Links!

Posted by oddbob on November 15, 2008 · Lovingly Filed Under Link Round Ups 
Print this Article | Help us keep RR online

We're raising money for SpecialEffect. Please donate if you can.


I fucking love links I do. It’s been ages since I’ve done a little round up too, mainly because I can’t be bothered reaching for my keyboard nearly often enough these days. However, there’s been lots to inspire me this fine day (and not just because I’ve managed to avoid playing the Left4Dead demo through just one more time for shits and giggles), nor is it because I’ve just spent an hour with the NXE and I’m trying to distract myself from writing things about the community titles available during the beta. Or the avatar system.

Onwards with the linking before I say something out loud like “I prefer my Mii”. Whoops, too late!

Do Games Reviewers Really Understand Innovation? Keith Stuart from fine UK news establishment The Guardian discusses some of the scary aspects of the recent spate of Mirror’s Edge reviews and makes a good case for “game reviewers should stop being armchair designers” as an aside and points out that perhaps, we should be reviewing games on their own merits and what they’re trying to be rather than what everyone else does. The IGN review he links to is (being generous here) poor but the closing comments are embarassing. “The list of moves could be more expansive — maybe by adding a fourth button to the mix — and the world feels entirely too constricting for what could be a huge open city”. Some people don’t deserve games, never mind being allowed to review them.

Don’t Start With Story! - Ste Pickford. All of this and more. See also: Don’t make me watch the same sell up routine on completing a demo that is designed for multiplayer replayability. That’s a really annoying thing to do, Valve. Still, the game is fucking superb and I’ve had many comedy laugh out loud moments from it. None less than last nights glorious “caught by a smoker whilst a zombie repeatedly punches me in the face” incident which had me guffawing a bit too much.

World Of Goo vs Piracy - dubious stats but an incredibly level headed attitude from 2d Boy. Shame the piracy discussion is so utterly circular. However it was nice to get through all 14x comments so far on RPS without one car analogy. Well done commentators!

Geometry Wars Retro Explained - where the headline makes it sound more interesting than it is. I must admit I’d gone in wondering if there’d be an explanation as to why, still, in GW:RE2 things fucking well spawn as good as underneath you thus rendering the game more like a fruit machine than an absolute show of skill. The fact that it remains a great game in spite of itself probably says something, I’m just not sure what.

Nintendo WiiSpeak, A new front in war against used games - You didn’t really think Nintendo were your friends did you? Did you? Some worrying stuff alluded to by Mr Capps linked off in the article which makes me wonder which part of “stop hurting your legitimate customers” some of these folks don’t understand. Oh, that’s right - all of it.

Tags: , ,

Speak your brains

Hello Reader! Perhaps you'd like to comment on this piece?.
As well as allowing you to type out your innermost and deepest thoughts about this piece, we've magiced up (well, installed a plugin) a fantastical ajax malarkey that lets you edit your post up to 15 minutes after you've posted it. Superb eh?