You might be sick of horror by the end of of the month, but for the people who enjoy the genre as much as I do, hopefully you’re enjoying what’s coming from Shocktober so far. More to come!
I’m going to keep today’s forward short. Jury duty has me behind schedule this week, as I’ve been trying to shoot Worth Playing on Thursday, which means Friday can be spent on the morning show, putting together Worth Reading, and planning for the week ahead. Instead, it’s a little after three in the afternoon, and I’m still collecting pieces from around the Internet.
It’s good to have a few days between me and the last time I strapped on an Oculus Rift. I’m not sure the high-def consumer version of the device will change my mind, but I do wonder about one’s ability to spend too much time in there. Personally, even after two hours of exploring various demos and experiments, I was happy to have a few days without strapping the thing on. Maybe it’s because the Oculus Rift is new, maybe it’s because I’m an old fart, it’s hard to say.
Hey, You Should Play This
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And You Should Read These, Too
We lost two important figures of the video game industry recently, former Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi and author Tom Clancy. Their impact on games was vastly different, one of them responsible for rescuing modern video games as we know it, the other an early pioneer in the possibility of the medium and a defining example of players from different fields intersecting with games. We’re reaching the age where games have been around long enough for this to become commonplace, a tragic reality that’s also flattering. Video games are full of complicated, interesting, and flawed individuals that we'll cherish and miss.
"Nine months later, I was ready. I had found the C64 Go programmer in England and convinced him to come to Japan to work on the project. We added a cute interface, with little ninjas moving the Go stones, to entertain the Nintendo consumer. Yamauchi played the game once. Or I should say that he told his underling, who was holding the controller, where he wanted to put his moves. Yamauchi had never held a Nintendo controller in his hands before."
"Make no mistake, Clancy is worthy of respect. The man knew how to craft a page-turner, and over several decades managed to forge a massively successful multimedia empire. In my early teens, I very much enjoyed several of his more well-known novels, right up through Debt of Honor, in which a crazed Japanese pilot flies a 747 into the Capitol Building, wiping out most of the US government and installing longtime Clancy hero Jack Ryan as president. Before 9/11, that novel's apocalyptic imaginings stirred a strange shock of excitement, but it was an uncomfortable one. Even at the age of fifteen or so, I started to notice Clancy's hard right into extreme neoconservatism, a political bent that my budding pre-progressive mind wasn't quite comfortable with. The unbelievable war-hawk wish-fulfillment of Debt of Honor's 1996 follow-up Executive Orders—in which the assassination of a Saddam Hussein stand-in leads to a massive, world-threatening United Islamic Republic that must be stopped at all costs—was more or less where I lost interest in Clancy's writing."
If You Click It, It Will Play
Like it or Not, Crowdfunding Isn't Going Away
- It doesn't seem possible for Bot Colony to live up to its ambitious, but we can dream?
- lilt line developer Gordon Midwood says a Kickstarter project is akin to being pregnant.
- Knife and the Ghost Lights looks like what old, interesting Tim Burton might make.
Tweets That Make You Go "Hmmmmmm"
Maan, just tested the speed-running mechanics in Super Time Force. Super happy with it. Brutal as FUCK, but feels really intense and unique.
— kris piotrowski (@krispiotrowski) October 2, 2013
You Won't Believe These Top 5 Weird Old Lua Crashes Discovered in the Build by a Mom
— Ghost Chris Remo (@chrisremo) October 3, 2013
Watching Monsters. Great movie, but amazingly smart production. A masterclass in making a lot from a little.
— Mike Bithell (@mikeBithell) October 4, 2013
Oh, And This Other Stuff
- A (humorous) message from Gabe Newell to the rest of the world.
- The New York Times examines the growing (and shrinking) number of blockbuster games.
- Louis Lu made a game so that he could play with his son on the other wide of the world.
- Academic Ian Bogost with one of the most interesting takes on Gone Home yet.
- Let's celebrate Fatal Frame III's PSN release with commentary from director Makoto Shibata.
- Gameranx considers the ethics of covering game controversies from the media's perspective.
- This is one of the grosser things I've read in a while.
- Jon Bois wants to help you have a better experience playing Grand Theft Auto V.
- Robin Yang examines diversity and other "myths" of conferences.
- GTA takes pot shots at all sorts of groups, and the biggest problem? It's just not funny. It's lazy.