Games

Now that video-games have adopted more Hollywood screenwriters to give their work a more immersive and story-driven experience, which games do you believe not only have the best story, but utilize it to the medium's full potential?

If I had to pick one, I would say the 2011 version of The Stanley Parable.

What are your picks?

Compare the pros and cons of exclusives and the effect of exclusives on gaming. Exclusives may promote a console, but it also alienates gamers who do not have a certain console. Also, look at the effect of time exclusives, as well as third party exclusives. Should exclusives be limited to new IP's, such as 'The Last Of Us', or already established series? 'Rise of the Tomb Raider' got a lot of negative feedback when it was first announced as an Xbox One exclusive (now known to be a timed exclusive) since the rebooted 'Tomb Raider' was already established on PC and PlayStation consoles.

Are exclusives a hindrance to gaming, a benefit, or both?

Mentioning the Resident Evil games and realism in the same sentence may seem strange, but when compared to other zombie apocalypse fiction, they are, in a sense, remarkably grounded. Other famous zombie works, from Night of the Living Dead to World War Z make the unfounded assumption that a slow-moving, unintelligent horde of creatures who can only spread their infection by biting, can easily overcome a modern military, a supposition that has little basis in fact. Even the very premise of the zombie horde itself does not hold up under scrutiny, as the means of infection would realistically confine a majority of outbreaks to the local level, something no apocalyptic scenario wants to acknowledge.

The Resident Evil games are different. All outbreaks are local, and occur not through random chance, but through human error and/or deliberate malfeasance, with the virus itself being a bioweapon. Said outbreaks are contained, with varying degrees of ease, by either special forces units, or more general military action, despite the fact that the zombies are reinforced by a veritable army of other bioweapons. The largest chunk of real estate ever lost to the undead consists of a single city, doomed by bad luck and a perfect storm of local corruption and federal attempts at a cover-up–and even then, the damage is quite easily contained.

This article would examine this aspect of the Resident Evil games, exploring why it takes such a radically different approach from a majority of zombie fiction, and looking at the degree to which this is a more realistic scenario than that depicted across the genre as a whole.

During this month's annual Steam super sale, I, letting my curiosity get the best of me, purchased "Five Nights at Freddy's." I first tried to play it at night, thinking that that would make the experience better, but I panicked and quit after the first level. The next day, I realized that the game creates so much anxiety for me that I can't even play it during the day with my TV on and my dog sitting comfortably at my side.

Long story short, it would be interesting to explore anxiety-inducing video games (particularly those of the survival horror genre) and why/how they are enjoyable to play. I can't even begin to imagine how some people play "Outlast" wearing noise-cancelling headphones with all of the lights out in the middle of the night. What makes these games enjoyable? Is the anxiety that they create a fun sensation for some? Maybe they're not enjoyable at all, but there's something else to them that keeps people playing.

It is a recurring argument that video game cheapens the death of characters due to its replayable nature. I remember watching the Youtube video of the cutscene of the major supporting character's death from GTA4, and read the comment which jokingly said that the main character should have taken the bullet because he would have revived at the hospital. Death in video games are often avoidable, or a penalty. In many cases, dead characters can be revived with a special mean.

But there are games that make deaths significant through several means. The most recurring example would be the story branch, where a character's death decides the story route the gamer can take. A death of a character will consolidate the plot into certain route, so the gamer will have to be wary of the consequences.

There are other games with different approach to make deaths meaningful.

For example, the death in XCOM means that your effort and investment on a soldier have been wasted, and this becomes financial and strategic setback. The elite soldier takes series of combat experiences and upgrades, and they cannot be mass produced. In addition to this, there is no way to revive the soldier so the gamer have to be extremely careful with the characters.

In Fire Emblem, each character is given unique personality and look, plus unique stats. Similar to XCOM, the death of a character is a strategic trouble, but Fire Emblem goes one step further by creating emotional attachment. The characters become friends with each other, and in some games get married. They may have a child, who fight along with them in the battle. In this case, the death of a character is more than a casualty – it's a tragedy. Your one mistake can cause the death of someone's friend/lover/parent. After you get to know each character, their death feels heavier.

I am wondering if there are other cases of significant deaths in games. Are the deaths considered mere penalty, or emotional experience? I think this could be a good study of human psychology regarding how we treat deaths

E3 is underway, and I'm seeing the same thing. Open world games! This isn't a bad thing of course. Every game's sequel is getting turned into a massive sandbox, and the bigger the better. Games include Zelda, Batman, Lego and more. But can an open world game be TOO big?

Once upon a time, the music in video games was an after-thought — small, repetitive loops of tinny electronic sounds was the norm. With some games being built to hold up to literally hundreds of hours of game play, the music scores have gotten considerably more impressive. A friend of mine was recently surprised to realize the cool song playing on her Pandora "movie sound track" list was actually from TES5: Skyrim.

I would love to see an in-depth article about working in the video game industry as a musician. Are musicians permanently on staff, or are they contract-hire? Are most scores now done with orchestras, or does electronic production still rule? To what extent do video game musicians need to learn to code? How hard is it to break in? Do the musicians also create sound-effect loops, or is that a different specialty? Are there awards for video game music? Is there cross-over between video game musicians and those who regularly work in television or movies?

Nintendo has made great games out of the same half-dozen intellectual properties for more than twenty years. Every Call of Duty game is relatively similar, but the same can be said for most of the Legend of Zelda games. The argument over which game series is better is futile, discuss how the approach, and the respective developers' desired end result is different.