While I like the idea of voice commands cutting down on the menu work, and it seems like a fun addition for the shouts, I dunno about this one. I swear when I play games. I swear a lot. I don't want to cast "Fus Ro FUCK!," but I think it's doomed to happen.

I'mma dare to be a fan of the cowl.

I have every intention of checking this out - sounds cool. Thanks for showing me this!

I'm not big on game clothing. I think I still have my Pac-Man and Mega Man shirts that I bought in high school somewhere in the closet, but my wardrobe's been on the steady shift towards more adult clothing. The aim is to eventually move to t-shirts and sweatshirts on the weekends, and button-ups and sweaters…

Spot on, bringing up the ridiculous number of deus ex machina moments in gaming. I can't even begin to number the times when I've been left feeling that a story was all the cheaper or hollower because the storytellers/devs didn't apparently think it was important enough to use basic human logic. (Not to say that a…

Although, playing L4D2 with a sweaty ass might add some interactive elements to the gameplay. That is, as long as your team-mates don't mind the occasional interjections of "why, I do declare." And mint juleps all around. Minus the sweaty ass, that actually sounds pretty awesome.

Looks like a butt pillow. I'm not saying whether it's cool or not - I'm just saying that I'd probably try to sit on it if it were on a chair. So, there's that.

Yeah - and that fact has always pissed me off. I do wonder if, in some ways, additional incentivization for team-work or a better command structure framework wouldn't improve this, though. Those seem to be the traditional two approaches to congealing a team, and neither is strongly enforced to the point of rivaling…

Yeah. Pretty much. I haven't played BF2 - I got out of loop of non-console shooters after MoH:AA (which I played way too much of) - but, just looking at it, it looks like a pretty cool addition. I imagine some of that UI/general experience stuff could be tightened up.

The gimmick's not awful if it's done fluidly. Imagine if you took something the size of BF3 and added a "commander" role for each side. Ignoring the fact that the console gamers'd be too insolent and angry to make the mechanic worth a damn (MAG, anyone?), it might actually be a nice twist on the spotting feature to…

I'll definitely have to check the short story collection out. I tend to read through novels on my lunch hour, but I like short stories a lot more when I'm just sitting at home. (Although, when I think about that, that sounds a little backwards...)

The irony, of course, is that entertainment through gaming was originally intended to provide instruction. (I should say: games in general, not specifically video games.) I wish the community at large would start to pick on the notion that the rest of the arts have picked up on, which is that art should aim to educate…

I think the problem is that so many video game stories involving self-discovery are also integrally tied to the player's fantasy fulfillment. So, a character never is really allowed to test their limits, because it might hinder the player's sense of power or control over the character. (MGS4 did a pretty good job of…

"The case I put was, the best a creative person can ever do is when there is a lot of risk and when there is a lot at stake."

The real champ out of that whole incident was Goto, hands down. That guy's got all my respect for not giving Phil Fish an earful. I know that it's a cultural thing for the Japanese to exercise public restraint when facing brutish remarks, but that kind of cool in the face of pure dickishness (which isn't a trait most…

I'll see if I can remember to ask you - my memory's exceedingly tragic these days.

I have to admit, I'm going through a bit of a bad spell when to comes to gaming. That is to say: I'm just not inspired.

Agreed. BioWare (or is it Bio Ware or Bioware?) drastically oversold ME3. Their online marketing strategy, which was to focus on the "choice" side of the gameplay, just wasn't the smart marketing decision given the actual presentation for the ending of the game. The commercials were a bit smarter, as were some of the…

The funny (or sad, I suppose) thing about Jonathan Blow is that, while being particularly insufferable in his own right, the guy's not entirely wrong about video gaming in general. He's said some good things about genre gaming before. It's just too bad that he's got zero ability to put his money where his mouth is,…

The game sounds good, but I have virtually no reason why everyone's talked up Fish over this game. It sounds good, not great. It seems relatively devoid of interesting innovation, and the art design's agreeable in the same hey-it's-8-bit terms as Cave Story. I'm not exactly sure why Phil Fish is a major player on game…