Twitch Plays Pokemon (or, in case you were wondering, the origin of Bird Jesus and All Praise the Helix Fossil)
My, that was definitely the longest title I’ve ever had. Joystiq has the best summary of what all this involves, but I am so damn proud that I couldn’t help but write my own post on this. A few weeks back, a single live edition of Pokemon Red hit the net. It is part of Twitch Channel (which I have no idea what is) but the idea is that it’s whoever is on giving commands to Red and driving him through the game. Imagine, 70,000-120,000 players all trying to play a game at once. Yep. But what has developed is one of the most surreal, and frankly, awe-inspiring moments in internet, gaming, and Pokemon. What is so fascinating is the forces at play here. Bird Jesus and Omanyte vs Flareon, Anarchy vs Democracy, the “death” (really the release, but pretty much the same thing) of cherished Pokemon such as Charmander….
Chrono Cross: Revisiting a Classic (Part I)
This could be really fun or really embarrassing. This is the first multi-part post I’ve tried to do and it’s about a video game near and dear to my heart. I wanted to wait until I was done with it, but as I’ve stated before, I tend to not finish video games. If that happens here, I want to at least get a bit out. So, if this is it, take it as it is. If I finish I’ll put up a part II. So here it goes. One of the things I’ve really enjoyed about my android phone are emulators and roms. I started playing Pokemon FireRed a while back (probably need to write something on that all by itself) and that was a ton of fun. Eventually, I got bored with it but started thinking of some of the games that meant the most to me and how…
Xbox One Eighty
I love that play on words above, and a one eighty it truly has been. Like many, I am truly amazed that Microsoft backpedaled this much. And maybe I’m cynical, but I don’t trust it. This is how I see it (and its hardly a unique perspective). Microsoft knew that, all things equal, they would sell a crap load of systems, pretty much no matter what. They would sell a crap load of games. They would make money. Because they’re Microsoft, becuase they have the Xbox (and Halo) and they’ve been successful so far. So what they did, was take a gamble. They said, lets throw out a maximum profit plan. There would be no room for their customers to wiggle out of their grip if they wanted their Xbox games. The publishers would make more, Microsoft would make more, and most retailers would probably make more as well. And then…
Bioshock Infinite: A late Review
First and foremost to say about Bioshock Infinite, it is a fantastic video game and one of the single greatest arguments I have ever seen for the artistic quality of the medium. It is vibrant, with strong characters, and a great plot. So let’s talk about some of this. By now, everyone probably gets the gist of things. Bioshock has always been a world driven production. Whereas the first two took place in the underwater city of Rapture, this one takes place in the floating city of Columbia. Whereas Rapture was driven by personal development, hard work, science, the arts, business, Columbia is driven purely by fanatical religion and nationalism. Now, some people might have a problem with some of the portrayals in the game. White people, Christians, religion in general, and civic pride are depicted as horrible, the root of all evil. Keep in mind though that the Bioshock…
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