The following is the latest in a series of journal entries chronicling the author’s descent into next-gen gaming degeneracy and assorted geekery – from getting his first television in years to trying to figure out why the @$@$&@@ you need two goddamn directional pads just to walk down an effing hallway.
Scale is the freshest take on first-person perspective games I’ve seen since the original Portal. It is being developed by Steve Swink, who describes himself as a game designer first and foremost, but who also teaches game and level design, including master classes at NYU, and has published a book titled Game Feel: A Game Designer’s Guide to Virtual Sensation.
Knowing something is one thing. Grasping it can be something entirely different. I have long known that parents are hard-pressed for time. There’s a lot that goes into keeping a small child alive. You must feed them, change their diapers, stop them from crying and keep them from accidentally killing themselves in a world pretty much designed to harm small, incompetent creatures. These mandatory tasks don’t leave room for things the childless might take for granted, such as an afternoon spent playing a videogame or an unhurried bowel movement.
There it was, shattered as if by a falling tree branch, except there were no trees nearby to do the shattering. Someone had pulled into my driveway to turn around and hit the corner post of my fence. They hit it so hard that they dislodged the concrete mooring and the force shattered the top crossbar, splaying the pickets out like pick-up sticks. Then they drove off. It was the middle of the afternoon.
I have a confession to make. I voted for George W. Bush. But not in 2004 – when the tragic, unnecessary debacle of the war in Iraq was still ratcheting up in scope and bloodshed. This was 2000, the year I turned 18. It’s not that I look back on that decision with regret. I really just didn’t know any better. Having been raised in a Christian household, my understanding of presidential politics boiled down to one all-important moral issue. Either you cast your ballot for the God-fearing Republican or you condoned the killing of babies. It was really that
I’ve been knock-kneed certain that I was about to die on exactly two occasions. The first time, I was on my back, in full football gear, ready for the Oklahoma Drill to start. The drill has many variants, but all of them involve hitting. Two players line up opposite one another, perhaps five yards apart – enough to start a charge but not enough for even the fastest players to really get up to speed. Our version of the drill had the coach holding a football at about stomach level in between the two players. At his whistle, we’d scramble
“Johnny, did you want to say something?” That’s gone and done it. Saints Row 2 has violated the One Steve Limit, and at the worst possible time. On the radio, a chipper woman is speaking on behalf of her overmedicated son on the effects of a new prescription pharmaceutical. In the back seat of my convertible, Johnny – that is, Johnny Gat – is bleeding out all over the leather, mumbling slurred promises to a dead girlfriend.
Somewhere lost in a subworld of a subworld, a strange little bastard child of a game exists called A.L.T., a Doom II mod released in 2012 by a group of Russian modders known as Clan [B0S]. A.L.T. begins with the peculiar sight of a bloodied Doom marine in front of a door, frozen in the middle of a dying animation. A whole 30 maps later it ends with the player coming back out the other side of that door as that marine and dying. But here, in our pre-awakened state, moving causes you to abruptly take damage, and turning around
I’m a very accomplished photographer. My photos have been in magazines, newspapers, textbooks, blogs, online videos, television and any other medium that you can think of. My work has been seen by millions and will be one of the most important resources for the history of videogames. The only catch is that I’m almost never credited and don’t get paid for it.
In 1932, actor Peg Entwistle jumped to her death from the “H” of the Hollywoodland sign. Her suicide note read, “I am afraid, I am a coward. I am sorry for everything. If I had done this a long time ago, it would have saved a lot of pain. P.E.” It wouldn’t be the last time a superficial city took someone’s life.