>>Nostalgia For Infinity

That’s not “games for dames”, a marketing category that has produced such gems as Barbie Horse Adventures and – oh god – Mary-Kate and Ashley’s Magical Mystery Mall. No, this is writing about games for and by dames. There’s some precedent, but it remains true that in the highly commercial videogaming industry there’s a widespread presumption that games are for guys. Game Fatale is a blog that intends to offer a venue for discussion and commentary away from that false belief.

My friend Kerry of Really Fancy Games is one of the trio of contributors, and anyone who is developing a point-and-click adventure game based on the lives of the Bronte sisters is worth reading. The blog is to be launched “today”, so keep an eye on the site as I expect there’ll be a few articles for your perusal before the evening is out.

Those of you who read my mildly acerbic piece on MMOs for Den of Geek, ‘Rewind the Grind’, might want to take a look at the first official trailer for Eskil Steenberg’s procedurally-generated / user-created MMOG, Love. It’s currently on display exclusively at PC gaming blog Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Oh, and despite it being the least boundary-pushing of the games I featured, I can report that Warhammer Online is really good fun. I’m not playing it with the intensity MMOs are renowned for, but for a few hours here and there it’s proving varied, accessible and most importantly fun.

Sorry for the lack of updates. Work is leaving me stressy and tired at the end of most days, so after sorting out essential chores I rarely want to spend my evenings doing anything other than heading out to see some bands, or kicking back with some beers and a few good games. I have a few unfinished pieces banging about, but finding the time/inclination/discipline to knuckle down and finish them is tricky.

Earlier in the year, when I reviewed episode 1 of their series of RPGs, I said some very complimentary things about Penny Arcade. I meant them, and I do love the strip. When they’re writing about games, they can be very funny indeed.

But, and this is when they step outside that comfort zone, I honestly wonder what fucking planet these people live on.

Mind you, there are exceptions to that rule.

Like every other bugger who pays attention to what’s going on in indie gaming I recently tried out Braid, the time-fucking 2D platformer by independent developer Jonathan Blow. It’s currently only available on Xbox Live (at 1200 points, which in real money is about a tenner) but a Windows version is set to follow later this year, probably on Steam.

If you’ve already played the game then you’ll know what I’m about to say; the same applies if you’ve previously read a few other boring sods carping on about it. But if you’ve not played the game, and you’re not familiar with what it is, this post is for you.

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My review of the PC port of ObsCure II, Hydravision’s 2007 horror survive-’em-up, is now online at Den of Geek. It’s replete with cheap shots, predictable “jokes” and dull analysis of stupid ideas – so quite a lot like the game itself!

This is a sequel to 2004’s ObsCure, a multi-platform survival horror game that saw a disparate band of assorted high school students – possessed of improbably unique and useful skills – fight their way through hordes of spore-infected classmates to uncover the truth behind a daaark secret. Not an uncommon survival horror premise. The game’s most unique feature was the ability to play through the game co-operatively, something its sequel also boasts. Unfortunately I’m reviewing the PC version, and found myself unable to convince anyone to play it with me. Crowding around a single keyboard isn’t quite as fun as using your own control pad, after all.

Read the full review at DoG… if you dare! Wooooooooo!

I’ve got another lengthy piece up at Den of Geek, this time taking some lumps out of the bloated, funny-smelling collective body of the mumorperger. I also recommend four in-development MMOGs that look tantalising, primarily because they’re offering something different. Well, Warhammer Online doesn’t seem to be promising anything particularly different, but fuck it. I’m British and I grew up in the 80s and 90s, therefore I love Warhammer (and will never again know the love of a woman).

Since the article mentions World of Warcraft, and I’m not very kind about MMORPGs in general, I am anticipating some abuse. I hope to be proven wrong.

I suspect that this week’s celebration of one year of Friday Flash Fiction will be slightly overshadowed by Post a Rejection Letter Friday. But hey! Righteousness is right on, right?

I’m afraid that this week’s submission is another last-minute piece of fiction, as today has proven to be a lengthy work day fraught with some personal issues, but a promise is a promise. Rather than rush through a fresh idea I’ve decided to return to a concept I’ve tried to write in the past: a story written from the perspective of a faceless videogame enemy.

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(This is the third and final in a series of posts retrieved from Neverscapes, NFI’s predecessor. This was one of the earliest posts made to the blog, and it shows… still, I hope you’ve enjoyed these little slices of nostalgia.)

Over on Wired News there’s an article titled Playing the Master Race, concerning the psychology of race selection in insanely popular MMORPG World of Warcraft (seven million subscribers worldwide and climbing). The author references Tolkein, of course, as the father of racially-delineated fantasy fiction:

The people in Middle Earth were rigidly defined by their race. Hobbits were sensible, if unvisionary; elves were austere and aloof; orcs were unreservedly evil. It ain’t where you’re at — it’s where you’re from. Mostly.

Indeed, Tolkien’s obsessive devotion to race has provoked decades of blistering debates about whether his archetypes were thinly veiled allusions to real-life nationalities — complete with rankings of which ones rocked and which ones sucked. The hobbits seemed like the stolid, sensible Victorian English folk that Tolkien adored; the goblins, with their evil technological genius, could be any scary European enemy army, like the second World War Germans. And the orcs, with their Indo-Asian features?

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I told you it was a week for games. Games, games, games. Don’t you just love ‘em? Some people like fast cars instead. Some people like fast cars and games, and these people might like Racedriver GRID, which is full of beautiful shiny cars. You can drive them into walls very quickly and suffer no consequences whatsoever. Someone notify The Sun!

It’s going to be a busy week for games writing. Today at Den of Geek I have a nostalgia-laced piece in which I get to jubilantly witter on about some old games I like. I love you, Internet. Go have a read!