My three-year-old son learned to say, “iPhone,” before “daddy”. He was swiping through apps and snapping photos before he could utter a coherent sentence. When we’re not paying attention, he takes the iPad to the bedroom, locks the door and plays SpongeBob Dash or Angry Bird. He thinks, and expects, all monitors and TVs to… Read More »
The “ear scene” in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs is as famous for its squeamish camera as the violence it avoids. As Mr. Blonde leans in to slice Marvin’s ear, the camera pans left to a doorway. We hear Marvin’s pain, we imagine it, but we don’t see it. Later on in his films, Tarantino’s cameras… Read More »
Beyond: Two Souls looks good, and it has good acting, and it really wants to be an interactive movie, but I have a difficult time calling something a movie when it’s $60 and like ten hours long. This is a passive game. I want it to be more than that, but it’s not a breakthrough… Read More »
Good ads market a product by hitting on its competitive edge. And trailers, which go back centuries to minstrels atop their traveling theater wagons, are effective if they intrigue their audience. The new trailer for Batman: Arkham Origins fails to highlight the most intriguing aspect of the game. That is, it doesn’t say much about… Read More »
A baby is born. She plays barefoot in the dirt as her parents toil on the tobacco plantation. She becomes a farmer like her parents, or goes to school, or joins the military. She has kids of her own. She grows older, and at the age of fifty, she suddenly dies from cancer. Stories like… Read More »
The new trailer for Call of Duty: Ghosts brings out the kid in me. I’m 8 years old, next to my dad in the car driving home after an action flick: “…and…and…buildings blew up, and fighter planes, and dogs, and scary wolves with sharp teeth, and sharks, and…and…space!” The game, which releases November 5, 2013,… Read More »
There’s nothing better than a good revenge story, especially when the recipient of that cold-blooded vengeance is the most powerful empire on Earth. In the story of Marius Titus of Ryse: Son of Rome, the victim is a highly-decorated warrior and the perpetrator is the corrupt imperial leadership. I wondered if he becomes a slave,… Read More »
It was a close one, but I’m pretty darn excited to see Steam Squad meet its Kickstarter goal of $50K. I just love the art direction on this game. I’m not sure exactly how to describe it. Sort of a comic book, Russian-style? It’s very soft, pastel-ish? I need to brush up on my art… Read More »
Free-to-play games is like free food at Costco. I stuff my face until I get sick of it, or the lady behind the counter gives me dirty looks, whichever happens first, and then I head over to the next table of samples. There’s a problem with the FTP, or freemium, model for games. Freemium businesses… Read More »
Trapping beetles and pouring hot wax on them is the most hunting I’ve ever done. I was ten years old and yes, I regret doing it, and yes, I have had beetle-related nightmares. These days, I can’t even hurt a squirrel and squirrels in Mountain View are vicious little suckers. So when a game like… Read More »