In DmC, the new reboot of Capcom's Devil May Cry series, hero character Dante is the offspring of an angel mother and demon father. He looks human but is of another breed altogether, a species of celestial rarity called nephilim who are incredibly powerful. They're wild cards, nephilim are, and their bloodlines gives…

The overlap in intended audience between Empire and The Hunger Games Adventures is probably vanishingly small. Both are found on Facebook but, in tone and in content, aim themselves completely different ways. It seems unlikely that very many players would approach both for long enough to realize that the two are, in…

This Saturday, at PAX East, I had the pleasure of attending the "Plot vs. Play" panel, moderated by Joystiq's Ben Gilbert and Kotaku's own Jason Schreier. The panel brought together three developers who have all worked on landmark, story-driven games to discuss their differing philosophies on the presence and purpose…

I could tell there was a sex scene brewing in The Witcher 2 when Geralt of Rivia and his comely redheaded sorceress companion Triss stumbled upon this ancient Elven bathhouse, and I wasn't planning on sharing the resulting NSFW video. Then Triss tapped into the vast mystical forces of the universe to remove her…

There doesn't seem to be a lot going on in the game scene right now (at least for people not interested in motion controls, ever-more-unsettling modern war shooters and misjudged forum policies), so I'm taking advantage of the quiet time to go back some of the basic structures in games. Today I'm taking a…

Calling it "the straightest Grand Theft Auto ever," largely for effect, PopMatters' G. Christopher Williams says The Ballad of Gay Tony hews to some hetero-driven crime-novel representations of both sexualities, but in the end is about much deeper themes.

Recent Persona games have become cult hits thanks largely to their gameplay framework — traditional Japanese RPG leveling mechanics reframed around personal improvement, social relationships and the concept of the self.

Gamasutra has a fun essay up from Ben Schneider, formerly of Iron Lore Entertainment and currently narrative designer at Big Huge Games, on dialogue in games — and the challenges of getting it right. Schneider isn't calling for a removal of longer dialogues, but pointing out that short dialogue can function better…

There's a very interesting article over at Eludamos, one of the open-access academic journals that's done a nice job of getting fascinating articles in each issue; this volume is no exception, and the article I found particularly thought provoking is on the issue of death in narrative-driven games. Jason Tocci isn't…

Danc at Lost Garden has an interesting post up on themes in games and the effect on game design: while there are definite reasons for the same types of themes and aesthetics popping up in games over and over again, a careful balance needs to be struck between 'skinning' themes and mechanics and putting coherent game…

The term 'melodrama' is a somewhat loaded term - ask a few people if X media counts as melodrama, and you're likely to get a variety of answers. Michael Abbott discusses melodrama in one accepted context (a definition that I would quibble with based on my own background dealing with 'melodramatic representation') in…