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Denver, 4:53 AM
Sun Nov 22
17 posts in the last 24 hours
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07/11/09
"Phase one of this study will seek to identify the qualities a game must have to improve cognition - memory, problem-solving, critical thinking and the like."
How do you determine this from one game? This sounds like a study that needs comparison of some sort. Boom Blox has different modes, sure, but they're not varied enough for something like this. Using one game in the study is sort of like the studies that used DOOM ten years after its release to say that all video games make people violent - it doesn't really work.
07/11/09
07/11/09
07/11/09
07/12/09
no....
07/11/09
07/11/09
They bought him a Wii and now he regularly whoops his dad at Wii Boxing.
07/11/09
07/11/09
Just as TV, movies, and books are accessible to all, so should video games be.
Wii Boxing can be quite a workout. I know it's often difficult for people with disabilities to get exercise, but this kid's getting aerobics from that.
07/12/09
07/11/09
What every adult gamer has been craving; a game that gives them an advantage over annoying thirteen year olds online.
07/11/09
At least you'd get a different kind of trash talk.
07/11/09
07/11/09
But DAMN is that game fun!
07/11/09
05/20/09
05/20/09
05/20/09
Emotion interpretation Failure. They were actually laughing at you for moving to a game company called "Flower". Sorry, I thought you knew...
05/20/09
05/19/09
05/19/09
05/19/09
05/19/09
05/19/09
I think you deserve a star.
12/23/08
Oh boy, Boom Blox!
Billy then used those cheats.
Bad Billy.
12/09/08
Basically you can have some plot points mid-play, but there's only so much you can do that the player will notice, and you're taking cinematography out of the picture almost entirely. I like how Gears handled it by pressing Y to zoom in on the action, but that really only takes things so far.
There are an infinite number of things that can happen in a story that will never be entirely covered by any style of gameplay, ever. I think moments like you find in Half Life and Bethesda games are prime examples of where not "breaking" gameplay is actually more disurptive than a simple, engaging cutscene.
I just don't get how people are so thrown off by cutscenes. They're just as much a part of the game as the gameplay.
12/10/08
12/10/08
12/10/08
12/10/08
12/09/08
Even in cinema, fades, wipes, montages, subtitled time and location shifts all jar me out of the narrative. I think the job of the director/game designer is to make sure that I renew my buy-in to the experience again after these shifts in perspective occur. If a game does this effectively you won't begrudge the cutscene, you'll look forward to the next one.
12/09/08
12/09/08
Short, and sweet.