Sonny stands by a trash can near the river. Game text reads: "You move the garbage around, but all you see is more garbage." There is a pool of blood by the river in the background.

Line on Sierra: Police Quest II

March 28, 2016 / 1 comment

After the series high so far that was King’s Quest IV, what better way to celebrate than to play another fucking Police Quest game? Guess what: I hated it! DAMMIT I forgot to hide the mouse before taking the screenshot AGAIN. As the presence of the mouse cursor suggests, 1989’s Police Quest II uses the same Sierra Creative Interpreter…

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The police station briefing room. Cops are standing at four tables. In the front of the room, the captain walks up to a podium. Behind him the blackboard reads: DRUG TRAFFIC MUST STOP!

Line on Sierra: Police Quest I

February 8, 2014 / 8 comments

I’m not going to beat around the bush here. I’ve played a lot of games over the past few years. A lot of them were hard to get through for various reasons. But I am confident in saying that Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel is the single most agonizing game I have forced myself…

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A screenshot from Limbo, showing the protagonist pushing some boxes.

What’s the Point of Limbo?

February 14, 2012 / 5 comments

Since its release on XBox Live Arcade in 2010, Limbo has racked up awards and generated a substantial amount of critical writing. I didn’t have XBox Live when it came out, so I’ve been waiting on a PC port. When it finally came out on Steam late last year, I jumped on it. This turned out…

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A screen capture of my adventures in Anchorhead.

I Am Bad at Interactive Fiction.

February 2, 2012 / 19 comments

Here’s the thing about interactive fiction. I approve of it in theory. A genre with no graphics and huge freedom of interaction seems like the perfect platform for narrative experiments. I love Stephen Lavelle’s work with IF engines, like Blendings and Atopoesis, and I’ve heard great things about Blue Lacuna. But, to my shame, I’ve…

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Red Dead Redemption: a cowboy rides off into the sunset.

Ending vs. Resolution

September 5, 2011 / 0 comments

According to a recent CNN story by Blake Snow, only 10% of players finish the games they start. This being an article from a major news source, there was no information on the origin or accuracy of this statistic beyond a couple of guys saying, “Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard, something like that.” Nonetheless, it provided a…

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A familiar debate about empathy in videogames

April 17, 2009 / 1 comment

Peter Suderman, a film and culture writer I quite like, had a short post yesterday at The American Scene of the familiar “videogames can’t really evoke emotion” type.  I doubt I can contribute much to this old argument, except to say that it seems dreadfully premature to be making pronouncements on the capabilities of the medium…

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The Graveyard (2008)

February 3, 2009 / 0 comments

Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn’s The Graveyard is a spare little game with only one functional object besides your avatar: a bench that plays music when you sit on it. It will start playing music anytime you sit on it and will stop when you stand up. The game takes place in a graveyard, and…

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