Your Critic's partner is usually silent on the blog; he prefers it that way. In light of the recent Xbox One reveal announcement, however, he has asked for the platform to provide a guest post with some industry expertise, and I am more than happy to provide it. And so, I am pleased to present a look at how Microsoft's approach to television and cable is somewhat misguided and out of date, by Matt Cox.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Antichamber, Unhealthy Relationships, and putting Mass Effect in the Smithsonian (again).
Back in December, I got an e-mail that made my day. It was an editor for Smithsonian Magazine, asking if I'd be interested in taking on a short piece looking at the use of film noir style lighting in video games.
The finished piece is indeed very short (I could definitely write a few thousand more words on the topic) but I had a great deal of fun writing it and my editor was excellent to work with. It's in print on newsstands today, in the March 2013 issue, or available online.
My picture is on the Contributors page for the issue and everything. Next to Jane F*cking Goodall. I'll probably be pleased with this for quite some time to come.
(And yes, that's the piece that inspired my meditation on light in ME3.)
In other work I am pleased with, I have been doing some light contributing to Gameological, who are also a delight to work with and a fount of patience. I pitched in to the Valentine's Day Inventory of Unhealthy Relationships in games (guys guys guys there are so many) and I got to review Antichamber, which is a delicious mindscrew of a game. I found its logic best explained in the language of the dreamer.
The finished piece is indeed very short (I could definitely write a few thousand more words on the topic) but I had a great deal of fun writing it and my editor was excellent to work with. It's in print on newsstands today, in the March 2013 issue, or available online.
My picture is on the Contributors page for the issue and everything. Next to Jane F*cking Goodall. I'll probably be pleased with this for quite some time to come.
(And yes, that's the piece that inspired my meditation on light in ME3.)
In other work I am pleased with, I have been doing some light contributing to Gameological, who are also a delight to work with and a fount of patience. I pitched in to the Valentine's Day Inventory of Unhealthy Relationships in games (guys guys guys there are so many) and I got to review Antichamber, which is a delicious mindscrew of a game. I found its logic best explained in the language of the dreamer.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Another Day, Another Press Conference
This isn't even about the PlayStation 4 at all, actually. My opinion on that is currently irrelevant: it seems like a PC circa 2011, only it can't also run productivity software. It'll be six months before the details that matter are available for me to form a strong opinion. We'll probably end up with one in the house in 2014. That is neither here nor there.
This is about the press conference at which Sony announced the PlayStation 4.
Sony's big problem: diversity. The vast majority of presenters on-stage were white men, a huge percentage of whom were even sporting the same haircut and glasses. The exceptions were a small handful of Japanese businessmen. Naturally, the circles I hang out in on Twitter took exception to this. When Patricia Hernandez gave it a mention on Kotaku, the predictable troglodytes crawled out of the woodwork to leave nasty comments.
One jerk, though, nailed the actual problem without even realizing he had. In trying to explain why everything Patricia wrote was an invalid complaint, he said: "The reason there were no women on-stage is because the presidents and developers who happened to develop the software being presented happened to be male. It is not part of some sexist agenda, it just so happens that the people behind the creation of the content being presented happened to be men."
DING DING DING DING DING.
This is, in fact, exactly the problem. There are no women in leadership at Sony and, if there are, SCE does not feel comfortable bringing them into presentations or the public eye. In fact, I can't recall ever seeing a woman executive presenting for Sony, despite the fact that many of their best game franchises and studios have very high-ranking women making them. So why, in 2013, is Sony still so resistant to having women in its top echelons? I refuse to believe that, worldwide and especially in the Americas, there are no competent female executives -- except for that the systems that generate executives continue to favor a very narrow spectrum of men.
I have no love for Microsoft or for the 360, but during their major press conferences at E3 and so on, they almost always have women on stage at some point, even if they are generally presenting non-gaming, non-"core," family-friendly tools and features.
I am sure that most of the men on stage were perfectly lovely fellows. But the narrowness of that particular slice of humanity really hit home when one came on stage to introduce what was later revealed to be a new inFamous game. "In 1999, I got tear gassed at a protest," he began his story, which went on to feed in to the current era of paranoia. The cops, it turns out, aren't always 100% good.
Really.
You don't say.
I'm sure there is no population out there who could have told you that. Every day. For the last century.
The statement was not ill-intentioned; far from it. It was naive, and came from a place of privilege, from one very specific outlook. It was a statement from a guy born into a population that doesn't routinely have trouble with cops, TO a population that doesn't routinely have trouble with cops.
And that's the kind of statement that comes out of a really, really narrow outlook. When everyone looks the same and shares the same life experiences, nobody's going to introduce a new perspective into a presentation. So you get more of the same, designed for the same people, even as the audience gets continually more diverse in every way.
What happens next? I guess that's up to Microsoft, and we find out at E3.
This is about the press conference at which Sony announced the PlayStation 4.
Sony's big problem: diversity. The vast majority of presenters on-stage were white men, a huge percentage of whom were even sporting the same haircut and glasses. The exceptions were a small handful of Japanese businessmen. Naturally, the circles I hang out in on Twitter took exception to this. When Patricia Hernandez gave it a mention on Kotaku, the predictable troglodytes crawled out of the woodwork to leave nasty comments.
One jerk, though, nailed the actual problem without even realizing he had. In trying to explain why everything Patricia wrote was an invalid complaint, he said: "The reason there were no women on-stage is because the presidents and developers who happened to develop the software being presented happened to be male. It is not part of some sexist agenda, it just so happens that the people behind the creation of the content being presented happened to be men."
DING DING DING DING DING.
This is, in fact, exactly the problem. There are no women in leadership at Sony and, if there are, SCE does not feel comfortable bringing them into presentations or the public eye. In fact, I can't recall ever seeing a woman executive presenting for Sony, despite the fact that many of their best game franchises and studios have very high-ranking women making them. So why, in 2013, is Sony still so resistant to having women in its top echelons? I refuse to believe that, worldwide and especially in the Americas, there are no competent female executives -- except for that the systems that generate executives continue to favor a very narrow spectrum of men.
I have no love for Microsoft or for the 360, but during their major press conferences at E3 and so on, they almost always have women on stage at some point, even if they are generally presenting non-gaming, non-"core," family-friendly tools and features.
I am sure that most of the men on stage were perfectly lovely fellows. But the narrowness of that particular slice of humanity really hit home when one came on stage to introduce what was later revealed to be a new inFamous game. "In 1999, I got tear gassed at a protest," he began his story, which went on to feed in to the current era of paranoia. The cops, it turns out, aren't always 100% good.
Really.
You don't say.
I'm sure there is no population out there who could have told you that. Every day. For the last century.
The statement was not ill-intentioned; far from it. It was naive, and came from a place of privilege, from one very specific outlook. It was a statement from a guy born into a population that doesn't routinely have trouble with cops, TO a population that doesn't routinely have trouble with cops.
And that's the kind of statement that comes out of a really, really narrow outlook. When everyone looks the same and shares the same life experiences, nobody's going to introduce a new perspective into a presentation. So you get more of the same, designed for the same people, even as the audience gets continually more diverse in every way.
What happens next? I guess that's up to Microsoft, and we find out at E3.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
I am not a racecar; I am not a man.
Kill Screen posted a single quotation today, and it struck me quite deeply. From a Monopoly expert:
"It's very seldom that you see a player not care about what token represents them on the game board."
That's it. One sentence. And that sentence is about, quite literally, Monopoly game pieces. And yet, in a certain way, it's one of the most revealing and useful things I've ever seen written about games.
The speaker, Monopoly expert Philip Orbanes, is right, of course. Any of us who has ever played the game, particularly in childhood, knows the ritual.
"I call the thimble!"
"Dibs on the dog!"
"The racecar is mine!"
(Nobody ever wants the iron.)
The game world of Monopoly is in some ways as abstract as they come. Its colorful painted squares represent streets, avenues, neighborhoods; they represent socioeconomic strata and an insurmountable class and economic system. Those little pewter-toned chunks of daily life we steer in circles 'round the board are our avatars, representing us as we navigate this world. Even in a system this abstract, avatar representation matters.
It's like living in a world where the only Monopoly token one is allowed to choose is the racecar. I don't want to be the racecar. I took the racecar because it was the only option given to me, after everyone else involved had their say first, and decided my outlook didn't matter.
The story of the racecar has gotten boring. I don't care how well-written a profile is; I am tired of the story of the man who wanted to find a girlfriend. I don't care how well-written the supporting or alternate cast is; I am tired of them not being front and center. I don't care about all of the daddy issues that show up in every damn game; I want a dramatic story about mothers. Or women. Or anything new at all, really.
 |
| Box art: Halo 4; Mass Effect 3; BioShock Infinite |
Everyone seems to understand, instinctively, that it's okay to have strong feelings about your Monopoly piece. From a young age, we got passionate about the dog, or the car, or the shoe (but never the iron), and that was all right. So why does similar passion about digital avatars create such a hue and cry? If you say you are tired of the slate of straight white men, you are a whiner. You do not understand that "sex sells." You are a troublemaker. You are a "feminist bitch" and worse.
I am not a racecar.
I am not a man.
I am tired.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Happy New Year
I don't have a game of the year. In the same way that multiple games left profound and lasting influences on me in 2011, several have likewise done so in 2012--Journey, Mass Effect 3, and The Walking Dead among them.
So instead of writing any kind of GOTY post, I will instead direct readers to Sparky Clarkson's The Year of the Games roundup, a collection to which I and nearly a dozen of my colleagues and peers contributed. It's been a fascinating year, as the big-budget, AAA games wrap up franchises and stall out, waiting on a new console generation, and as indie and avant-garde-inspired gaming well and truly comes into its own.
Likewise, Critical Distance has once again rounded up their must-read highlights of the year, and they are indeed pieces that should be read.
And as for me? Well. I had many, many beginnings in 2012, and some endings too. I look forward to seeing what games inspire me to write too much in 2013.
So instead of writing any kind of GOTY post, I will instead direct readers to Sparky Clarkson's The Year of the Games roundup, a collection to which I and nearly a dozen of my colleagues and peers contributed. It's been a fascinating year, as the big-budget, AAA games wrap up franchises and stall out, waiting on a new console generation, and as indie and avant-garde-inspired gaming well and truly comes into its own.
Likewise, Critical Distance has once again rounded up their must-read highlights of the year, and they are indeed pieces that should be read.
And as for me? Well. I had many, many beginnings in 2012, and some endings too. I look forward to seeing what games inspire me to write too much in 2013.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
The Surprising Moral Clarity of Mass Effect 3
I've been working on a commissioned feature about film noir lighting in video games. Without going into what I'm writing in that essay, my very first thought was: "Oh, that's easy. I've played Mass Effect 2."
ME2 casts Shepard in an ambiguous moral position. Not only does the paragon/renegade problem carry over from the first game, but its effects are amplified dramatically. With interrupts added to the game--sudden, one-click decision points that add to Shepard's paragon or renegade scores--as well as charm and intimidate keying to reputation, rather than to skill points, the question of Shepard's soul begins to matter more.
As well, she is in a more tenuous position with regards to, well, everything. Now employed by the shadowy Illusive Man, she is working for Cerberus, known from the first game only as a terrorist organization. The crew she assembles around her is full of misfits, exiles, and murders who, if we're lucky, mostly turn out to have hearts of gold, or at least good intentions.
Of course, we all know where the road paved with good intentions leads.
The essay in question will be running in early 2013, and I have been asked to make it current, to tie it to one or more big 2012 releases. Knowing how strongly Mass Effect 2 relies on the conventions of film noir and neo-noir, I thought that my sprawling, ludicrous collection (1800+) of Mass Effect 3 screenshots would lend me the perfect inspiration.
I was wrong.
 |
| It's Blade Runner! It's Double Indemnity! No, wait: it's Thane! |
ME2 casts Shepard in an ambiguous moral position. Not only does the paragon/renegade problem carry over from the first game, but its effects are amplified dramatically. With interrupts added to the game--sudden, one-click decision points that add to Shepard's paragon or renegade scores--as well as charm and intimidate keying to reputation, rather than to skill points, the question of Shepard's soul begins to matter more.
As well, she is in a more tenuous position with regards to, well, everything. Now employed by the shadowy Illusive Man, she is working for Cerberus, known from the first game only as a terrorist organization. The crew she assembles around her is full of misfits, exiles, and murders who, if we're lucky, mostly turn out to have hearts of gold, or at least good intentions.
Of course, we all know where the road paved with good intentions leads.
The essay in question will be running in early 2013, and I have been asked to make it current, to tie it to one or more big 2012 releases. Knowing how strongly Mass Effect 2 relies on the conventions of film noir and neo-noir, I thought that my sprawling, ludicrous collection (1800+) of Mass Effect 3 screenshots would lend me the perfect inspiration.
I was wrong.
With only a handful of exceptions (as in the shuttle, above), Shepard's lighting in Mass Effect 3 is surprisingly clear and unambiguous. Even when she is in a visually dark location, the lighting spares her. Shadows fall around her, but not on her; even her companions are largely of the light.
As the game itself gets darker, in every possible sense of the word, the ambiguity becomes stripped away from the Normandy and its passengers just as it becomes stripped away from the plot. Yes, every decision has consequences, and the strings of three games' worth of choices bear out in many meaningful ways. But even while that matters, the time for ambiguity is, simply, behind Shepard and behind us.
By ME3, the reapers are here. They are destroying worlds, cultures, civilizations, life... everything. There is no question of "sides," of "morality." Respect her (paragon) or fear her (renegade), Shepard is our hero and the hero's time is now.
In fact, the more I browse my enormous gallery of images, the more I feel like Mass Effect 3 is lit with a series of spotlights. Where Mass Effect 2 threw diagonal shadows around the place to create effect, ME3 is doing everything it can with framing, light, and color to highlight our heroes, fighting to the end in a darkened world.
 |
| Sometimes that world is darkened a little too literally. |
Indeed, even in an area and on a mission where moral ambiguity and character confusion could easily have been added, the game avoids that construction. I am speaking of a point somewhere near the end of Act 2 (relatively speaking) where the asari Council representative has summoned Shepard, to impart a secret and necessary piece of information.
The asari's motives and goals are unclear. She could be honest; she could be dishonest. Shepard's reaction is unclear: the player can be angry or resigned. The conversation takes place in an office, where light and posing could easily have conveyed ambiguity and confusion. Instead, the conversation is brightly lit, with all the whites the Citadel presidium has to offer. The greatest distance the scene ever creates comes through framing one shot on the other side of a window, hinting at a sense of voyeurism and eavesdropping.
 |
| You know, if you had mentioned this BEFORE your planet was invaded, that would have been helpful. |
By the time the Shepard's saga reaches its third and final game, that which is... well, is. Most of the questions and mysteries are removed from the story, and the moral ambiguity of our players along with. This is not a game for introducing new characters, or questioning their motives; this is a time to revisit the consequences of the stories we already told, and resolving the fates of characters we already know.
Even knowing that, though, I was surprised at how strongly the visuals bear that out. Subconsciously, they of course reinforced that message the entire time I was playing. That's what visual language does.
There is also, of course, an exception. Or in fact, a pair of exceptions. The Leviathan and Omega DLC add-ons each provide dozens of examples of moral ambiguity and character confusion conveyed through noir-like use of light and shadow. And it makes sense: these are the segments of game that introduce new characters and new concepts that stand slightly to the side of the hero's straightforward quest for war resources. Aria, Nyreen, and even the Leviathan itself are all moral wildcards when they are introduced, standing aside from Shepard's binary perspective, and so the lighting lets us stand in Shepard's shoes for a little while, uncertain about who we have just met.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
In which I develop an opinion on Capcom
I really had no particularly strong feelings on either Capcom or on their upcoming Devil May Cry game until today.
But then, via Samit Sarkar, there was this.
That, right there, is the Christmas card that Capcom PR sent out this year.
Not only is Dante--that charming fellow on the left, there--surrounded by angels, but the angels are, of course:
Wow.
I didn't care about Capcom until now. But as of today, they're on my personal shit list--there to remain, I suspect, more or less permanently.
Well done, Capcom PR!
But then, via Samit Sarkar, there was this.
That, right there, is the Christmas card that Capcom PR sent out this year.
Not only is Dante--that charming fellow on the left, there--surrounded by angels, but the angels are, of course:
- women
- light-skinned women
- big-busted light-skinned women
- big-busted light-skinned women with hourglass figures
- big-busted light-skinned women with hourglass figures and prodigious, posed posteriors
Wow.
I didn't care about Capcom until now. But as of today, they're on my personal shit list--there to remain, I suspect, more or less permanently.
Well done, Capcom PR!
Monday, December 3, 2012
Music
Back in the summer of 2011, Kill Screen was taking pitches for pieces for their sound issue. I sent one in; Chris Dahlen, the editor-in-chief, accepted it.
It was the first piece I ever sold. "Giddy" doesn't even begin to describe how happy I was. I had enormous respect for the magazine and couldn't believe I'd get to be among the all-star list of contributors on that front page.
Alas, the piece got cut for space, and although Chris originally planned for it to fit into the following issue, he left Kill Screen and the new editors chose to take subsequent issues in a new direction. My piece no longer fit.
I showed it to Kirk Hamilton, the Melodic block editor, when I first came to Kotaku, and we agreed that it was great and that we should do the hard work of editing it to fit, sometime, but (more due to me than to him), "sometime" never managed to come before my time at the site ran out.
So.
It's not perfect, and it could use an editor, but here's that piece, in its entirety. Because sometimes, you just need your music to make you a goddamn space marine.
It was the first piece I ever sold. "Giddy" doesn't even begin to describe how happy I was. I had enormous respect for the magazine and couldn't believe I'd get to be among the all-star list of contributors on that front page.
Alas, the piece got cut for space, and although Chris originally planned for it to fit into the following issue, he left Kill Screen and the new editors chose to take subsequent issues in a new direction. My piece no longer fit.
I showed it to Kirk Hamilton, the Melodic block editor, when I first came to Kotaku, and we agreed that it was great and that we should do the hard work of editing it to fit, sometime, but (more due to me than to him), "sometime" never managed to come before my time at the site ran out.
So.
It's not perfect, and it could use an editor, but here's that piece, in its entirety. Because sometimes, you just need your music to make you a goddamn space marine.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Go read this
File under, "I really wish I had written this:" Katherine Cross's "Game Changer."
Cross does her homework and her research, and articulates very clearly and cleanly the theories that I--and anyone else who examines sexism in gaming--have bandied about for ages. She even looks at the moving goalposts: if women like it, it is no longer a "real game."
It is hardly surprising that some men perceive the gaming world as, in Kimmel’s words, a “virtual men’s locker room” threatened by the presence of women. When women inhabit this space, claim visibility, and attempt to shape it, their presence becomes an existential threat to that “not PC” safe space that some of these young men enjoy. When abuse occurs, the conceit is that it’s “just a game,” which enables people to—in the words of one of Kimmel’s interviewees—“offend everyone!” It’s not like real life, which is too, well, real to risk flagrantly violating norms of decorum. But, at the same time, these male gamers know that the space is a real, tangible thing, in need of protection. Their “offending” serves to police the boundaries of who can and cannot inhabit gaming culture, and to keep out people who threaten “their” space.
Cross does her homework and her research, and articulates very clearly and cleanly the theories that I--and anyone else who examines sexism in gaming--have bandied about for ages. She even looks at the moving goalposts: if women like it, it is no longer a "real game."
Thursday, November 29, 2012
What It's Like Inside My Brain
Last night, we were playing Red Dead Redemption. I had successfully steered the ponypony somewhere and M was shooting some guys. They probably deserved it. I made some offhand comment about the game.
"Well, it is a Western," he replied.
"Maybe in a sense, all games are kind of Westerns," I mused.
"There's an article," he quipped back.
***
If my thought process resembles anything, it's probably the Molydeux Twitter account. I tilt my brain and stuff falls out. Sometimes it's awesome. Sometimes it's not. When it manages to connect to something else that's rattling around in there, it's an article.
***
"The word 'yellow' wandered through his mind in search of something to connect with. Fifteen seconds later he was out of the house and lying in front of a big yellow bulldozer that was advancing up his garden path."
***
I'm not quite sure why I thought that all games were Westerns, but if I sat back to argue it, I bet I'd come up with a connection. Something about the lone hero, probably, but then that would have me delving back into my film history books to define why the hero of the Western was the way he was.
***
In my self-image and self-perception, I still suck at consoles. Despite having played a huge number of games on the PS3 this year for review and for fun. Why was I so surprised that steering the ponypony around the not-entirely-wild-but-wild-enough-West of the turn of the last century wasn't hard for me? After dozens or hundreds of hours of PS3 time, why am I still surprised at myself for, yes, knowing how to use the blasted machine?
***
When I came back to the blog this week, I discovered twenty-three (23!) abandoned drafts and half-drafts from over the years. Some had their best paragraphs lifted and folded into other things; others just sit, as husks, with their careless author having long since forgotten why they were important to begin with.
***
There are notes on the whiteboard on my wall, on post-its all over my desk, jotted into the little notebook I keep tucked inside my purse. "Kinect - class - space - McMansion - who games for" is one that makes sense. I can remember that. And it's written down twice, which means I thought it was important at least twice.
***
Maybe "Beyond the Girl Gamer" would be a good title for a weekly column, somewhere, that addresses topical gender issues in gaming.
***
I have a note that says "JUST LIKE Dark Souls," a game I have never, in fact, actually played.
***
This is the truest comic I have ever read. Among many true comics.
***
I've got three separate notes on the nature of online multiplayer as the 21st century continues to unfold, two on Sherlock Holmes (the 2009 movie), and one full angry screed about over-reliance on the Cold War that, somwhere in the middle, morphed into a meditation on how the maturity of game narratives is attached to the maturity of the cinema it chose, unnecessarily, to ape.
That one about how combat is and isn't a useful mechanism for storytelling--that's one I keep promising myself to write. I know a dozen other folks already have. Someday, I'll have to do it anyway.
***
Today, I feel like I am out of ideas. I am dwarfed, overawed, by the incredible things my colleagues and peers--my friends--have written.
I hate those people.
I love those people.
***
The thing is, if I wrote that column, I'd become, even more than I am, that "girl" writer. Not that game writer. Or that writer.
***
Until Tuesday night, I had the Omega review to hang onto. I played it. I wrote about it. And then it was done. Two days, two measly days, without the anchor and already I am asking the cat if Communism really was just a red herring, and why Gandhi is always such an asshole in Civ games.
***
Everyone's wished me luck, asked where I'm going next. I'm not being coy or teasing when I say that even I don't know; I really don't know. Aside from trying to convince the Commonwealth of Virginia that they are the ones who owe me unemployment, and that they can't fob me off on New York or Maryland, I really don't know what I'll be doing next week.
***
I'll be vacuuming my apartment like mad. Twice. Each day. My cat-allergic parents are coming to town the week after.
***
I want my friends and colleagues and peers to be wildly successful, famous, rewarded with piles of cash.
I want to pay my rent.
I really hate competitive games.
***
I really, really want a Coke. Or maybe a beer. Maybe I can learn to like beer.
Maybe I can learn to like a lot of things.
I'd learned to like Kotaku. A lot. Really a lot.
***
I always said I hated BioWare-style RPGs and then 2010 and 2011 and 2012 and Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age 2 came and went and now even the people who make those games have publicly noticed my rather excessive love for them. I still have a paycheck, for another week. Time to get the Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition and teach myself some history.
Then I can write about the experience.
That's an article.
"Well, it is a Western," he replied.
"Maybe in a sense, all games are kind of Westerns," I mused.
"There's an article," he quipped back.
***
If my thought process resembles anything, it's probably the Molydeux Twitter account. I tilt my brain and stuff falls out. Sometimes it's awesome. Sometimes it's not. When it manages to connect to something else that's rattling around in there, it's an article.
***
"The word 'yellow' wandered through his mind in search of something to connect with. Fifteen seconds later he was out of the house and lying in front of a big yellow bulldozer that was advancing up his garden path."
***
I'm not quite sure why I thought that all games were Westerns, but if I sat back to argue it, I bet I'd come up with a connection. Something about the lone hero, probably, but then that would have me delving back into my film history books to define why the hero of the Western was the way he was.
***
In my self-image and self-perception, I still suck at consoles. Despite having played a huge number of games on the PS3 this year for review and for fun. Why was I so surprised that steering the ponypony around the not-entirely-wild-but-wild-enough-West of the turn of the last century wasn't hard for me? After dozens or hundreds of hours of PS3 time, why am I still surprised at myself for, yes, knowing how to use the blasted machine?
***
When I came back to the blog this week, I discovered twenty-three (23!) abandoned drafts and half-drafts from over the years. Some had their best paragraphs lifted and folded into other things; others just sit, as husks, with their careless author having long since forgotten why they were important to begin with.
***
There are notes on the whiteboard on my wall, on post-its all over my desk, jotted into the little notebook I keep tucked inside my purse. "Kinect - class - space - McMansion - who games for" is one that makes sense. I can remember that. And it's written down twice, which means I thought it was important at least twice.
***
Maybe "Beyond the Girl Gamer" would be a good title for a weekly column, somewhere, that addresses topical gender issues in gaming.
***
I have a note that says "JUST LIKE Dark Souls," a game I have never, in fact, actually played.
***
This is the truest comic I have ever read. Among many true comics.
***
I've got three separate notes on the nature of online multiplayer as the 21st century continues to unfold, two on Sherlock Holmes (the 2009 movie), and one full angry screed about over-reliance on the Cold War that, somwhere in the middle, morphed into a meditation on how the maturity of game narratives is attached to the maturity of the cinema it chose, unnecessarily, to ape.
That one about how combat is and isn't a useful mechanism for storytelling--that's one I keep promising myself to write. I know a dozen other folks already have. Someday, I'll have to do it anyway.
***
Today, I feel like I am out of ideas. I am dwarfed, overawed, by the incredible things my colleagues and peers--my friends--have written.
I hate those people.
I love those people.
***
The thing is, if I wrote that column, I'd become, even more than I am, that "girl" writer. Not that game writer. Or that writer.
***
Until Tuesday night, I had the Omega review to hang onto. I played it. I wrote about it. And then it was done. Two days, two measly days, without the anchor and already I am asking the cat if Communism really was just a red herring, and why Gandhi is always such an asshole in Civ games.
***
Everyone's wished me luck, asked where I'm going next. I'm not being coy or teasing when I say that even I don't know; I really don't know. Aside from trying to convince the Commonwealth of Virginia that they are the ones who owe me unemployment, and that they can't fob me off on New York or Maryland, I really don't know what I'll be doing next week.
***
I'll be vacuuming my apartment like mad. Twice. Each day. My cat-allergic parents are coming to town the week after.
***
I want my friends and colleagues and peers to be wildly successful, famous, rewarded with piles of cash.
I want to pay my rent.
I really hate competitive games.
***
I really, really want a Coke. Or maybe a beer. Maybe I can learn to like beer.
Maybe I can learn to like a lot of things.
I'd learned to like Kotaku. A lot. Really a lot.
***
I always said I hated BioWare-style RPGs and then 2010 and 2011 and 2012 and Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age 2 came and went and now even the people who make those games have publicly noticed my rather excessive love for them. I still have a paycheck, for another week. Time to get the Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition and teach myself some history.
Then I can write about the experience.
That's an article.
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