[This week, our partnership with game criticism site Critical Distance brings us picks from Ben Abraham on topics including the awesomeness of strategy games, the systems of Chrono Trigger, and how to make an art house video game.] Okay, so everyone's read this piece by now, yeah? Jonah Weiner at the New York Times profiles the Adams brothers, Zach and Tarn, behind the cult classic craze Dwarf Fortress. It's a revealing look at the reclusive pair that leaves one with the distinct impression of a genius that may come at some expense to its creators. Well worth the time to read this lengthy profile. And getting the other big online magazine pieces out of the way, Ethan Gilsdorf at Salon talk 'My summer of Dungeons & Dragons', and I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention my single favorite piece from this week which was Colson Whitehead's dispatches from the World Series of Poker for Grantland. Hey, there are video game versions of Poker, it counts. Back down to earth and hanging with us mere mortals, Kirk Hamilton wrote in to alert us to his latest Kotaku piece 'Why Video Games with Silent Heroes had the Best Soundtracks'. He also sent us a link to Tom Chick's 'Of Hydralisks & Phalanxes #1: Yes, Strategy Games Are Awesome' for Gamespy, so Thanks Kirk. Thirk. At The Border House this week, Quinnae has a piece about 'Dragon Age's Queen Anora', one that looks at her character and why she elicits such strong responses from the community:
"Anora, it must be said, embodies several nightmares for particular kinds of men (at least, the particular kinds who predominate in gaming communities, whose fears I've discussed elsewhere). She is a woman who does not wish to bear children, she is a woman who knows what she wants and knows how to get it, she is a woman who is cable of manipulation and skilful manoeuvring, and thus as a result is a woman who does not prostrate herself before the wills of others, least of all men. She is neither pliable nor biddable, and she is also not in the game as a sex object. Unable to fulfil the masculinist fantasy of a bobbleheaded fawning yes-woman and sex toy, she immediately becomes the target of their rage, and the rage of women eager to impress men and prove to them that they aren't 'like that.'"
At the 'Blogossus' blog, Nathan Hardisty has been working up a sweat in the deserts of Fallout: New Vegas and directs our attention to an older post on 'The Story of Boone'. It takes a while to wind up to it, but here's where it gets good:
"From the first instance we talked I knew something interesting was going to happen. Not just from the fact he asked me to help him shoot someone in the head, but the fact he looked so disclosed. I prodded him about his history and interesting back-story, I got nothing out of him at this point, choosing to accept this quest. He started talking about how he and his wife settled down here, that they were happy and finally ready to move on from a live of hardship. Boone was in the NCR, a 1st Recon Sniper in fact, who still carried a hunting rifle."
JP Grant writes about 'Taylor's Tower' at the blog Infinite Lag, and for my money it's probably the most interesting thing I've seen anyone squeeze out of the tiny, much maligned game:
"What strikes me most about Tiny Tower is how transparently and, well, efficiently it compels the player to adopt a Taylorist philosophy. Taylor believed there was One Best Way to perform any kind of job, a sort of miracle cure for what ailed the worker, the manager, and industry as a whole. In Tiny Tower, it becomes clear after a few hours—once you are invested enough to start caring about your burgeoning building—that maximizing efficiency, not employing creative strategies, is the objective here. Just as in manufacturing, the work never ends in Tiny Tower; there is no defined end point at which the goal is achieved. There is only more building, more production. There is little incentive to do anything else than figure out the most cost-effective and time-saving way to keep doing what you're doing. Even the 'strategy guides' for this game read like Taylorist propaganda. This one explicitly bills itself not as a guide, but as 'tips and tricks for maximizing efficiency.'"
Rowan Kaiser has dusted off his blog Renaissance Gamer and posted a short meditative essay on Far Cry 2:
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