This is a piece I wrote for my video game class as a journal entry. I’m not sure it’s structurally sound, or really makes a valid point, but, hey, why not post it here? I did write it, after all, and it is about video games.

Few things bother me more than the “genrefication” of literature in any media — be it film, or novels, or theatre, or even in less typically narratological forms like music and visual art. The application and blind aspiration to fulfill genre (and even, at times, subvert it) is at best pointless and at worst offensive. Thankfully, most other media have managed to cut out a place where “genre” is secondary. Video games, however, have not caught up to the level of genre-eschewing sophistication that its older siblings have.

There are three things in particular I would like to talk about in relation to “genre games”: the dismissal of the thematic in favour of the mechanical in virtually all definitions of game genre, the abstraction of judgment that genre permits, and, finally, video games’ lack of “genre”-as-genre.

Arsenault’s representation of major web publications shows a heavy bias toward a certain type of genre delineation. With the partial exception of MobyGames (whose genres seem, at best, muddled), the others — allgame.com, and gamespot.com — show an understanding of genre only as deep as the mechanics of the games. From these genres, we can tell that the game in question will require more planning or more reflexes; we can tell from what perspective we will be looking at the gameworld; and, we can tell if the game is intended to be played alone or with a group. These, while important elements of a game from a ludological perspective, ignore theme and narrative entirely. Praise for Braid’s bending/subverting of genre does not in any way represent its narrative or thematic work. By speaking of its genre as “platformer” and not, say, “romantic tragedy,” it is easy to ignore that, narratively, the “deconstructive” ending sequence does nothing to actually deconstruct the save-the-princess trope, and, in fact, doubles down on making the female character twice objectified/made a “goal” instead of a character (running from the knight and to Tim / running from Tim and to the knight). What could have been looked at from a narratological perspective and very sharply criticized was judged almost universally as a “ludic” genre piece, where it succeeds — even though it is, otherwise, a sub-young-adult-fiction, Holden-Caulfield-meets-Memento mess.

What is worse is that, when a game fulfills the ludic specifications of a genre but not the typical thematic specifications, it can be judge (unfairly) against those more “typical” games. If SimCity had come out after Starcraft, would it be criticized for representing a city-building sandbox? Would it be panned for having no competitive multiplayer aspect? It is, after all, a strategic game (in fact, I would argue that the layers of strategy outclass those of most RTS games that came after it) and it plays out in real time. But RTS means one very specific thing now: little buildings that make little men that kill other little men faster than another person can make other little killing men. This concept of how representation should inform design is completely backwards.

What I hope video games can do that other forms have successfully done is remove genre classification from mechanics, and, once it has done that, remove “genre games” from the greater set of games. In film, there is “genre film” — Golden Age oaters, or 50’s low-budget sci-fi, or mischief films, or anything-sploitation — but these are, by and large, splinter genres that are only aimed at and enjoyed by genre aficionados. The films that reach critical success are, for the most part, non-”genre.” Last year, Metacritic’s top films included The Social Network, Winter’s Bone, and Black Swan — none easily classified as any “genre” (The Social Network may be considered a “docudrama” but that speaks more to the origin of the film’s narrative than the presentation of the narrative). When looking for fiction in a book store, one usually finds a section dedicated to fantasy and sci-fi, and another dedicated to young-adult fiction, and perhaps a couple more “genre” sections, but they are all dwarfed by the general fiction section. And it’s in this section that you will find some of literature’s most adored and successful works. Even in music, where most critics are stumbling over themselves to coin the term for the next “genre”, it seems that those records with the most crossover appeal are not “country” or “rap” or “electronic” or even “rock” — the records that are most universally acclaimed are the ones that are simply great music.

This change can only occur in video games once we stop classifying them based on how we perceive them (can you imagine if all “first-person” novels were expected to include gunplay and action sequences?!) and classify them on their thematic content. Only then will bending and subverting those genres lead to an exciting new mode of storytelling. For now, we’re just trying to pick the king of B-Games.

Read this to hear more:

Arsenault, J. (2009). Video game genre, evolution and innovation. Eludamos. Journal for Computer Game Culture., 3(2), 149-176.

Well, shit. Where do I even start?

I realized this past week, while paying far too much to renew my stupidly expensive vanity domain name (Armenians charge $50 a year — it’s true), that this is the second time I’ve renewed it without updating my blog. It’s been some 15 months or so since I posted. I know people who’ve met, married, and had a baby in that amount of time (also true). I figured, hey, maybe it’s time I make the most of all that money I pay for hosting and a domain name (even though I have virtually no money — also true). So, I’m logging in to my WordPress account to — I know, it’s hard to believe — actually write something. I’m not logging in to just clean up a bunch of spam (although I’m doing that too).

Let’s see how briefly I can sum up the past two summers & year:

Last (err, last-last — 2010) summer, when I actually managed to get a bit of writing done, I was working in the industry again — this time for just the summer as a QA project manager/lead for one of Montreal’s many third-party joints. Being stuck at a computer all day and only being able to write for fear of getting caught doing other shit (like looking at cat videos) has been one of the major ways I’ve managed to write over the past several years. But, during the school year, nobody’s looking over my shoulder, and I’m mostly focused on school, and I’m poor (it took them eight months for them to give me my student loan last year — I spent the entire year barely surviving, unable to afford transit to school, or textbooks, or food a lot of the time, and they finally gave it to me — all in one chunk — a week after school ended). Then this summer just passed (2011, now) I had this huge chunk of money and no reason to work, so I mostly hung out with people who had that kind of money all the time (you know, the students whose parents put them through) and drank beers and acted like a moron. Then I moved across the city, and started a new semester with a bunch of great courses, and got to really focus on them, and I started writinhg for school a bunch, and figured, hey, now’s a good a time as any to write here.

Oh, and the other thing that happened — I basically quit playing the video games I was “supposed” to play. You know, the ones with epic stories and world-changing meanings and that. In 2011, I think there are maybe a half-dozen games I’ve played with any amount of frequency. Two of them are iPhone baseball games. One of them is Football Manager. This transition is sort of like deciding you are tired of reading fiction novels and instead you start reading technical manuals on how cars work, or something. Except imagine the fiction novels didn’t really give you any world perspective, and the car manuals don’t teach you anything useful about cars.

So, nothing was really inspiring me to write about games, or the industry, or anything even peripherally related. It all just seemed so outside of my life — so irrelevant. What could I write about? I could’ve written about all of the vaguely-fun, alcohol-infused nights I had, but this isn’t a Livejournal. I could’ve written about the textbooks I was reading for my urban planning courses, but then again I could also just rub my scalp against the wall really hard, too. I could write about the few novels I managed to read, but, who wants to hear me, a barely-literate fiction-neophyte give his (probably tired) opinions on Haruki Murakami and Samuel Beckett? Especially given that this blog has only ever been about videogames?

But, I thought about it. I have a few videogame things to write about again. And, shit, getting back into the groove might actually inspire me to read other good blogs again, and actually see what’s worth playing, and actually play them, and actually think about them, and actually write those thoughts down.

So consider this long-winded post a sort of “sizzle reel.” A really long, boring sizzle reel. I hope to talk about:

- That time I played Amnesia: The Dark Descent with a big group of people and it was actually way more engaging than it would have been if I played it by myself.

- This class that I am taking (Videogames and/as Literature) and how, in spite of the class makeup being like basically everyone I have ever been exasperated by on the Internet, I am really learning some awesome stuff and reading some excellent academic writing on games (note: that syllabus is old, but more or less that’s the class)

- Playing through Bioshock again, as part of that class, with my excellent group (I lucked out and got the 3 coolest kids in that class on my team — more on that later) who are all less gamer-y than me (someone who is not really that gamer-y to begin with)

- That talk Jason Rohrer gave at MIGS (which I didn’t attend, because, well, $600 is why because) and how he continues to be the best dude in the world to me.

- How much I love iPhone baseball games (well, no. Well, maybe).

I hope that this November is finding all of you who forgot to delete this feed from your RSS reader well.

Love,

Will/Brilliam

As I haven’t written anything here in a while, I figured I’d bring over one of my articles from Every Game that I wrote a few weeks ago. I think it has a lot more to do with this blog than it does that one, anyway – just ignore the fact that it was supposed to be a sort-of-review of a SNES game called Space Megaforce. I’ve edited it a bit to make it less puerile, and less about the game, and added a bit of content.

Video game nerds, not entirely unlike music or film or sports or whatever else nerds, are not without affectation. Some have more than others: the ones who unabashedly like “low” forms, like cartoon-breast-filled JRPGs and generischlock FPSes, or are more interested in a particular title than the medium (WoW geeks, Call of Duty/GTA/Halo etc. fanatics), are often the least guilty of this, I guess, in the same sense that someone who lists The Matrix Reloaded as a favourite film is probably a lot more honest to themselves than someone who considers a typical laundry list of “important” films their favourites (the displayed level of sophistication of such an affectation can run the spectrum, from “I heard Citizen Kane is good so I like that because I like smart movies” to “my favourite films are those that predate and perhaps began the New Wave movements in their respective countries such as the Czechoslovakian O něčem jiném or the French Bob le flambeur (this isn’t to say that Bob le flambeur and O něčem jiném are unlikeable movies by any stretch: I’ve seen neither of them, but I know (of, Internet-wise) someone who has a very close place in his heart for the latter (side note: I don’t know if this is “a thing” but it seems that foreign language movies only have the first word capitalized in their names. Is this a normal thing? Is it only English names that are So Important That Each Word Requires the Gravitas of a Capital Letter?))).

The thing is, some games and even genres get labelled as “important” and “relevant” and therefore a lot of people front like they like them a lot more than they actually do. Take Shadow of the Colossus. It’s insane how many people call this their Favourite Game Ever (the name of my new film) because it did a few things that weren’t really popular to do in games. All of the battles were boss battles! They were pretty well-made! There’s a story thing that surprises you! Here’s the thing: people toss love-cookies about this game all over the Internet. It is one of the sacred-est cows in the Video Game World. And not in the “this is a ‘safe’ sacred cow to lambaste” kind of way, like the Final Fantasy series; it’s in a “we who know best deem this the best” kind of way. But really, there’s a lot of this game that isn’t good. Riding around on the horse can be confusing, and it can be a pain in the ass to control, in that way that pulls you out of what you’re doing when it irritatingly bounces off of a cave wall or doesn’t run in the direction you’re pointing the stick. The story isn’t that goddamn innovative (although, yeah, I applaud the developers for, you know, doing a thing with a story, but this is akin to buying a Corvette for a four-year-old who just learned to stop using diapers). The game’s pretty at times, but at others, it’s kind of — yeah, I’m saying this — ugly. I’m not going to pretend it’s a bad game, but best game of the decade (I’m sure many people have said this but I can’t be bothered to source it, let’s just pretend for the sake of the argument it isn’t made up)? Seriously?

That’s affectation for you. For all but the absolute least pretentious, Top Favourite Whatevers (script forthcoming) is a list made not to service the media that is on the list so much as it is to service the image of the maker of that list. By putting Shadow at the top of my fave video games list, I would make it clear that I like art. By putting Earthbound at the top of my list, I show that I value metered nostalgia. I put Space Megaforce (although if I were to put this on a list I’d probably also be one of those folks who calls it by its “real” name, Super Aleste) at the top of my list, I show that I care enough about video games to really dig in and find out about things you don’t know about. I put Super Aleste not because it should be my favourite, but because I am representing myself as an obscurist. I want you to be aware that I know a lot of games and you don’t and some of the games I know and you don’t are actually pretty good and you’re missing out and my life is more full of wonder than yours because I Am A Renaissance Man (the studios refuse to pick this one up). It makes the games feel better, too, which is the purpose of games (that is, to make you feel good while playing: if it weren’t, it wouldn’t be entertainment, probably), if you don’t feel a tinge of guilt while playing them; that is to say, if you know that Shadow has some it-factor that makes it relevant you won’t feel as sheepish about playing it as you might, say, Just Cause 2. I played that recently, and I felt like I was stupid for playing it, because it had no redeeming qualities beyond being kind of fun and making me laugh a lot. Well, you know what? The time I spent playing that I think I still had a better time than the time I spent playing Shadow despite its clear “artistically irrelevant” handicap.

Don’t mistake this for some sort of Anti-Intellectual Kneejerk Reaction (Jenny McCarthy will be playing the lead role of Sarah Palin in this flick, if my agent actually gets it made) and don’t mistake it for The Double-Pretentious I-Hate-What-Sheep-Love Gambit (starring Taylor Kitsch reprising his role as Gambit (fun fact: to find out that someone named Taylor Kitsch played Gambit in an X-Men movie, I had to go to a Wikipedia article called “Gambit in other media,” which was its own goddamn page)). From one occasionally-affected game nerd to another (that is, me, and you, the reader, almost certainly, if you are reading this), I’m just trying to be goddamn honest. I’m not immune to this. I used to say my favourite genre was the shmup. I loved them, to be sure, but it was, at least, in part, affected. I started playing every shmup in the same way that I started drinking bourbon; not appreciating them at first, and their differences, and finding them difficult to swallow (ha), but developing an appreciation over time, all because I thought there was something kind of cool about it.

That’s the real problem: we, as game nerds, are too embarrassed by our pretentiousness to call it what it is. We don’t have two separate favourite lists – one for the games we like the most, and one for the games we appreciate most (and I’m not advocating we do, that sounds stupid). I like Just Cause 2, but I appreciate Shadow of the Colossus. I like Tetris 2 but I appreciate Super Puzzle Fighter. I like Hackers but I appreciate Loves of a Blonde. I like The Bends but I appreciate OK Computer. It’s like we can’t decide if enjoyment or relevance is more important, so we sandwich the two together and directly compare them to each other. But it’s impossible. It’s like comparing apples to Jackson Pollock. Worse, we separate ourselves from the enjoyable and irrelevant by calling it a “guilty pleasure.” What a weird, loaded turn of phrase (and one I use when I’m not thinking about it, to be fair).

There’s nothing wrong with a little bit of affectation or pretentiousness. By convincing yourself you like something that’s “good” in some way (assuming it is “good” in a way that’s, well, good), you can develop appreciations for things that you may have missed before. While the bourbon metaphor falls apart here because it doesn’t really benefit you so much as it probably makes you a bit duller when you drink it and makes your chest burn a bit and costs you money and can mess up your liver, look at, like, music. You could have listened to Top 40 and/or MOR classic rock radio for your entire life. Nothing wrong with that. But you, person reading this, at some point got into stuff off the beaten track, musically. This might have been, to some degree, an affectation – you got into some band because you thought it’d impress potential mates, or make you look cooler to a clique at school that you respected. But that probably opened you up to other stuff that was really great. Without pretending you were into Fugazi, you never would have actually gotten into Fugazi, and without Fugazi, you wouldn’t have found out about Bad Brains and Nation of Ulysses, and your eye for racism and satire (respectively, not jointly) might be a bit less sharp. Without lying and saying you were into Fellini, you might never have actually checked out Fellini and read about why you should actually like it after watching 8 ½ and wondering what the hell the big deal was, anyway.

I know this hasn’t been about Space Megaforce, but, I promise you, it kind of is. Among a certain type of video game nerd, this game is a Shadow of the Colossus (although that perhaps does this game too great a favour). And, yeah, for a shooter it’s kind of cool. All sorts of candy-coloured shit is going on all over the screen and you can get some neat powerups or whatever. But (and I don’t mean to get too nihilistic or existentialist or whatever the fuck is the right word here) what’s the point? Big upping this game is just big upping yourself. It places the self above the medium. And that’s fucked up.

The final list of nominations is in for the BEST PS2 GAMES poll, and it’s time to vote! The games which can be voted for are at the bottom of this entry. It’s easy to submit: make your list of your favourite games for the system, as few as one and as many as fifteen, in ranked order (ties are acceptable if some of your choices just can’t be separated), and send that list to ps2ilx -at- gmail -dot- com. If you’re so inclined, include your thoughts re: what makes those games awesome! Just a short little sentence (or paragraph, even, if your love won’t fit into one sentence) about the joy the titles brought you. The deadline is May 14th, so don’t miss it.

The results will be posted online at http://cointandplick.wordpress.com/, slowly, to maximize the drama/suspense/EXCITEMENT, complete with YOUR blurbs and some choice pictures (because Internet needs pictures).

If I keep writing, you’ll lose focus, since you play video games and therefore your brain is mush or something, so I will just get to the list.

0 Story
Alien Hominid
Amplitude
Ape Escape 2
Ape Escape 3
Ar Tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica
Atelier Iris: Eternal Mana
Beyond Good & Evil
Bombastic
Breath Of Fire: Dragon Quarter
Bully
Burnout 3: Takedown
Burnout Revenge
Capcom vs SNK 2
Chulip
Contra: Shattered Soldier
Crazy Taxi
Dance Dance Revolution: DDRMAX
dark cloud 2
Darkwatch
Def Jam Fight For NY
Def Jam Vendetta
Devil May Cry
Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness
DoDonPachi Dai Ou Jou
Dragon Quest VIII
ESPN NFL 2K5
Everybody’s Golf 4 / Hot Shots Golf Fore
Evil Dead: Regeneration
Eyetoy
Fahrenheit / Indigo Prophecy
Fatal Frame
Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy X-2
Final Fantasy XII
Fire Pro Wrestling Returns
Frequency
Get on Da Mic
Gitaroo Man
God Hand
God of War
God of War II
Gradius V
Gran Turismo 3
Gran Turismo 4
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
Grandia II
GrimGrimoire
Growlanser V: Generations
Guitar Hero 2
Half-Life
Haunting Ground
Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction
Ico
Jak 3
Jak and Daxter
Katamari Damacy
Killer7
Kingdom Hearts
Kingdom Hearts 2
Klonoa 2: Lunatea’s Veil
La Pucelle Tactics
Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy
Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King
Madden 2008
Madden 2004
Mana Khemia
Manhunt
Marvel vs. Capcom 2
Max Payne
Maximo: Ghosts to Glory
MDK2: Armageddon
Medal of Honor: Frontline
Mega Man Anniversary Collection
Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction
Metal Gear Solid 2/ MGS2 Substance
Metal Gear Solid 3/ MGS3 Susbistence
Micro Machines V4
Mister Mosquito
MLB The Show 2006
MVP Baseball 2005
NBA Street
NBA Street 2
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2
NHL Hitz Pro
Odin Sphere
Okami
Onimusha
Outrun 2006 Coast2Coast
PaRappa 2
Persona 3
Persona 4
Prince of Persia – Sands of Time
Pro Evolution Soccer 2005
Psi-Ops
Psychonauts
Ratchet & Clank
Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando
Red Faction
Resident Evil 4
Resident Evil Code: Veronica X
Rez
Ring Of Red
Rogue Galaxy
R-Type Final
Shadow Hearts
Shadow of Destiny
Shadow of the Colossus
Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne
Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga 1 & 2
Silent Hill 2
Singstar
Sly 2: Band Of Thieves
Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves
Smuggler’s Run
SOS: The Final Escape
SoulCalibur II
Space Channel 5 CE
Spider-Man 2
SSX
SSX Tricky
SSX 3
Star Ocean: Til The End Of Time
State of Emergency
Street Fighter Anniversary Collection (w/ III: 3rd Strike)
Street Fighter Alpha Anthology
Street Fighter EX3
Stretch Panic
Stuntman: Ignition
Sub Rebellion
Suikoden III
Suikoden V
Taiko Drum Master
Tekken 4
Tekken 5
Tekken Tag Tournament
The Mark of Kri
The Suffering
The Warriors
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell
Tony Hawk Pro Skater 3
Tony Hawk Underground
Transformers
Twisted Metal Black
Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria
Viewtiful Joe
Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution
We Love Katamari
Wipeout Fusion
Worms 3D
Xenosaga I/II/III
Yakuza
Yakuza 2
Zone Of The Enders 2: 2nd Runner

So GET VOTING!

Listen, I’ll be honest with you here: I didn’t start a blog because I care that you hear my opinion. I care more about your opinion. I know what you’re thinking: “Brilliam, you sure picked a weird format to use if you wanna hear other people’s opinions.” You’re right. but blogs do have comments, so there’s that.

I’ll cut straight to the chase, because you’re a busy person. I am running a poll to define, completely arbitrarily, the best video game ever released on the PS2. It’s with a website I frequent called ILX, but that’s beside the point. The point is GAMES, and LISTS, and POLLS. And GAMES. Did I say GAMES?

Firstly, I implore you: visit this website. There’s a list of nominated games there: this is part of the first step. Only games nominated can be voted for, to avoid vote splitting and confusion and such; however, nominating a game is as easy as commenting on this blog, or commenting on that blog, or emailing me (that’s magacid, by the way, at gmail). Nominations are due by March 14th.

After that, the fun part: BALLOTS. You would send to my email (not by comment, we wanna keep the results SECRET until the end) your list of favourite PS2 games: as few as 1, as many as 15, in order (ties are allowed!). Ideally (but optionally) one would also include small blurbs, frmo one sentence to one paragraph, explaining why it is an awesome game to you. The results would slowly leak out on the previously-mentioned blog, complete with delicious youtube links and pictures and blurbs from other voters (AND YOU!).

If you think your list will suck, FRET NOT. It’s easy and you should send one anyway. A lot of the people contributing are not “gamerzzzz” in the hardcore sense; in fact, our year-end lists often end up with free flash games and iPhone puzzle apps near the top of the list because, well, that’s how we roll.

THE PS2 IS DEAD. LONG LIVE THE PS2.

One of the most interesting, enlightening and exciting games I played last year wasn’t even a video game. Insane, isn’t it? I mean, the way we played it, it might as well have been a video game: a computer-based program was used to resolve our actions, and the primary methods of communication were IM, Skype and e-mail. But, make no mistake: Diplomacy, in all of its available new-media dressings, is a true, dyed-in-the-wool board game. And it’s a gas.

Diplomacy is a game where you take control of a dawn-of-the-20th-century European superpower, and, through diplomacy and war, attempt to dismantle the continent, piece by piece, until it belongs to you. The rules are incredibly simple, and rightly so: they are not the centrepiece of this game. In essence, it is a game of two being stronger than one, and three being stronger than two, and so on. Without allies, you will lose. But, everyone playing wants to win in their own right. What results are a series of shaky pacts based on delivering a blow to the player/empire with whom you’ve just made another (obviously even shakier) pact.

What made it truly great is that I played with six other people who I consider to be among my best friends. We (almost) all went to high school together, hung out together virtually all the time (before half of us moved around the country) and know each other incredibly well. And, since this is a game of psychology, it made for an incredibly satisfying game. All of us were engaging in our first game of Diplomacy, and we all had pretty different ideas of how games work, and how we intended to win. If you’ll indulge me, I am going to try to explain the seven of us, and I’m sure you can see where the conflict might occur:

Austria: Matt. Unfortunately, Matt didn’t get a chance to leave his imprint on the game, having three handicaps going in: one, Austria is surrounded by three nations and a glut of resources, making him an easy target; two, a reputation for being very good at strategy games, which painted a bullseye on his back very early; and, three, his own brother in nearby Italy, meaning an alliance was incredibly likely (this didn’t exactly work out, though, as I’ll explain later). Matt was the first player to be eliminated.

France: Will (that’s me!). Somehow I was one of the two “winners” (not technically, though). One of my greatest strengths going into this game was that I am, as far as I know, a pretty agreeable person. I was constantly brokering deals, taking only what was mine, at first, waiting to see what aggressive actions other would take before deciding what I would do. My greatest weakness, this game has taught me, is my trust of other people. I had (what I thought were) unwavering alliances with three players over the course of the game who betrayed me at one stage or another. This nearly sank me; thankfully, a combination of good positioning (France is great for stalemating those who are trying to crush you) and infighting among my enemies allowed me to strike back and survive until the end.

Germany: Gavin. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone quite like Gavin. He’s a high school teacher with an almost Aspergerian obsession with game mechanics (or, at least, that’s what I screamed at him, replete with expletives, at least once in Skype conversation). I first started hanging out with Gavin years ago when I joined a D&D group. He was the one who had the combo wizard-priest that could win virtually any encounter alone, due to his exhaustive knowledge of third edition (and his blatant disregard for taste, as far as metagame exploitation went). It became evident after a few turns that he was probably the best player, game-wise, out of all of us. His ability to use logic to support his moves was virtually untouchable. However, he was the king of the backstab, and this led to his undoing (which, to this day, he states, never happened: in his mind, he was part of a three-way draw, as that’s what the rules state. Since “surrender” is not an in-game order, he maintains that he could not and did not surrender, and is one of the three “winners”).

Italy: Greg. Greg has been one of my closest friends throughout my life, but I still think the best way to describe him is as an enigma. He is a competitive gamer: at one point, he was a part of the semi-professional Counter-Strike circuit, and only quit because he was in high school and his parents wouldn’t let him fly to Texas to compete for a big cash prize. If there’s one thing he loves about games like this, it’s the ability for him to unleash his unpredictable nature and fuck with people. If you don’t believe me, ask his brother, Matt, who was out in four turns because his alliance with his brother ended just because Greg thought it’d be more interesting that way.

Russia: Angus. The token pacifist, Angus is the kind of guy who doesn’t want to fight with people, and only will if an ally asks him to. Where my philosophy is more of an isolationist, “wait and see” approach, his is much more Gandhi. While this is an awesome way to look at real life, it didn’t really translate to success in-game, as he never ended up taking a single territory from another player, and was the second player to lose. Still, gaining him as an ally was vital for two of the game’s major players, and he played a pretty big role in the Eastern theatre.

Turkey: Andy. A leader at heart, Andy has always been the one who convinces everyone to come out and do things when we all hung out in real life (before half of us moved halfway across the country). Andy’s pretty much an open book, and there are two things you can be sure of in any situation: he is as loyal as anyone comes, but if you cross him, he will never forget. In a game like Diplomacy, a reputation like that makes you incredibly powerful. You can be confident knowing that you will only be attacked by people who are sure that they can take you because if they can’t, you will chase them to the ends of the Earth (or Europe, I suppose). Out of the three people who survived, he’s the one I’ve written least about, and I think that speaks volumes about how he plays these games: it’s simple, but it’s powerful. He’s charismatic and clever.

United Kingdom: Travis. If there’s one word that describe’s Travis’s MO, it’s “diabolical.” He’s not a griefer, but he delights in crushing his enemies. Where Gavin can be almost robotic in his drive to win games, Travis brings a touch of evil to his playing. He doesn’t get anything out of simply winning– he believes that winning can be hollow, and losing can still be fun, sometimes. But he wants to compete, and as such, he can be mercenary. Finding the Achilles heel of his enemies is where he shines.

I will be posting more about the results of the game in the near future, but I realized that this article is already in “page down several times” territory, so I am going to split it up. I will do a series of articles on how the game unfolded, and a final article on my impressions.

It’s been a while, blogosphere.

I mean, do you remember me? I used to write things here. However, I haven’t been around in quite some time. For those who are interested in where I’ve been, I’ll keep it short, since this isn’t a personal blog: working 60-hour weeks in a QA position on games that most of you will never play, left said job, started my undergrad (finally) at Concordia University, started testing somewhere else on games you’ll almost DEFINITELY never play, dropping my PSP on the floor and breaking the LCD, writing articles for Everygame, chasing down late reviews for Everygame, and playing many more games without even remotely thinking about what I’d write about them.

But, this leave of absence from my blog (which may have killed its readership—I suppose we’ll see) is about to end (this is entirely unrelated to the fact that I recently got the bill for another year of owning this domain—at least, that’s what I’m telling myself). I’ve been gathering topics that I want to talk about. Instead, though, of talking about the stuff I’ve been playing more (which has been covered to death—a lot of Left 4 Dead, really, and Shadow Complex, and Scribblenauts, Trials HD, Final Fantasy Tactics, and some other stuff that I can’t even now remember) I have decided for the next couple of months to pontificate on some stuff I haven’t heard that much about on the Internet at large lately.

Here are some of the topics I intend to cover:

1 vs. 100, one of my surprise favorite games of the year.

Brickbreaker again. It’ll be short—I promise. But I hit the next “level” of play and quit the game forever. I think you’ll find the “why” entertaining. I hope. Maybe.

Dai Senryaku VII, a game I accidentally found at a pawn shop and bought on a whim, which ended up being proof to me that even in this Internet age, there are titles that I and everyone I know have never even heard of.

Diplomacy (as in, the board game), which I am currently playing by e-mail with some friends.

How do we create fun in losing? This is prompted by a piece that I read a few days ago (I will link it in the piece) about “sprayparks,” those places where kids shoot water at each other. Can there be games where getting shot is as fun as getting shot with water at a water park?

Everygame, again—I’ll go over some stuff that the writers have written that I have dug, and maybe a couple of my own pieces that have intrigued me, as well. Since, you know, we just hit the halfway point in our multi-year endeavour to cover all of those 720 SNES games listed.

I had a couple more ideas but I won’t write them for fear that I’ve already oversold myself here. I was going to put deadlines, even, but I can’t promise I’d even come close, even if I set them very conservatively, but– hello again, world.

So I finished my insane-o run of Fantasia films as previously mentioned, and, sadly, many were disappointments. Thirst, Grace, Hells and Black just weren’t quite as good as I hoped– but, as always, some of the stuff was pretty incredible.

My favourite film of the fest was Best Worst Movie, which is surprising because it was one of the ones I was least excited about going in. It’s… well, it’s a documentary about Troll 2, as I mentioned before, but it ended up being one of the most hilarious, heartbreaking, and charming filsm of the festival. Absolutely see this if you get the chance. The two “protagonists,” Michael Stephenson and George Hardy (the son and dad of Troll 2) seem like two of the most genuinely nice people ever– especially George, who was at the screening of this and Troll 2 and too kthe time to shake every single person’s hand in line before Troll 2 played– some 800 people or so. I have to go to the dentist soon to get a tooth filled, and I am tempted to go down to Alabama to get him to do it (since he’s a full-time dentist now).

The next best, in my opinion, was also a documentary. Playing Columbine could have been awful– a discussion on games as a means of expression, directed by the guy who made Super Columbine Massacre RPG!– but he manages to make his point without being arrogant, or dickish, or insensitive. He comes off as a bit of a messiah, but it’s still a very thoughtful view on the current censorship battles that games are going through, and provoked some great discussion.

Daytime Drinking was probably my favourite non-documentary of the film. Slow, but meaningfully so, the lead actor’s incredibly muted emotion during the whole film makes for the perfect vacation-turned-crappy flick. That is was shot on such a shoestring budget is impressive, but it stands among the best of the festival even without knowing the amount spent on it. Similarly, Cryptic is the new Timecrimes, or even Primer; a microbudget (done for $250,000, and everyone who worked on it was unionized or at least paid fairly, which is insanely impressive in Hollywood) sci-fi time-manipulation flick about a cell phone that, for some reason, can call back in time. I barely even roused enough interest in myself to go see this, but I am so glad I did. It is another amazing addition to this decade’s scantily-funded science fiction flick glut.

There was a special thing on pink eiga films, which are Japanese skin flicks of approximately 60 minutes in length with five sex scenes. Aside from those two restrictions, the directors of these flicks — many would become premier Japanese auteurs after getting their feet wet making these films for the Japanese sex cinemas — were free to do anything they wanted. Blue Film Woman was one of the films screening — a stylish, dark (almost Greek) tragedy about a man who can’t pay his debt to a ruthless debt collector. It devolves into a bunch of people’s lives really sucking, with some really fucked up sex scenes inbetween.

The last film worth mentioning is Breathless, yet another amazing Korean flick this year. Written, directed, produced and starring one guy (who sold his house to fund the production), it tells a story about an incredibly unlikeable person who beats people up for money. Yet, it shows you why is is how he is, and by the end he becomes one of the most sympathetic anti-heroes in recent film history.

Any of those five films I would highly recommend. Now, that’s enough film-related talking for this blog for a while– back ot video games at some point in the future, I suppose!

Finally, it begins. I see maybe 30 movies a year in the theatre, and about 25 of those are in July for the Fantasia International Film Festival. I am not a big fan of going to films– I hate the chair-kicking bros behind me who make grossed-out noises during Brokeback Mountain (what did you assholes expect?) and crying kids and that dumb bastard who sits in front of you and declares in a loud whisper to his wife “THAT’S HIS GOOD WINE!” when Paul Giamatti breaks out his Pinot Grigio in a fast food joint in Sideways (dude, you’re either married to the dumbest woman ever, or SHE ALREADY FIGURED IT OUT AND YOU NEED TO JUST SHUT UP). I also don’t really care for the fare that you “need” to see in a cinema– I’d rather watch Spiderman or Transformers or whatever on DVD than on a big, loud screen surrounded by assholes.

That all changes in July, though, when Fantasia rolls into town. Instead of stupid chair kickers and dumb middle-aged dudes who tell you what’s hpapening on the screen you get a bunch of film geeks who are really excited to see the source material. And, even more important, you get to see a bunch of movies that you ACTUALLY have to see in theatres– because you will probably never find a DVD or even a torrent of some of these obscure flicks from around the world. Or, since it’s basically a “genre” film festival, there’s some stuff you have to see in theatres because it so damn scary that you need to experience 300 other people SCREAMING (last year’s [REC] for example).

Last year, [REC] and 4bia and ESPECIALLY Adrift In Tokyo (I feel like an idiot for not putting it on my top 5 movies from last year) blew me away. I’m hoping this year will be as good. Here are some of the highlights, at least, for me now (I have yet to actually watch these, so they might be disappointments– we shall see):

Daytime Drinking — in Korea, there’s a rule: never turn down the first drink someone offers you. A dude goes to a resort town in winter (not exactly when it’s packed with people) to meet friends who aren’t there. He wanders around and people keep giving him soju (rice-based alcoholic beverage, about 20%, vodka-esque). It was shot on $20,000 and it’s apparently beautiful and funny.

Thirst — Have you seen Oldboy? Because the director of Oldboy has a new movie. About a priest. Who is a vampire.

Dream — I suppose all I can say is that Kim Ki-Duk directed this. If this means anything to you, you’re excited. If not, well, watch 3-Iron, The Isle, and Spring Summer Fall Winter And Spring. Especially 3-Iron, though.

Power Kids — Okay, it’s a kid’s movie, but… damn it, lsiten to how amazing this is. It’s the same producers as Ong Bak. They got four kids and trained the hell out of them to make them Muay Thai machines. They made a movie with them. They do their own stunts. This is like Tony Jaa meets SURF NINJAS. From THAILAND. How could that not be incredible?! SO MANY KID KNEES TO THE FACE!

Grace — Dead babies and crazy moms scare me. This seriously looks scary as hell.

Instant Swamp — the trailer’s only in Japanese so I won’t link it, but it’s by the Adrift in Tokyo guy, so here’s that trailer. It was one of the most charming movies I ever saw, so I am gonig into his next movie blind.

Hells — some really crazy looking anime movie. Don’t know much of anything about it, but I’ll check it out.

The Chaser — While the director of Oldboy has a different film at the festival, this is apparently the REAL spiritual successor– keeping that awesome Korean New Wave brutal flick thing going.

Playing Columbine — A documentary about Super Columbine Massacre RPG? Well, okay. Seeing it in Montreal, with the bit about Kimveer Gill… there are gonna be some not-impressed people, I reckon. It’ll be interesting to see a film open a dialogue about games as more than just mindless nerdy entertainment.

Black — film from France about a Senegalese dude stealing diamonds with an awesome funk soundtrack and scenes that look like they’re out of every 70s exploitation or 80s action flick. I am really excited for this. Also, the pun at the end: “L’afrique? No. Le fric, oui.” Amazing. I guess you have to understand a bit of French for it to be funny, but it is.

Best Worst Movie / Troll 2 — Troll 2 is considered one of the worst films ever made. It has an insane cult following. This documentary, directed by the guy who played the kid in it, explores the phenomenon. It’s followed by a screening of Troll 2.

I’m also seeing a few other movies: Blue Film Woman, Canary, Cryptic, Deadgirl, and Breathless… I know next to nothing about them though, so perhaps I’ll talk about them once I see them. I am seeing the first 5 movies on my list over the next three days, so expect to hear back!

I’ve been thinking a lot recently, as I’m sure much of the Internet has, about the possibilities that will be in Scribblenauts. It presents an intriguing way of play: your imagination is your biggest obstacle. Thinking of strange ways to beat things will be where the real fun is.

That lead me to something else I have been thinking about a lot recently, as prompted by Angus’s recent article on game morality: creating artificial barriers to overcome.

I’ve seen it in countless other scenarios in games since I found myself staring into the 16-color abyss of a Netscape Navigator window in 1997: beat Final Fantasy with four white mages. Survive a Roguelike with only the items you can forage within the dungeon. Finish Ikaruga without firing a bullet (or, you know, finish it while playing two players simultaneously). Solo Onyxia. Beat Mirror’s Edge without using a gun. Don’t kill anyone in a Metal Gear Solid game. The list goes on, I’m sure.

I, on the other hand, never have the patience or skill to do any of these things; they require qualities (namely, hand-eye co-ordination and/or unemployment) I’m devoid of. However, I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty clever kid (my imagination is at least good enough to imagine that I’m an imaginative person) with a decent grasp on the English language (I know great nouns such as “dirge,” “colugo” and “arthrodesis”), and as such, I see Scribblenauts as a fantastic way to get creative with arbitrary rules.

I know it’s a bit early to start coming up with arbitrary “hard modes” for the game, but it’s been on my mind for a while. As such, I’d like to solicit ideas from my audience!

Here are some of my ideas so far, ranked in ascending order of assumed difficulty:

1. Played-Out Mode: Beat Scribblenauts without summoning zombies. ZOMBIES ARE PLAYED OUT.

2. Acrophobic Pacifist Mode: Beat Scribblenauts without use of height-assisting items or weapons (although, in true Pacifist style, tools which are also weapons can be used for their original tool-like purpose, so a chainsaw can be summoned but only to cut down a tree).

3. Fantasy Mode: Beat Scribblenauts summoning only items that only exist in the realm of fantasy. If a replica has been created of an item, it is okay, but use your discretion: a Bat’leth is okay because it is strictly from the realm of fiction, but a robot may not be, despite its birth in the realm of sci-fi.

4. Alphabet Aerobics Mode: Beat the first “level” (or stage, or starite, or whatever they end up being) using only items that start with A. Beat the next with B. The next with C. You know how the rest of the alphabet goes. Flip back to A, I guess, if there are more than 26, flip back to A, I guess. Have fun on level 24! (For the record, though, Phi-Life Cypher did the ABC thing better only a year later.)

5. Conversationist Mode: Beat Scribblenauts without destroying any of the environment. Summoning animate objects to do the destruction for you is also not permitted.

6. Breath of Life Mode: Beat Scribblenauts summoning only items that are alive upon their summoning. A tree is okay; a wood pole is not.

7. Midas Mode: Beat Scribblenauts summoning only gold-coloured items.

8. Intangible Mode: Beat Scribblenauts summoning only items whose noun is an “intangible.” While they typically become tangible once summoned in the game, words like “dream,” “temptation” or “theorem” are acceptable while “pillow,” “chocolate bar” or “right angle triangle” are not. Homonyms are a cheeky way to get around it, but are not allowed if the word you’re pretending is allowed isn’t a noun. So, no using stalk and saying “but the verb is intangible!”

9. Gadsby Mode: Beat Scribblenauts without using the letter E.

10. Summon Nothing Mode: Beat Scribblenauts summoning only items that rhyme with wolf. Remember that wolf does not rhyme with wolf. They’re the same word no matter what terrible rappers may try to trick you into believing.

11 (yes, THIS LIST GOES TO 11). 43 Mode: Beat Scribblenauts summoning only words that are a part of George W. Bush’s active vocabulary.