Worth Reading: 07/28/2014

I don't have much to say this week. I'll let this poem by nine-year-old Sam Daly do the talking.

"Ode to Waluigi," By Sam Daly

Oh, purple-moustached clever Waluigi.

Thou art such a genius when it is thy time to attack Mario and Luigi!

How thou attach springs to thy shoes, know I not!

Why dost thou not have thy own video fame?

Art thou enraged that thou dost not have one?

Why dost thou fight the Mario brothers?

Thou art negative and wicked when shooting fireballs at thy green plumber, thy foe!

Why art thou always cranky?

Art thy purple knickers in a knot?

Perchance Alvin Earthworm annoyed thou with his YouTube video.

Why art thou so tall and slim?

Perchance a Power Flower fell in you mouth when thou wast a baby.

Why dost thou wear a purple suit?

I like thy violet outfit for its unique hue.

Shouldst thy brother Wario and thou fight so repeatedly?

Is Bowser the Dragon-turtle your fiendish companion?

I dost wonder what it wouldst be like to be friends with Bowser and thou.

Dost thou own the Vicious Petey Piranha Flower?

Dost thou like the kind Princess Peach?

If thou couldst own a Yoshi wouldst thou?

Thou art so sly and crafty our slippery Waluigi.

Dost thou fight Geno the Explorer dangerously?

Why art thou not in Super Smash Bros Brawl?

Perchance thou art sad for being excluded from that rough game.

Why art thou so nimble when thou escape the police?

Thy symbol is an upside down L.

Oh, thou art sneaky, secretive and tricky, mine own Waluigi!

Hey, You Should Play This

• Orbitor
• Persist

And You Should Read These, Too

• "Kim Kardashian: Hollywood and the Price of Fame" by Gita Jackson

I figured Kim Kardashian would only be making a brief appearance here at Giant Bomb, but I can't help that people have been writing some really brilliant pieces about her foray into video games with Kim Kardashian: Hollywood. Last week, we looked at the game through the lens of free-to-play monetization mechanics, and how many players probably don't engage with how gross they are (or don't care, more likely). This week, Gita Jackson finds herself developing empathy for Kim Kardashian as a person, and how the game, while hyperbolic and cartoonish, represents both the glamour and tragedy of celebrity life.

"Clearly, I do not want to live in this world, although it’s a nice diversion from the world in which I am not famous. For Mrs. Kardashian West, however, this isn’t a diversion. This is her reality. She doesn’t have a choice on whether or not she is scrutinized. She had a choice when her sex tape was released—be forever known as a woman who had a sex tape, or try and take control of that situation. She no longer gets to have “off the clock.” When Mrs. Kardashian West wakes up, she is working. When she goes grocery shopping, she is working. When she is with her family, she is working. Every word she speaks and outfit she puts on and decision she makes must be made in respect to the fact that it will be recorded and analyzed. This is reflected in the game, as well. I managed to escape the E-List by buying a nice outfit and thereby gaining more in-game fans. There is no visible metric for when or how this happens, and when I saw the notification, I was a little startled. Although the game makes sure you never forget that you’re always being watched, it doesn’t exactly spell out how closely."

• "Melee the Masterpiece, Melee the Demon" by Joshua Calixto

As we near the release of Super Smash Bros., I'm hoping to finally start delving into this community. What makes the Smash fandom so unique is the push-and-pull with its creator, and Joshua Calixto outlines why Super Smash Bros. Melee, the game at the center of Smash competitions, is both a blessing and a curse for Masahiro Sakurai. Smash was purposely created to allow players intimidated by fighting games an opportunity to participate in the genre. While both Sakurai and Nintendo have acknowledged the passion the competitive scene has for Melee, it seems there's lingering resentment.

"Initially, Super Smash Bros. was supposed to feel like the tricycle race to Virtua Fighter’sTour de France, the mini-golf to Street Fighter’s Pebble Beach. As an unapologetically simple and cartoonish 2D fighter spattered with zany weapon drops, it didn’t matter that some characters were ridiculously overpowered, or that the outcome of a match often boiled down to the spawn location of a nasty Bob-omb. For lots of players, the series has always felt best when experienced like a dark and curvy waterslide: fun and thrilling, but incalculable in scope or result.

This was not the kind of Super Smash Bros. experience that professional players showed up to watch at last weekend’s 2014 Evolution Championship Series--EVO for short--in Las Vegas. Nowadays, the competitive scene comprises experts who have mostly ditched Brawl and item-based interactions to focus entirely on the complex techniques, breakneck tempo, and aggressive combo systems of Melee. The game might be more than 12 years old, but it’s in the middle of a competitive renaissance right now, and the final round of this year’s Melee tournament brought in more than 100 thousand concurrent viewers."

If You Click It, It Will Play

These Crowdfunding Projects Look Pretty Cool

• Zoya Street wants to write a history of mobile games covering 1998 through 2008.
• Jenny LeClue might be the cutest looking horror adventure game I've ever seen.
• After Reset hopes to resurrect the gameplay styling of Fallout and other classic RPGs.

Tweets That Make You Go "Hmmmmmm"

Oh, And This Other Stuff

• Giant Bomb user noahtheboa999 reflects on his attempts to get into older games like Mega Man 2.
• Jed Pressgrove pushes back on the notion that game critics should also be authoritative experts.
• Karl Roelofs guides us through his history with Shadowgate, from past to present.
• Chris Plante passes on sound advice about living in the age of social networks.
• David Baumgart explains why his game, Clockwork Empires, has violence. It's for a reason.
• Edge chronicles the development of Max Payne, one of gaming's most influential action games.
• Ran Rogers reasons that ZeniMax's lawsuit against Oculus could be vitally important.
• Various developers who worked on Defense of the Ancients filed a postmortem years ago.
• Patrick Lindsey asks games to reconsider mental illness as such a common villain.
• Kaitlin Tremblay and Alan Williamson point out how well Unreal nailed being on an alien world.
• Timothy Seppala talks with the LGBT community about Atari's newfound interest in them.
• NeoGAF reimagines modern video games as though they were developed for PSOne.
• Isaiah Taylor examines what it means for GTA V to use the n-word so liberally.
• Giant Bomb user JadeGL shows appreciation for Super Mario Bros 2. allowing her to be Peach.