Ben_Giff

Contributor
CRank: 6Score: 4060

It's not just a response to the Kotaku article. The opinion piece stands on its own too.

4539d ago 0 agree0 disagreeView comment

Isn't this old news?

4539d ago 0 agree0 disagreeView comment

I agree. It doesn't look tasteful in the least. Remember, these are the developers who named the one character's skill as "Feminist Whore" as a placeholder and left it in the code of the PC version.

4541d ago 10 agree4 disagreeView comment

Yes! Downpour was way better than I expected it would be, and most of its flaws are technical ones that could be fixed with a patch.

4698d ago 2 agree0 disagreeView comment

Typos generally don't invalidate articles, and everyone makes them. I intentionally left the game's title out of the paragraph because I wanted to describe it for readers without bringing in their biases.

Edit: I'm not really sure what you're talking about. I went back to proofread (a second time), and added a comma and changed two words.

4699d ago 0 agree0 disagreeView comment

You're missing out. Fez lives up to the hype and then some. It makes players think in a completely new way, and it's one of the few titles these days without hand-holding. It is easy to beat, but extremely difficult to complete all the way.

4712d ago 1 agree1 disagreeView comment

Who cares what Phil Fish is like personally? Fez should not be judged based on how much you like or dislike the creator (e.g., sins of the father), but on its own merits. It's a fantastically inventive game that unfortunately suffers some glitches. Fish stressed time and time again that Microsoft's certification process was very slow. The game would have been patched several times over by now had it been released on PC.

Maybe Fish agreed to Microsoft's BS terms an...

4712d ago 1 agree7 disagreeView comment

You're missing out. Fez lives up to the hype and then some. It makes players think in a completely new way, and it's one of the few titles these days without hand-holding. It is easy to beat, but extremely difficult to complete all the way.

4712d ago 1 agree2 disagreeView comment

Nice job. I'm actually working on my masters thesis right now to examine the state of popular video game criticism.

4729d ago 0 agree1 disagreeView comment

Jim Sterling frustrates me. He has brilliant ideas in a lof of his reviews, and I think he's a positive force for the industry. He's very critical, which is great.

Then he goes and buries the good he does with trolling and profanity, so it's impossible to take him seriously.

4730d ago 0 agree0 disagreeView comment

And in other news, the sky is still blue.

4748d ago 0 agree0 disagreeView comment

Yes, Killer 7 for sure.

4752d ago 0 agree0 disagreeView comment

Yes please!

4753d ago 7 agree0 disagreeView comment

Games differ from other entertainment media because they require player input for the narrative to proceed. However, think about this.

Books need someone to turn the page and even movies need an audience. It’s kind of like the whole “If a tree falls in the woods…” debate. In the case of media, I’d be willing to argue that stories do not matter (or even exist for all practical purposes) without an audience.

We usually refer to the person holding the contro...

4755d ago 1 agree1 disagreeView comment

PC

^ I can't believe no one's gone there yet.

Joking aside, I've been a staunch supporting of Xbox Live for about 5 or 6 years. They do have some great features, but I just recently canceled my auto-renew for Xbox Live. PlayStation Plus is great because of the "free" games (technically they aren't free since you pay a subscription fee to use them). I've played a few games I wouldn't have played otherwise, and I've rea...

4755d ago 3 agree2 disagreeView comment

Artists do receive criticism. However, if they alter their existing work after it's finished, especially if it's to appease consumers, they start to transform it into a commercial good.

These are some notes I took while reading Ian Bogost's 2006 book, "Unit Operations: An Approach to Video Game Criticism"

Once art becomes mechanically reproducible, as video games have, it requires less ritual and less awe. As it becomes less socially...

4755d ago 0 agree0 disagreeView comment

Exactly. Gaming is at a point right now where everyone wants to be consumers, fans and critics all simultaneously. It's difficult to occupy all of those roles, and when you start mixing them, the results are hazardous.

4755d ago 0 agree0 disagreeView comment

Men are poorly represented in video games as well. I never said they weren't. While there are many examples of very unrealistic, machismoed male characters, there are also plenty of more grounded male characters.

Nathan Drake may be more attractive than average, and sure the physics in the "Uncharted" games are ridiculous. but he's somewhat believable.

Better yet, how about Niko Bellic and Frank West? Where are the female equivalents of ...

4755d ago 0 agree1 disagreeView comment

One thing people are not realizing is this is not necessarily Lara's origin story. As I allude to in the article, the developers are completing deconstructing this character and starting over.

I had the privelege of interview Crystal Dynamics' Meagan Marie last summer. Here's what she told me then:

"...She's not necessarily going to grow into the same character that you knew. It's not necessarily a precursor to her having these ve...

4755d ago 0 agree1 disagreeView comment

I think I'm more excited for this than for any upcoming Vita games.

4756d ago 0 agree0 disagreeView comment