Chris Suellentrop's discussions

It’s a website about video games. The entire medium is a First World Problem. I think games are important and profound, worthy of a life’s devotion. But we’re not ending world hunger here. Read more

Like I said: Who cares? It’s your loss. No wonder you didn’t understand it! It’s best to approach things in the order the creator intended. But if you started reading this on your PC and then wanted to finish the last paragraph on your phone without re-reading the rest, we allow for that option. Read more

A better analogy, given the time involved, would be a theater that required me to watch every single James Bond movie to watch the newest one. Or to provide receipts with proof that I had seen all the previous LOTR and Hobbit movies to get into The Batttle of the Five Armies. Or a TV show that never let you just watch… Read more

This is a “yes.” This would qualify as a reasonable method for players. We agree! Read more

This is a good comment, because people are acting as if I argued that video games are best played out of order. I think they should be played in order, or however they were designed to be played. But players frequently find themselves in situations where they need to start in the middle—a new machine, a replay, a… Read more

It sure would! I didn’t say it wouldn’t be. But it wouldn’t be dumb for you to start in print, and then pick it up on a Kindle midway through. But a game wouldn’t let you do that, if you moved from one machine to another. Let’s say you wanted to get a PS4 instead of an Xbox One. Let’s say you’re midway through Metal… Read more

But it isn't a better view than the one you get on television. It's worse! The candidates are tiny. There are no close ups. It is harder to see their faces. I can envision—I have experienced—excellent uses of VR. This wasn't one of them. Read more

Intentional. Read more

Interesting! That never happened to me, but that’s one of the dangers of writing about a systemic game after “only” 20 hours inside. I’d love to hear more about these kinds of events in the game. Read more

I probably shouldn’t have used this screenshot because it perpetuates a common grammatical mistake. The correct expression is “free rein,” as if someone was riding a horse, not ruling a kingdom.

Oh, crap. Read more

Getting a new scope for shooting people is a different class of reward. Like giving someone a new book for reading a book, it is unlikely to discourage the act itself, because the reward is related to the activity. Read more

High scores and beating your opponents have a long (and noble!) tradition in games, I agree. That’s basically why I left it out. The key distinction is whether the game is rewarding you intrinsically or extrinsically (or maybe exogenously or endogenously, to get into a reward distinction that Hecker discussed that I… Read more

I almost adding a phrase about this in the last graf, about how I don’t play games for status but for their own sake. That’s what it means to be “fun,” presumably. I decided it was too much to unpack. Maybe I was wrong! Read more

The situation is worse than I thought! Read more

As a critic, I’m not sure that I should turn them off, actually, but that seemed too navel-gazey to get into in the article, even for me. They’re woven so deeply into most games that I should be aware of them and how they work. Also, as Hecker noted in his lecture, achievements and how they motivate the other players… Read more

I think the game is agnostic on whether Taylor is a man or a woman. I probably should have written “to go along with your wishes” without a he or a she. Read more

Of course. But calling him a “heroin addict” without a modifier in the headline would make it sound like he was currently using, or using while playing. Read more

It’s in Early Access, and I haven’t played it. But yes, you can get it on Steam. Read more

An additional $1.99—not like it’s a wallet-buster, but it’s an extra mode. Read more