"A fast-paced, suspenseful dystopian picaresque, part Huck Finn and part bizarro-world Swiss Family Robinson..."
---Kirkus
Long-listed for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award and finalist for the Crawford Award. Title short story listed for the 2000 O. Henry award.
What happens when a shared world dies? Witness the quiet, strange, unsettling end of The Matrix MMORPG. A grand finale was planned where all online players were to be crushed, however due to a server glitch, most players were disconnected before the final blow came. What had been envisioned as a last hurrah transpired as [...]
Thu, December 2 2010 » Games » No Comments
When I look at various forms of criticism and reviewing–literary, music, etc.–and consider how moribund they can be at times, I take solace in the fact that it will never reach the nadir that gaming journalism seems to dwell in. As a whole. I am talking about the various organs that are there to ceaselessly [...]
Tue, September 21 2010 » Games » 4 Comments
(This is going to have a fair amount of spoilers, so if you have a Wii and are thinking of playing this game, at all, don’t read this. Just buy the game.) Silent Hill: Shattered Memories is one of the most interesting games I’ve ever played. Now, this is also the first Silent Hill game [...]
Wed, February 10 2010 » Games » 1 Comment
Of late I’ve been exploring and trying to fetter out online what in 80s parlance would be called a gamebook: a novel with choose-your-own-adventure (CYOA) plot branching but also with more of an RPG element as well–usually with a character with attributes and chanced to impact the story through combat and chance. Some of the [...]
Sun, December 20 2009 » Fiction, Games » 1 Comment
One of my favorite gaming blogs is The Stack. Reading his posts on Final Fantasy V really sold me on playing it, which was a hundred times more to my taste than the rigid, overrated Final Fantasy VI (sorry, I know that’s heresy, but…). Level grinding is one of the few things you can do [...]
Sun, April 13 2008 » Games » 1 Comment
I’m really pleased to say that Deadline Enchanter was a finalist for three XYZZY Awards–for Best Writing, Best Story, and Best Use of Medium–and won the XYZZY for the latter. Needless to say–considering I’m decidedly Not a Programmer, to find an audience for any of my game-creation endeavours is a giant thrill. I’m really appreciative [...]
Sun, March 16 2008 » Games » No Comments
I wanted to get some notes on the design of Deadline Enchanter, since it seemed a couple of reviewers were interested in the genesis and thought behind the game. (I don’t even know if it can be called a game. But more about that later.) So as always, these opinions are solely my own, and [...]
Mon, December 24 2007 » Fiction, Games » 4 Comments
So Kingdom of Loathing had a major overhaul, and has some really interesting new content, and some fiendish puzzles. Any puzzle that combines one of the traps from the third Indiana Jones movie and Gwen Stefani lyrics is a-ok in my book. It’s a weird game for me (a very weird game in general) in [...]
Thu, July 5 2007 » Games » 1 Comment
Really interesting analysis of sexual dimorphism in World of Warcraft characters: Even if you wanted to have a female troll with tusks, you couldn’t. Which seems especially bizarre given that this game is supposed to be all about fantasy, and turning yourself into whatever you want to be.
Thu, May 31 2007 » Games » 5 Comments
I had no clue that Starcraft had professional leagues and stadia in South Korea. This is my favorite/illuminating quote from the brief profiles of the star players (who are really rockstars in Korea): Garimto had to quit SC in order to do his Korean military service, but now regularly acts as a commentator for games. [...]
Thu, May 24 2007 » Games » No Comments
Student arrested for making map of his school, considered “terrorist threat.” Ultimately, in cases like this, the students are decried by know-nothing authority figures who seem to imply that the student is unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality. But, I think it’s the other way around. School personnel being so brittle and imagination-poor that [...]
Wed, May 2 2007 » Games, Polis » 2 Comments
This, ‘Speare, sounds so awesome (via Kotaku–website for the actual game seems to be down, alas). The game is your standard flash shmup [shoot 'em up] in which you have to collect the text of Shakespeare’s plays from enemy ships, periodically scanning items to reveal information about his works, which you will be quizzed on [...]
Wed, April 25 2007 » Games » 1 Comment
A really compelling blog post/article on Second Life vs. World of Warcraft, that sheds some life for me on what I’ve been thinking about this. I’m usually down with Mr. Harrison’s screeds, but I would think that any worldbuilder worth his or her salt (re: Calvino, Borges, for starters) are aware of, and build into [...]
Tue, January 30 2007 » Fiction, Games » 10 Comments
Sun, January 28 2007 » Games, Polis » 1 Comment
“Lives” is a verb, not a plural noun. Anyway, hearkening back to a gaming tradition that stretches all the way back to Infocom, text-based classics like Moonmist, Deadline, and Witness comes Hotel Dusk: Room 215 for the Nintendo DS, which is indeed billed as an “interactive mystery novel.” It’s been getting a lot of praise [...]
Wed, January 24 2007 » Games » 2 Comments
I posted about gold farming on MMORPGs earlier (I’m actually working gold-farming into my new novel quite a bit). Apparently, Korean gold-farming firms are forming a trade association.
Tue, January 23 2007 » Games » No Comments
Ice chess between Moscow and London. Spectacular. Check out those crystalline pictures.
Tue, January 16 2007 » Games » No Comments
Playing Zelda: Twilight Princess on the faithful old GameCube. I think Wind Waker is a better game–more original, more bracing, more built from an organic whole–but Twilight Princess is the more fun of the two. I’ve waited a long, long time for this game to come out–my pre-order was made in July 2005–and so maybe [...]
Thu, December 21 2006 » Games » 1 Comment
From Chuck Palahniuk to…Fred Durst? Yes, the Limp Bizkit “singer” is a playable character in the awful, awful (according to nearly all reviews) PS2 game of Fight Club. There’s something so very astounding about the very existence of this game. It’s almost like turning The Deer Hunter movie (okay, there already is a game called [...]
Wed, December 6 2006 » Games » 2 Comments
Mon, October 16 2006 » ?!?!?, Games » No Comments
