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Worth Reading: 07/13/12

The return of Worth Reading, in which we discover a video game can be terrifying enough to scare you in the middle of the day. Apparently.

Welcome to the mess of chords that is the living room in my parents' house.
Welcome to the mess of chords that is the living room in my parents' house.

Yep, I’m back.

Technically, I’m still here in Chicago to help my family make some decisions, and won’t be back in the office until after my wedding. Slowly but surely I’m getting back into writing. Slowly.

I’ll probably pen something about my Dad. We’ll see.

The most difficult part of realizing I’m here for a bit is organizing a setup in my parents’ house. I’ve been going back and forth from the hardware store for the right parts to ensure the existing setup isn’t compromised, while also allowing me to play games over the next few weeks. I spent a good hour searching for a cable splitter yesterday, convinced there was one sitting around the last time I was here, but eventually gave up and decided spending $2.99 at Home Depot made more sense. I'm cheap.

Even though Worth Reading disappeared for a week, I’ve received plenty of links from you guys and gals with games and stories that needed paying attention to. Thank you for that, and thank you for this. If some of the material here is a little behind, I apologize, but Giant Bomb has never been the most timely publication in the world anyway, right?

Hey, You Should Play This

No Caption Provided

Fuck you, Slender. This one actually produced a jump scare from me in the middle of the day, and I can’t imagine what this awful creation would elicit from my psyche at night with headphones. In short, Slender is a first-person survival game that asks you do accomplish a seemingly simple task: collect eight pages. The catch, of course, is that Slender Man is stalking you the entire time, even if he’s often out of sight. Each page ratchets up the tension, as the music and sound effects prompt you to wonder why you aren’t just hitting escape, leaving this stupid thing behind.

(It’s awesome. Please do something more with this, Parsec. And much thanks to Fobwashed for the art!)

And You Should Read These

No Caption Provided

Tom Bissell is the most frustrating writer in games because it doesn’t make sense to write about one after he’s weighed in. His take on Spec Ops: The Line is no different, in which Bissell wrestles with a question most of us ignore when it comes to enjoying our violent shooters: why do we enjoy them? Is it okay that we enjoy them? Why is that okay? Bissell’s piece is fascinating for another reason: he’s a writer on Gears of War Judgment. Who knows how much of his personal musings on the cycle of violence in games will play out in a game he’s contributing to, but make sure to have Bissell’s thoughts in the back of your head as we learn more about Judgment in the future. I will.

Shooters are obviously some kind of power fantasy, centered, as they are, upon enacting, over and over again, one of the gravest moral steps a human being can take. They're obviously a form of vicarious experience, allowing even the yellowest among us to feel a facile familiarity with combat. They're obviously tapping into a deep and possibly even evolutionarily vital part of the human mind, in which power asserted becomes advantage gained. And unlike most of humanity's previous attempts to replicate such dynamics within rule-based confines — like, say, jousting or rugby — no one gets hurt. It's quite possible that shooters reveal that somewhere inside every human being is a shadow human being, one who kills and takes and does what he or she pleases. A lot of people who love shooters play them, they say, "to blow off steam." That's not why I play shooters. I play shooters because I like the pressure, the pressure of learning what to pay attention to in a realm where the ordinary governances of human behavior have been lifted. I like shooters, I suspect, for the same reason I used to like doing hard drugs. They allow my shadow self to emerge and play. For me, shooters aren't about blowing off steam. They're about taking in steam.
No Caption Provided

I don’t blame anyone for being hyped about Ouya, but some researched skepticism has been in order ever since its Kickstarter backing went into the millions of dollars, and Penny Arcade Report’s Ben Kuchera does a terrific job of outlining some of the big questions marks surrounding this project. I can’t think of anyone that wants to see Ouya fail, myself included, but do remember the number of backers currently pledging to receive an Ouya wouldn’t make for a very big install base. Kuchera addresses some huge issues that remain unanswered about Ouya, including the one that rubs me the most: why promise Minecraft as a playable game when its developer is not willing to do that? It reeks of Ouya being desperate to have a big name game to hang its hat on, and it’s merely a wild assumption.

Another problem is the fact the OUYA does little except further fragment the Android market, although I was told that’s not an issue. “There will be only one chipset for OUYA and a totally standard one at that,” I was told. “This is the best way to develop Android for TV. We will work hard to make it as standard as possible.” I’m going to be blunt: That’s a ridiculous answer, and it’s akin to claiming the Kindle Fire doesn’t count as market fragmentation as long as you only develop for the Kindle Fire.

If You Click This, It Will Play

Oh, And This Other Stuff, Too

Patrick Klepek on Google+

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JJ_FIGGY

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Edited By JJ_FIGGY

the mac download on slender work for anyone else?

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seismicshock

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Edited By seismicshock

I expected Ben Kuchera's story to draw more immediate flame... I am kind of disappointed in a way.

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LikeaSsur

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Edited By LikeaSsur

@Eckshale: Again, this is the alpha version of the game. How would they have all of that already? Remember Minecraft in Alpha compared to now? They still have plenty of time to do more with Slenderman, and even add an actual story,

It's beyond crazy that you're judging a game (and the way you make it sound, it's a final judgement) so early in development.

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fisk0

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Edited By fisk0  Moderator

@paulmako said:

Welcome back Patrick!

Also Slender: Played at 12:27 in a well lit room. Instantly weirded out. It's awesome because I saw the Slenderman model in the game and it looked kind of... shoddy. But it doesn't even matter, I will still acutely aware of his presence the whole time.

Good recommendation from Scoops. Everyone, try it!

The slenderman in the Marble Hornets and EverymanHYBRID videos looks pretty terrible as well, but somehow his appearance is pretty damn unnerving anyway.

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MudMan

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Edited By MudMan

I'm as sceptical of Ouya as anyone, but I feel Ben Kuchera fails to acknowledge that a bunch of Android games already have support for button inputs, both in the Xperia Play and using support for third party controllers. That famously includes Minecraft, which was one of the big selling points of the Play early on. I'm assuming they'd aim to tap into that for early ports.

Still doesn't mean that thing is viable. Or that it isn't.

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phantomsnake

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Edited By phantomsnake

The market fragmentation argument against Ouya doesn't hold up. Developers don't target a specific chipset, they target Android, which is a very well established OS with well supported APIs. The whole point of having an OS is to provide an abstraction layer on top of the hardware and Android does exactly that, just like Windows does for millions of PC part combinations. And no, the Kindle Fire doesn't count as market fragmentation. From a developer's perspective it's just another Android tablet. I actually released a game for the Kindle Fire last week. I released exactly the same version that I have on Google Play. There was zero development work required.

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Gringus

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Edited By Gringus

@fisk0 said:

@paulmako said:

Welcome back Patrick!

Also Slender: Played at 12:27 in a well lit room. Instantly weirded out. It's awesome because I saw the Slenderman model in the game and it looked kind of... shoddy. But it doesn't even matter, I will still acutely aware of his presence the whole time.

Good recommendation from Scoops. Everyone, try it!

The slenderman in the Marble Hornets and EverymanHYBRID videos looks pretty terrible as well, but somehow his appearance is pretty damn unnerving anyway.

I've only seen the marble hornets videos but yeah he does look pretty shoddy. But you never get a good look at him most the time.

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madnesshero88

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Edited By madnesshero88

Not trying to sound macho or nothin', but its very hard for a game to scare me, amnesia did an ok job, but most others i can handle just fine. That being said, slender really got to me, while trying it out last night i hit the escape button so hard after one really good jump scare i thought i might have broken it.

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petitfool

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Edited By petitfool

@Clairabel said:

@m2cks said:

@Clairabel said:

No sir, I will not be downloading a game where the Slender Man is stalking me endlessly. Nope, I already have enough real-life paranoia about that thing following me, I don't need more thank you very much.

C'moooon- being scared is fun sometimes! Plus- it's only a game.

That's what he wants you to think!

Whaaat? Nooooo seriously it's fun! And it's certainly an experience you won't forget!

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Vig02

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Edited By Vig02

@JJ_FIGGY said:

the mac download on slender work for anyone else?

I can not seem to find a functional Mac download option either.

-EDIT-

Found this after an advance google search:

http://www.shacknews.com/file/32250/slender-beta-09-mac-free-game

Downloading now. Crossing fingers.

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Laiv162560asse

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Edited By Laiv162560asse

Yeah, so I really don't think I'll be clicking on any Tom Bissell articles ever again. The complete nonsense that passed for his pieces on The Witcher 2 and Max Payne 3 shaved 20 points off my IQ between them, but I decided to give this one a chance since the question of moral frameworks in violent games is an interesting one. Sadly it's rambling disjointed nonsense once more and mostly just serves to give Bissell an excuse to make references to himself and his life (eg. 'I know a guy who was tortured because of me'; 'Did you know I did hard drugs?'; 'Plus I saw action in Baghdad'...).

This whole schtick of 'I take shooters too seriously - or maybe I'm the only one who takes them seriously enough' and 'they say shooters are about venting - well vents get dirty' is just a way to appear insightful without really saying anything. Yes, games need to examine the way they treat gun violence, as their narrative templates become overused and tend towards exploitation. However, if Gears of War, Halo, Bioshock and Bulletstorm all handled violence just fine, as Bissell supposes, then it's not exactly a difficult moral corner to write your way out of, is it.

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fisk0

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Edited By fisk0  Moderator

@Gringus said:

@fisk0 said:

@paulmako said:

Welcome back Patrick!

Also Slender: Played at 12:27 in a well lit room. Instantly weirded out. It's awesome because I saw the Slenderman model in the game and it looked kind of... shoddy. But it doesn't even matter, I will still acutely aware of his presence the whole time.

Good recommendation from Scoops. Everyone, try it!

The slenderman in the Marble Hornets and EverymanHYBRID videos looks pretty terrible as well, but somehow his appearance is pretty damn unnerving anyway.

I've only seen the marble hornets videos but yeah he does look pretty shoddy. But you never get a good look at him most the time.

Sadly they start showing more and more of him in later videos, somewhere between entry 30-40 they show pretty much a close up shot without much distortion, that reveals a bit too much to be scary. The same is kinda true of the entire video series, by going on as long as they have, with more than 60 episodes, they've taken most of the mystery out of it. Kinda wish they would have ended after the first 25 or so entries when it was mostly about showing the weird clips from the alleged film project, rather than "I'M GOING DOWN TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS, I WILL EXAMINE EVERY LEAD AND TALK TO PEOPLE ABOUT THIS" yet not acknowledging the crazy shit that's going on in some of the videos.

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gaminghooligan

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Edited By gaminghooligan

cart life looks solid. def checking it out

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Edited By Eckshale

@LikeaSsur said:

@Eckshale: (and the way you make it sound, it's a final judgement)

That's because i won't play it again, as you know you only get one first impression and if they want to squander it on an "alpha" that's up to them.

I use quotation mark as the game version is 0.9 but the words alpha and "assets are not final" are nowhere to be seen anywhere on the main pages.

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Edited By mathey

The thing I find interesting about Slender (aside from being too much of a sissy to play it rather than just watch other people play it on YouTube) is just how goddamn simple it is. No real attempt at a narrative, just the barest hint of a setting - which you can barely see - and bare bones art, sound effects, and music.

But it works. Apparently really damn well.

Think they boiled down the Horror Game to its primal elements; isolation, tension, and the unknown.

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Zelnox

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Edited By Zelnox

I like shooters, I suspect, for the same reason I used to like doing hard drugs. They allow my shadow self to emerge and play. For me, shooters aren't about blowing off steam. They're about taking in steam.

Plot device for Persona 5.

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happymeowmeow

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Edited By happymeowmeow

I'm not a fan of military shooters, maybe for some of the same reasons Bissell was talking about, maybe not. It's not really something I've put much introspection into, except I don't find them "fun", whatever that means. But the more people talk about Spec Ops: The Line, the more I want to try it. Have a soft spot for game makers with noble intentions...is noble the right word? Maybe more accurate is "ambitious"?

Anyway, condolences on your loss Patrick.

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Edited By abdulhb3

Yeah Ouya is getting insanely over-funded. And the name itself sounds way too bootleg for the average consumer (who doesn't look at websites like GiantBomb) to take seriously.

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Edited By PillClinton

@Vig02 said:

@JJ_FIGGY said:

the mac download on slender work for anyone else?

I can not seem to find a functional Mac download option either.

-EDIT-

Found this after an advanced google search:

http://www.shacknews.com/file/32250/slender-beta-09-mac-free-game

Downloading now. Crossing fingers.

Worked for me! Thanks.

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m16mojo2

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Edited By m16mojo2

I was wondering what the hell that picture they had up, was about! LoL. You should play this. Looks like a creepy FMV, no...

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Tom Bissell is a great writer, he wrote on Max Payne 3 too, shame he writes so infrequently. I doubt his work will show in Gears Judgement because he might just be a cog in a well-oiled machine, but I wonder why he was brought on board.

Cart Life IS pretty great, love to get back to it. Shit got mad depressing.

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deactivated-63d9b5324c01f

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Was never a fan of horror games until I played Dead Space 2 and Amnesia. Slender sounds pretty good too. I hate it when games rely on jump scares, but if Patrick digs it then I'll probably check it out.

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Edited By Gringus

@fisk0 said:

@Gringus said:

@fisk0 said:

@paulmako said:

Welcome back Patrick!

Also Slender: Played at 12:27 in a well lit room. Instantly weirded out. It's awesome because I saw the Slenderman model in the game and it looked kind of... shoddy. But it doesn't even matter, I will still acutely aware of his presence the whole time.

Good recommendation from Scoops. Everyone, try it!

The slenderman in the Marble Hornets and EverymanHYBRID videos looks pretty terrible as well, but somehow his appearance is pretty damn unnerving anyway.

I've only seen the marble hornets videos but yeah he does look pretty shoddy. But you never get a good look at him most the time.

Sadly they start showing more and more of him in later videos, somewhere between entry 30-40 they show pretty much a close up shot without much distortion, that reveals a bit too much to be scary. The same is kinda true of the entire video series, by going on as long as they have, with more than 60 episodes, they've taken most of the mystery out of it. Kinda wish they would have ended after the first 25 or so entries when it was mostly about showing the weird clips from the alleged film project, rather than "I'M GOING DOWN TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS, I WILL EXAMINE EVERY LEAD AND TALK TO PEOPLE ABOUT THIS" yet not acknowledging the crazy shit that's going on in some of the videos.

Oh they made more?? I'm pretty sure I've only seen to like 25 then I think.

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fisk0

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Edited By fisk0  Moderator

@Gringus said:

@fisk0 said:

@Gringus said:

@fisk0 said:

@paulmako said:

Welcome back Patrick!

Also Slender: Played at 12:27 in a well lit room. Instantly weirded out. It's awesome because I saw the Slenderman model in the game and it looked kind of... shoddy. But it doesn't even matter, I will still acutely aware of his presence the whole time.

Good recommendation from Scoops. Everyone, try it!

The slenderman in the Marble Hornets and EverymanHYBRID videos looks pretty terrible as well, but somehow his appearance is pretty damn unnerving anyway.

I've only seen the marble hornets videos but yeah he does look pretty shoddy. But you never get a good look at him most the time.

Sadly they start showing more and more of him in later videos, somewhere between entry 30-40 they show pretty much a close up shot without much distortion, that reveals a bit too much to be scary. The same is kinda true of the entire video series, by going on as long as they have, with more than 60 episodes, they've taken most of the mystery out of it. Kinda wish they would have ended after the first 25 or so entries when it was mostly about showing the weird clips from the alleged film project, rather than "I'M GOING DOWN TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS, I WILL EXAMINE EVERY LEAD AND TALK TO PEOPLE ABOUT THIS" yet not acknowledging the crazy shit that's going on in some of the videos.

Oh they made more?? I'm pretty sure I've only seen to like 25 then I think.

Yeah, they published "Entry #60" a couple of weeks ago (and well, as they have unnumbered videos, and upload on two accounts, I think they are closing in on 70 videos at the moment), and I guess more will appear in the coming months.

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Residentrevil2

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Edited By Residentrevil2

Take your time Patrick. Oh, and thanks for the article. I really wanna play Anna.

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Edited By Gringus

@fisk0: Well honestly I'm glad I didn't get anymore into the mythos then I have. I think slenderman is creepier the less you know. From what I saw it was pretty terrifying.

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LikeaSsur

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Edited By LikeaSsur

@Eckshale: A wise fellow once said: First impressions are never as important as lasting ones.

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ArbitraryWater

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Edited By ArbitraryWater

These Atari emails are AMAZING.

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jasondesante

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Edited By jasondesante

would like to see a real hardcore article just SLAMMING Apple for their bullshit app policies. aka more money more problems, and they dont wanna solve the problems. Torchlight completely ripped off on the app store is just the tip of the iceberg. please just start writing about how bad the app store is, and continue writing every day about it until apple changes their bullshit. It will definitely bring more traffic to the site, and would not get boring or old because its one of the most important problems that needs to be solved today in gaming. apples fucking everyone in the ass with their 99 cent nintendo rip offs, and other legit apps that will update with a broken build.....wonder how that gets passed too.

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Lyfeforce

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Edited By Lyfeforce

Patrick, as a man who works with sub-standard AV setups every day, I feel your pain re: cord rats nests. Excellent WW as always.

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HiCZoK

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Edited By HiCZoK

Well F that Slender game :cry:

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Edited By jacksukeru

I love it when teleporting is refered to as 'blinking'. Not sure about that game though.

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Edited By Suits

The email dump was great

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Laiv162560asse

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Edited By Laiv162560asse
@AssInAss said:

Tom Bissell is a great writer, he wrote on Max Payne 3 too.

Personally I thought that article was garbage. There's a popular myth that Max Payne 3 is like a poster child for 'ludonarrative dissonance'. I've seen the claim repeated on the Bombcast, Extra Credits and even in publications like the Guardian. Maybe Bissell started it, I don't know. The argument seems to boil down to one of two ideas: 1) that someone as morally tortured as Max Payne should not be killing so many people or 2) it doesn't make sense for someone who kills as many people as Max does to complain about being bad at his job. These ideas not only run counter to the narrative but they also kind of explain eachother away; Max doesn't like killing people and he considers himself bad at his job because his job really should have nothing to do with killing hundreds, since his job is usually protecting/rescuing a single person or finding out a single bit of information. However, due to noir-flavoured fatalism, he has to kill lots of people because they are either a) entire private armies that Max has angered or b) gangsters/paramilitaries who are protecting someone he needs to get to. I don't see where ludonarrative dissonance even comes into it. I find it amusing, too, that the man Bissell namechecks for having coined the term 'ludonarrative dissonance', actually did so when strongly criticising the dissonance in Bioshock - a game which Bissell uses as an example of having handled violence well, even though the enemies in Bioshock are waves of unsympathetic, spawn-triggered, faceless ciphers, beyond the first hour.


There's a really weird, puritanical, moralising tone to Bissell's writing when he goes on about shooters. He says "Max Payne 3 is grim and punishing; anyone who claims he had "fun" with this game needs to have his head examined." Apparently enjoying violent games is a sign of mental illness. Then you have his veiled sideswipe in the Spec Ops write up, implying that there is something 'filthy' about games which allow us to 'vent'. He says shooters allow his 'shadow self' to emerge and that we '[shouldn't] kid ourselves about what happens even to a sane, well-adjusted person after an entire day of watching [Max Payne 3]' - apparently an afternoon playing the game had made him act 'mouthy' and 'agitated' towards people at a dinner party. Honestly I don't know how to distinguish this kind of attitude from the moral panic we see exhibited by hardline, pro-censorship types, who believe that games present an insidious moral hazard to society. They are saying the same thing, but the things Bissell writes about definitely don't have any relevance to my experience.


I find his writing to be the very worst kind of video game punditry. He starts with a simple central foundation which can usually be summed up in a single sentence - eg. 'I didn't enjoy this game's story' or 'I don't like medieval fantasy settings' - then, through empty rationalisation, spins it out into many paragraphs of unsupported assertions and nebulous rhetoric. I dislike Extra Credits for the same reason, but at least they tend not to moralise or savage games quite as harshly as Bissell. I'm fine with him keeping his writing infrequent.

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Eckshale

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Edited By Eckshale

@LikeaSsur said:

@Eckshale: A wise fellow once said: First impressions are never as important as lasting ones.

First and lasting impressions are not mutually exclusive, especially when you first impression may also be the last you get to make.

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Edited By wintermute

@Zelnox said:

I like shooters, I suspect, for the same reason I used to like doing hard drugs. They allow my shadow self to emerge and play. For me, shooters aren't about blowing off steam. They're about taking in steam.

Plot device for Persona 5.

Yes.

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Edited By Wingdman

Damn, was hoping slender was a 2d horror game.

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space_sandwich

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Edited By space_sandwich

Wow, that Anna trailer was surprisingly super fascinating. I'm in, even though it looks like Amnesia's red-headed step-child.

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Edited By omdata

Hmmm, the Atari link appears to be down?

(welcome back, PK)

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omdata

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Edited By omdata
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Sevenout

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Edited By Sevenout

Great write up Scoops! And thanks for reminding me about Anna, it had kind of slipped my mind. That is apparently out today.

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FreedomTown

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Edited By FreedomTown

@depecheload said:

The irony of Penny Arcade criticizing a Kickstarter is rich.

Also, Slender is a horrible "game". It isn't scary at all, people who are saying it is are lying to help promote it, or are individuals who have a heart attack if there is thunder outside. Slender Man meme is stupid, it is old as shit, and someone make a game about it now is not news worthy. There are much better horror games out and being developed that deserve limelight, original, good titles. Not this garbage.

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Corvak

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Edited By Corvak

@FreedomTown: Ben Kuchera is simply the best known of all the people who seem to have this impression that Ouya is going to be a console on par with a 360 or PS3. Which is a path to eventual disappointment.

Essentially, I backed it because it's an Android platform that doesn't rely on touch controls, and that doesn't cost $600 without a three year contract. It's a platform catering to the indie game market and to people who don't want restrictive content control. Add to that the fact that i'm a nerd at heart, I just like having things to tinker with, and the openness and utility of the OS is intriguing.

Ouya as a gaming console designed to be the equal of the "Big Three" - Kuchera's criticism is entirely valid. As a niche marketed Android platform for nerdy types like me, it's perfect.

I will say one thing - assuming Ouya can't access the existing Android Play store (and the existing version of Minecraft), claiming Minecraft was coming to the platform is a bit confusing and foolish.

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patrickklepek

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Edited By patrickklepek

@FreedomTown said:

@depecheload said:

The irony of Penny Arcade criticizing a Kickstarter is rich.

Also, Slender is a horrible "game". It isn't scary at all, people who are saying it is are lying to help promote it, or are individuals who have a heart attack if there is thunder outside. Slender Man meme is stupid, it is old as shit, and someone make a game about it now is not news worthy. There are much better horror games out and being developed that deserve limelight, original, good titles. Not this garbage.

It'd be more helpful if you called out and linked those games, y'know.

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Turambar

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Edited By Turambar

It will never cease to amuse me how a Something Awful contest to troll paranormal forums has developed into that.

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Edited By takkun169

@Laivasse: While I don't necessarily agree with your issues with the "ludonarrative dissonance," otherwise you make some pretty valid points. I agree that the writing of Bissell's ilk, that is so rampant in the games industry just plain wreaks of the kind of panic inducing "journalism" that you typically see on FOX News. It is laser focused on being critical of certain things that are simply inherent to video games while not actually offering anything constructive or anything of any real substance to back up his claims. I think the part of his article that was supposed to really make people sit up and take notice, was that he said he was "mouthy" and "agitated" after having played it, and I don't know about you but I'm not buying it. If games have this kind of an effect on him maybe he shouldn't playing them. If what he says is to be believed then he is having trouble differentiating between fantasy and reality and should probably seek some professional help. It's articles like these that I truly believe do more harm than good to an industry trying to make the next step into mainstream relevancy.

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Birdman_LIVE

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Edited By Birdman_LIVE

Is Tom Bissell on Twitter? Went to the original article & his bio and didn't see it.

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avantegardener

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Edited By avantegardener

Welcome back Patrick, and again, my deepest sympathies.