So few games, so many compelling stories
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With only four games, and not the usual complement of 16, on tap this weekend, one might wonder how the networks will keep their 937 analysts, studio hosts, and former coaches busy. After all, it's not like they'll cut down on the pre-pregame, pregame, in-game, postgame, and post-postgame shows. To the contrary, the networks are beefing up their pre-pregame, pregame, ...
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Tycho:  Having already purchased two fifths of The Orange Box over the last few years, the level of value I have derived from it is "fantastic" but not "supernatural."  For Gabriel, who never finished the second Half-Life and never purchased the first episode, the aforementioned Box represents an intimidating and possibly even brutal level of content for one's holiday dollar.  It's hard enough trying to keep up with all the games that are coming out, but when you start putting more than one game on the disc the difficulty is compounded.   We're lucky, then, than the best thing on there can be completed in only a couple hours.     I've tried to make my rounds through the disc, but I kept coming back to Portal until I'd completed it.  I expect every part of this strange collection to be full of virtue, in the way that Valve's anomalous position in the games industry allows: self-funded development in their sky-high Bellevue commune until each product sings.  But Portal is strange, even for them.  Risky on every axis, we may now say that the "first person puzzle comedy" has now been proven out as a genre.  The gameplay is strong, but Portal's unique combination of hilarity and menace elevates it, resulting in a few perfect, indelible hours of gameplay.          My TeamFortress 2 experience so far on the console has been fairly uneven.  Coming from the PC beta, where I sometimes battled with stability concerns but the games played smooth, I'm now grappling with the reverse.  I love the play experience, as I've already expressed, and I'm rarely of the opinion that having more players automatically improves a game - so the differential between the PC and 360 platforms isn't as important to me as it might be to others.  No, the problem with TF2 on the 360 (and likely the PS3, as well) is that peer to peer hosting just ain't cutting it.  There are games that seem to manage it better, but with Vista PCs authenticating into the service now peer to peer games should be an option.  This needs fixed overnight.     I'll try to complete the second Episode over the weekend, interleaved with finishing the writing on my own game, which has become more difficult since completing Portal.  I'm starting to think that Precipice needs a greater concentration of synthesized ladies.      I would be abdicating my duty if I neglected to mention the EA thing, which is really the EA/BioWare/Pandemic thing.  I was under the impression that BioWare and Pandemic had merged precisely to give themselves leverage over monolithic publishers like Electronic Arts, but who knows.  The biggest fallout in the short term is that, beyond the first Mass Effect, a multiplatform release is almost certain.  Of course, I wholly endorse that kind of thing, but I imagine that Microsoft might hold a different opinion.  After spending years promoting the series, enduring delays, and now having spent months beating the shit out of it in test, it's fair to say that MS was investing in a larger trilogy - one that gamers would associate exclusively with their brand.
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Gamers may be some of the first to appreciate high-definition content.
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Two new story collections explore young deaths, sexual infidelities, and unraveling marriages.
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The heated competition between the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii for home console dominance has yielded surprisingly few great games this year. But I can still name 10 of this yearâs games that thrilled me to the core.
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Missing a key piece to your favorite board game? The Web's abundance of board game sites might help.
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Halo 3's launch marks a milestone on the journey of video games from niche hobby to cultural phenomenon. Yet those who don't play can be dismissive. Can the myths be laid to rest?
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As new titles become more innovative, existing players scramble to keep up.
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Promoted as â âWide World of Sportsâ meets the Big Apple,â âStreet Gamesâ will traverse the five boroughs in 10 half-hour episodes that focus on rarely televised activities like handball and roller derby.
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Readers go on (and on!) about the University of Southern California's quality game-development programs. Plus: Links to our most popular blog posts.
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Imagining hundreds of outage-related micro-dramas unfolding simultaneously.
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I spent large chunks of last year playing the same AAA video games everyone else played: "BioShock," "Rock Band," "Super Mario Galaxy" and so on. But if I actually kept track of my gaming hours, I wouldn't be surprised to find that I spent just as much time enjoying the simpler delights of Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade.
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Shiny Entertainment's Dax Berg outlines the challenges of bringing the beloved books to interactive life in videogame form, even as a movie adaptation rolls toward the silver screen.
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Game addicts meet a potentially addictive new game. Will profit ensue?
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Many said these Games would be a shambles, but they turned out to be sensational. Sensational not just because of the virtual dope-of-the-day revelations but in their ancient concept and their modern execution.
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Video games are so popular that even books about them are selling well. Hint-filled strategy guides now can sell more than 1 million copies, and long-awaited games are being given the kind of "making of" treatment typically bestowed on blockbuster movies.
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The word "gaming" is making its way onto the whiteboards of advertising conference rooms on a regular basis these days. As a proponent of this industry's viability as a communication platform for brands, I think that's great progress. We've collectively woken up to the fact that pimple-faced teenagers are not the only ones playing games (for those of you not in the know, these guys aren't even the typical game consumers anymore, nor have they been for quite a few years now).