Posts tagged Bioshock
Summertime Blues: Should Gaming Embrace Summer Blockbusters?
Jun 2nd
Iron Man 2 was one of the top-grossing movies of the 2010 summer blockbuster season. If it's good for movies, why can't it work for games?
It’s just past Memorial Day weekend in the United States, the traditional harbinger of summertime. In recent years, it’s also brought in the beginning of the summer movie season, where studios push their big-budget releases and all sorts of associated goods and tie-ins. You can’t swing a major tent-pole movie without hitting Movie: The Action Figure, Movie: The Fast-Food Deal, Movie: The Sports Advertising Tie-In, and, yes, Movie: The Video Game. It’s marketing gone mad, sure, but it creates a ton of money for all involved.
However, it begs the question: where’s the summer blockbuster period for gaming? If it’s proved such a big hit with movie crowds, why not with gamers?
It’s an interesting thought.
The advancement of the art of storytelling in video games
Oct 7th
Shadow of the Colossus' simple, spare storyline has been repeatedly acclaimed as a high-water mark in video game storytelling.
Even before Mario trekked through the Mushroom Kingdom to rescue the Princess and Pac-Man was pursued by a quartet of ghosts, video games have been a storytelling medium. As games matured from simple sprites to a multi-billion dollar industry, so the scope of video games increased —in terms of graphical fidelity, size and scope of game worlds, and the potential for storytelling.
The problem, though, is that only two of those three aspects have seen real growth to this point. While our favored medium is still maturing, it’s encountered some growing pains in finding the right way to tell a story — and the right kind of stories to tell.
Warning: Spoilers for Grand Theft Auto IV, Bioshock, Metal Gear Solid, Fallout 3, Fable II, and Shadow of the Colossus follow.
Daily Recap: May 26, 2009
May 27th
The long Memorial Day weekend is now behind us (I know I have a bit more color on my skin to show for being in the beautiful Northwest weather!) and E3 is just over the horizon, with press conferences starting in just under a week. Whew. Time certainly flies, and the news mill has definitely been churning.
Unless this is the greatest prank Hideo Kojima has pulled in his life, it looks like the konami.jp teaser site that's been counting down for over a week is working toward a Metal Gear announcement next week at E3.
The big pieces of news have come from Kojima Productions and Rockstar, respectively. Starting with the Japanese developer, its teaser site – which has seen multiple countdown clocks on top of ever-changing imagery, all the while focused on a field during a thunderstorm – has now left little question as to what Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima will be working on next. Today, the image of a young Big Boss – replete with eye patch – joined the flashing numbers and letters that have been on the site for well over a week, seeming to imply that a new Metal Gear game of some sort is due to be announced soon.
The other piece of news related to the teaser site and Kojima’s next project comes from scans of a leaked copy of the newest issue of Japan’s Famitsu Magazine, the TIME of Japanese gaming. There’s a feature story with lots of self-editing by Kojima, and accompanied by another image from the countdown that hasn’t been seen yet: Raiden, circa MGS4. It’s good news for Metal Gear fans and, with a bit of elementary math, it looks like the timer will run to zero early next week.
Daily Recap: April 10, 2009
Apr 10th
I’m torn.
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On the one hand, Guitar Hero: Smash Hits is reviving some of the best songs with full-band bravado from the earlier, better days of Guitar Hero. Ozzy Osbourne’s Bark at the Moon is getting its due. So is Killer Queen, and Free Bird, and Carry On Wayward Son…which was already in Rock Band 2, and…Through the Fire and Flames?
Yep. It’s Neversoft.