Perspectives

To me, Rock Band 3 feels like a swan song for a genre that doesn’t quite realize the end has come. It is the veteran quarterback coming to the end of his prime who finally wins the Super Bowl. It is the long struggling writer who finally writes his Great American Novel before fading back to obscurity. It is the best of its kind, and the last great hurrah before the coming fall.

I want to like Tom Bissell's Extra Lives more than I do. He's a great stylist, and there are a number of passages in this work that I deeply envy.

I’ve been meaning to write about Halo: Reach for about two weeks now. At every point, I sit down and resist the urge to talk about the epic nature of the thing.

{Cliché} “It’s past midnight, sweetheart,” Jessica calls from the top of the stairs. She’s using a mom voice, whose subtext is always “you know I love you, but you’re an idiot.” “Just one more turn and I’ll be right there,” I lie. {/Cliché} It’s Sunday night, and I curse myself for living the walking commercial for a game. I have to be up early in the morning.

France went to war in 1939 in the wake of a demographic annihilation that no American born since the Civil War can really imagine or understand. A crushing defeat in 1870 followed by the bloodletting of World War I had badly eroded the confidence of French soldiers and, perhaps more importantly, the leaders who bore the literal and figurative scars of those experiences.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Day 1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I’m cast ashore in my own little world. Where am I? It’s some sort of sand spit. I trudge over to the next island over and climb to the top to get the lay of the land. It’s a bay with four or five islands strung across it.

“Oh, sorry, I got distracted by the Internet.”Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life, Chapter 3 It’s been a while since I’ve had any interest in checking box office grosses. Rationally, I know that I gain nothing from looking at those little numbers, but it feels comforting to see a film I like earn a ton of cash. Unfortunately, watching Scott Pilgrim Vs.

Here are the things that make StarCraft II great: it is an improved StarCraft, adapted to modern technology and paired with a superb matchmaking service, and bolstered by a huge player base. It is also a very much aimed at sustaining the original game's success as an e-sport.

I’m busy reading a milquetoast digital rendition of “Reactor Problems for Dummies,” thinking I really should be letting everyone know I’m out of it, when a sound makes me seize up. It’s faint, no more than an understated bloop, but the implications behind it are terrifying. The 30 seconds I’ve spent hovering over a lost PDA have left quite the gulf between myself and the rest of my team.

I’ve never been a big fan of free-to-play online games. Something about nickel-and-dimeing players for fancy hats doesn’t sit well with me – as if monetizing the paper doll game is some cardinal sin against gamesdom, preying on my need to be an individual amidst a throng of clones.

Perspectives

Some Thoughts on Rock Band 3

Why Extra Lives Matters, and Why It Doesn't Matter More

Halo: Reach

Sid Meier’s Civilization V

The Fall of France

Minecraft

Scott Pilgrim and the Lackluster Box Office

Starcraft, Too

Alien Swarm

Dungeon Fighter Online

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Perspectives

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