. Holly Green’s piece about Firewatch’s inconvenient love is a
good one, echoing many of my own thoughts.
Patrick
Klepek, Kotaku
What a strange story. Not strange in
that people would want to hack Nintendo game, but the way in which the hacker approaches
his craft. To focus predominantly on ‘ruining’ the online experience for others
comes across as pretty jerky, but the ways in which he is tweaking and
modifying Nintendo’s online experiences is fascinating. Nintendo is notoriously
protective of their properties, so if nothing else, the fact that the hacker
seems relatively unfettered in his endeavors is worth writing about.
Imran Khan,
Paste
Yeah, sex life and romance in games
is pretty bad. Ok, that was probably not harsh enough. It’s really bad. Especially
in BioWare games, I feel like my romance is all just trying to say the right
things to the right people (usually utilizing as cheesy and blatantly ‘have sex
with me’ lines as possible). It would be great to see AAA games do more with
this relatively unexplored design space.
Ben
Kuchera, Polygon
As the indie scene continues to
expand at a rapid rate, services need to spring up to accommodate new demands.
Kuchera profiles one such service: a cheap, rentable office space for
burgeoning independent game developers. Very cool. Let’s hope other
entrepreneurs in other cities take note.
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