Gamespite Journal 11

Hey friends,

I'm in a book alongside a collection of fantastic articles! Gamespite Journal 11 is about giving games a second chance. It's about returning to the games we hated long ago and digging underneath the scorn to see if our opinion has changed, or whether there was a brilliant idea nestled underneath a layer of mediocrity.

If you can't afford/don't want to buy a copy, all content will eventually find its way on the site itself and you can read my articles then.

If you do want to buy a copy, the coupon code NEWRMN20 gives you 20% off any orders up to $150 until the end of the month.

Serving the douche: When usability trumps character

Despite what this article might suggest, I really enjoyed Prince of Persia (2008). Admittedly, it was more flash than substance and could charitably be described as an extremely automated game, but giving yourself over to the rhythmic button presses and silky smooth animation was a worthwhile effort. I like to call these types of games "relax em' ups" as the gameplay is mellow enough to get you into a relaxing groove.

And for my older followers, everything I wrote in this piece contradicts all the nice things I said about Elika before. Opinions, man! What's the deal with them?

The Zoology of Dragon Quest

So, I wrote this thing at nightmaremode....

It started off as a poorly thought out statement trying to talk about the unexplainable reasons we like specific games, but gained shape when I settled on a couple of key monsters and extrapolated on why I liked them. From there it was simply a case of Youtube-hopping through various animal documentaries and faint memories of Biology class.

I had a lot of fun writing this and I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!

What's a Nidhogg?

In Norse mythology, Níðhöggr (Malice Striker, often anglicized Nidhogg) is a dragon who gnaws at a root of the World Tree, Yggdrasill. In the mythology, the Nidhogg is said to be controlled by only one person, the Norse God named Hel.

Hel was clearly busy when Nidhogg, the indie, two-player fencing game, was released because he's all up in its business. Having grown fed up with the tasteless morsels of bark and leaves, Nidhogg left his sanctuary in search of man flesh, and found two colour-coded stick figures fighting each other in dark space.


I wrote a thing about Nidhogg!

Black Books

Gaming related? No. Film and TV related? Yes.

"Well, to be honest, after years of smoking and drinking, you do sometimes look at yourself and think...you know, just sometimes, in between the first cigarette with coffee in the morning to that four hundredth glass of cornershop piss at 3am, you do sometimes look at yourself and think...this is fantastic. I'm in heaven."

Let there be no mistake, Black Books is hilarious.

Writing Forays!

Hey friends,

I've written a lot about Nier already (Papa Nier or Brother Nier?, Ambiguity and Nier) but my piece on nightmaremode.net entitled Confronting Violence in Nier truly, finally, closes the book on what I've been trying to put into words for a long time. Click the link to read about Nier, Epic Theatre, New Game +, and excessive murder all in one piece! SPOILERS AHOY!

Cavia have always struck me as a developer that finally found its feet when they released Drakengard. Nier is in many ways a continuation of what Yoko Taro started in Drakengard and you get the sense that if Cavia stuck around long enough, they would have ironed out all the kinks on the technical side of development and made something really important and recognised. There are the grubby marks of an auteur embedded into each game.

We need more games like Nier. They might not be perfectly executed, but what Nier gets right is far more important than anything else in games: It makes you think.

Taking The World With You: Dragon Quest

Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior, if you want to be precise) was a revolution upon release. Today, it garners the respect it deserves for laying the foundation for an entire genre, but that's generally where the appreciation ends. Modern games have refined Dragon Quest's core concepts to the point where its primitive presentation and gameplay are difficult to go back to. But what's been tossed aside alongside the genre's advancements and upheavals and do these morsels deserve better treatment? Far from decrying what's been lost, let's take a look at the more esoteric elements of Dragon Quest that have been gradually chipped away over the years.

Remember drawing maps for video game dungeons? I don't, because I was born far too late to hop on that gravy train, but Dragon Quest practically demands the practice. While the world is an alarmingly small one, Dragon Quest provides you with no map or navigational tools. Towns, cities, and landmarks are all defined by cardinal directions, and dungeons are terrifying gauntlets with no easy way to navigate them. Unlike the illuminated dungeons of The Legend of Zelda, the dungeons in Dragon Quest are pitch black, safe for the four blocks lit up around you. With a Torch in hand, those four lit up spaces become a 3x3 lighting box, allowing easier exploration of a dungeon's labyrinth design. Alas, the high encounter rate inside dungeons provides a more pressing issue to deal with than your limited vision, and dungeons are frequently tackled via multiple trips to and from the nearest Inn. Each trip gradually unlocks more of the dungeon as you travel down new routes but, unless you have a fantastic memory, you'll need to crack out pen and paper to start mapping your progress.

The process of note taking in games has been largely swept aside by modern game developers and replaced with automated maps or helpful signposting. Detractors argue that a game should contain every element of play nestled inside its code, and any external elements are irrelevant. This dismisses what we bring to games by simply playing them, and each stroke of line on a piece of paper designating a dead end represents a hard fought victory, a sinking realisation, or a satisfactory conclusion to our adventure. When people dismiss the simplistic interaction of Dragon Quest, they neglect the exploration and map drawing - exploring the world and familiarising yourself with your surroundings - as a fundamental part of your actions. The turn-based combat is fast and efficient; it's a distraction more than the centre piece of the experience.

No, what's important in Dragon Quest is the hard fought ground you cover each time you set out from the safety of a village. When you emerge from that last dungeon with a veritable tome of knowledge resting on your lap, there's an immense feeling of satisfaction. More than simply having your achievements frozen inside a cartridge, they've claimed an irrefutable permanency beyond an NES chip. A quest, indeed.