video game
I added this blog for a really bad reason
I just subscribed to Game Stooge entirely because of this. I am an idiot.
It’s Thursday. Want some links?
- I personally don’t especially care about covers – I choose books based on reviews and previous work and I think most SFF covers are rubbish. But some people care a great deal. Here’s a post at A Dribble of Ink about the changes between editions of Mark Charan Newton’s Nights of Villjamur. The comments are pretty interesting if you like that sort of thing, with all sorts weighing in, including Newton’s editor.
- Filming of the Games of Thrones pilot has wrapped. Now we wait to see what the chances of a actual series are.
- Sex advice from D&D players. Actually serious advice, not a parody.
- The AV club’s best 15 video games of the noughties.
- Next time you’re at a loss for PC or NPC, try looking up this print of Characters for an Epic Tale. (via Boing Boing)
- The BBC discusses committing war crimes in video games. (via Rock, Paper, Shotgun)
- The Times covers ‘adult gamers’. Shock, horror!
- And, finally, Kotaku celebrates World of Warcraft’s 5th birthday by finding out from people why they’ve never played it. The intro where the writer discusses how it just doesn’t live up to tabletop gaming experiences is the most interesting one to me.
Thursday Link Day
It’s Thursday link day!!!
- The Onion AV Club have done another ‘Gateway to Geekery’, this time focusing on H.P. Lovecraft.
- Critical Hits have written a pretty good piece on how to get most (and longest) bang for your buck with Game Workshop minis games.
- Apparently dreaming about games makes you better at them. Does that mean that if you dream about sex you get better at that too? (via Felicia Day‘s twitter.)
- Joss Whedon is bidding for the Terminator rights. Sort of. Background is here. (Via the A.V. Club)
- EuroGamer has a big, informative and pretty balanced article on the campaigns in Germany to ban violent video games.
Elite – one of my first obsessions is 25 years old
The other day marked the 25th aniversary of Elite – a open-world space trading and flying sim game that I played when I was a kid. I remember quite clearly going to a computer fair back in Wellington at age 7 or so and seeing this cool game. I bought (with my own money none the less) a ZX Spectrum+ (48k of memory!) and Elite. I was terrible at it to be honest but it marks the beginings of my love of computer game. It was an ‘open-world’ game in a way that very few games have been since – within the context you could do whatever you liked. There was no story or allocated missions. There was just … space.
So thanks for the memories!
(video via Offworld)
All video game characters are all the same!!!
Apparently someone has done some research which shows that ‘Video Game Characters Lack Ethnic & Gender Diversity‘
This was news to who exactly?
One of the things I like about increased customisability of game characters is that you can make a character that looks like you, regardless of what you look like. Story lines still don’t always allow for diversity however, even if you do look different. That seems to be changing as well – Bully, Mass Effect, Fable II and a whole heap of other games allow same sex relationships. But the vast majority of games still feature hyper-masculine white dudes with guns.
I’m a white dude and I know that games are largely wish fulfilment. But it’s interesting to play other people as well. And if I can play an elf, I’m sure I can play a black woman or a gay Asian man or whatever else.