Category Archives: Zelda

Scoring Sentimentality

When it comes to entertainment media, I generally think objectivity is a ridiculous notion. We can accept this in most kinds of art — i.e, “I don’t like this” is not thought to be analogous to “this isn’t good.” We can like things that are bad, and we can feel alienated or repelled by things that are well-crafted if they’re not our taste.

It seems more difficult for gamers to accept this, and by “gamers” I mean the kind that are “hardcore” enough to be overly invested in what other people think of something they like. I maintain that probably the biggest reason people read reviews is not “to find out if a game is good,” but to help them crystallize their own opinion — or to make them feel validated in that opinion.
But there’s still the assumption that a review can be generally correct or not, vs. something one agrees or disagrees with; certainly it doesn’t help that as a technology product there are aspects of a game that are governed by quality rules, that have a right and a wrong way they can be executed.
I hate that. I think for the most part the most interesting work in gaming culture gets done when we let go of this distant idea of games as only product; they are so personal, so subjective, so experiential.
There are people out there who think that Ocarina of Time is the greatest video game ever made. It isn’t[*], but I know why a lot of people think so. Read the latest of my Edge columns to come online and see what I mean.
Speaking of products and reviews and stuff, I had a thought-provoking question posed to me the other day, and it spawned an entire editorial: Why doesn’t the games press review Facebook games? Would having them on Metacritic or something offer a useful baseline for the space so that it can actually evolve?
All I’m doing right now is replaying MGS 3 in HD. Yep, still my favorite video game.

*”Ocarina of Time is the greatest ocarina-themed videogame of all time.” — Ian Bogost

Gone Baby Gone


I saved Skyward Sword for after the holidays, despite the fact new Zelda games are currently a sort of Christmas-to-New Year’s kind of ritual for many people.

I’m really liking it so far, inasmuch as I can like a new Zelda. To a certain extent my enthusiasm for the brand has diminished with each installment; might just be some formula fatigue, like I got with Pokemon and Harvest Moon despite the fact that games in those series have probably collected hundreds of my hours over the years.

A Link To The Past has this distinctly alien, mysterious quality that I think the brand has lost over the years in favor of a prettier sort of magic. Zelda games are so ritualized now, so tautly Nintendo (not a negative adjective by any measure) that they start to feel like Disney rides or something.

Never stops me from finding things to love about almost every one, though. This time it’s Zelda herself, and I think she’s indirectly brought something new and special to Skyward Sword I’ve explained in my newest Gamasutra editorial, if you’d like to have a look.

Also new at Gamasutra: A look from inside Prototype 2‘s dev team, with its nifty design director — even if you’re not that into Prototype, he’s uncommonly candid about some of the twists and turns these internal processes take. What’s the value of a Masters of Fine Arts in game design? NYU’s resident smart cookie Frank Lantz explains.
Finally, Microsoft has tapped Arkadium to explore cross-platform social gaming; Microsoft Games Studios, to be precise. If you don’t really know what that means or you think it sounds irrelevant, you should probably read my new Kotaku column on the biggest new ideas in the games space that you should fully expect to start invading your familiar world in the months to come.
Lastly, I jump on the “Shit ____s Say” bandwagon (if you haven’t seen Shit Girls Say, Shit Black Girls Say or Shit Girls Say to Gay Guys, to name a few, git yr azz up ons) by writing Stuff Gamers Say over at Thought Catalog. They are all composites, and one of them is me.
Yes, I know Katawa Shoujo is out, although I appreciate all nine thousand of your mails and tweets. If you don’t know what I mean, please read this article I did at Kotaku on the development of this Japanese-style dating game about disabled girls, and the niche internet communities that birthed it.
Yes, I’m going to play and review the final game and you will be the first to know about it when it runs. Properly playing visual novels takes time.

How y’all doing? What’re you playing? If I made you forums, would you use them?

Happy New Year!

Happy new year, everyone! Hope you’ve all had a good holiday. I spent several solid days being drunk and playing Skyward Sword, which I hadn’t gotten to until now. I suppose I’ll have some kind of formalized “thoughts” or whatnot on it soon, but for now I’ve gotta focus on catching up from some prolonged nightmare flu and an intense holiday period.

I wrote about the peculiar comfort in being ill over at Thought Catalog, plus the uncommonly silent limbo of spending a holiday in New York City if you’re not particularly Christmas-oriented.

Okay, so one article about being sick, one article about a holiday, and here, one sort-of serious satire about my struggles to get my work done on time and well. Believe it or not, there were some people out there who thought this piece was real advice. I disclaim all liability for what will happen to you if you’re that oblique!

Right, but somehow I still did get some stuff done: An editorial on Skyrim. All right, trolls: I think Skyrim is completely rubbish. I have no interest in playing it any more. I have no idea who designed the combat system, looked at that swordplay and went “HEY IT WORKS IT’S PERFECT.” Like, really? The game also combines a lot of things I’m just not interested in: high fantasy setting, open world, and loads of lore.

However (who am I kidding, half of you will not read the ‘however’ and have already begun typing me nerd rage death threats) — HOWEVER, I totally get why people love it. Totally get it; I wrote a bit about that at Gamasutra.

People like feeling like they’re an influential part of something larger than themselves; they like games that give them things to explore and share together. That’s the principle with which Jesse Schell is working with his company’s new Puzzle Clubhouse, an intriguing new idea for crowdsourced game design. Check the interview.

And it wouldn’t be a new year at Gamasutra without our usual exhaustive year-end roundups; I contributed Top 5 Controversies a bit ago, and now I add Top 5 Surprises.

As usual we round up all our year-end material — including our overall top ten games — into one big feature for your reading pleasure. This year, our individual contributions to the game of the year list were bylined, so you’ll be able to see which titles I vouched the hardest for. Give it a read!

Lots of you have asked what I think of the big changes going down at Kotaku. I’ve worked with the staff there for some years, including both Brian and Joel, and I wish them tons of the best in their new endeavors, Brian in particular after years of service to — come on, face it — our space’s most relevant consumer gaming site.

But I’m also incredibly thrilled to see what Stephen and the new guard (including my real good bro Kirk Hamilton) will accomplish over at the big K. Stephen in particular is a fantastic editor who’s done a lot for me, and I think his role as Kotaku EIC spells amazing things.

For those that mailed/IMed/Tweeted whatever, as far as I know I’ll continue my monthly column as normal, as I’ve done for I think nearly three years now!

Quick Bits

Long time no see! Yes, blah blah I’m busy, you know the drill. I finished playing Catherine (I liked it) and I am finishing up Ocarina and I wrote this little love-letter to young Link. SO CUTE.

I also curated an exhibit themed around alt-sexuality games at Babycastles in Williamsburg, and the opening party was ah-mazing. Here’s the event page, and there are Flickr galleries by attendees posted on the wall if you want to see a little of what it was like. I was so excited about how well-attended it was, and what meant most of all to me is that everyone was interested in and curious about the games, their creators and what it was like to play them. I lost my voice from giving so many little tours of the cabinets.
Now for some bad news: Silent Barn, Babycastles’ first home in Ridgewood, Queens, has been burglarized. Not only is it the home of my friends, it’s an important art and show space for our neighborhood and for New York City in general. Audio gear was stolen and people’s creations were destroyed, which is a horrible thing to have happen to people who literally live their lives to create a community for artists. Please stay tuned — if there’s anything we can do to help them recover I’d like us to try, because they’re the kind of folks who deserve our caring, even if it’s just to keep them in our thoughts and send good karma.
[UPDATE: Kickstarter to relaunch the space. Please consider helping!]
Other stuff as I try to catch up with you guys: Awesome Madoka pixel art video; Anamanaguchi remixes Ra Ra Riot. More soon.

Do Metroids Like Tuna?

[this is when she is about to hit you]

My cat Zelda is kind of a hard-ass. She can be adorable as you please, but she’s also pretty fickle and pugnacious. She plays rough.

A friend who stays at my place says to me this morning that if I was going to name my cat after a female video game character, I probably should have chosen one more heroic and less “rescue object.”
“She’s more like a fucking Metroid or something,” he said.
He meant Samus. But he was weirdly more correct this way.
[Today’s Good Song: ‘Post-Acid‘, Wavves]