According to Lizzie Stark, author of a new book on the history of Live-action Roleplay (LARP), Leaving Mundania, the history of LARP dates back far beyond the era of Tolkein-esque fantasy to the Romans and Elizabethans: Queen Elizabeth I presided over some serious, and seriously expensive, larplike entertainments. Cirque du Soleil has nothing on Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, who threw the queen an awesome and ostentatious entertainment when she visited him at Kenilworth Castle in 1575. It cost him at least £17,000, which at that time was roughly enough money to field an army of 1,000 for a year. Amid a busy…

EA, one of the largest gaming companies in the world, hasn’t always been publicized in a positive light, but they continue to assert a supportive stance on LGBT diversity. As controversy around the Defense of Marriage Act— a law that defines marriage as between one man and one woman on a federal level— continues to mount, Electronic Arts has signed an amicus brief alongside other employers like Gap, Google, Microsoft and Xerox, vouching for their application of anti-discriminatory work policies. In a statement on their inclusion in the coalition, EA said the following: Electronic Arts has joined with dozens of…

PaRappa the Rapper has always been a hard game, but now it may be harder than ever due to a common issue of display-latency in HDTVs. The HDTV’s fatal flaw lies in its many filters: deep-blacks, vivid colors and high-resolutions may look fantastic, but the amount of post-processing power required to boost HDTV quality creates a complicated, lag-inducing system. Sometimes older technology is more reliable, such as the classic standard-definition cathode-ray tube (CRT) TV. Unlike the HDTV, CRT TVs were built with relative simplicity, requiring less processing, and suffering from little display-lag. Consumers are unlikely to notice HDTV latency while watching…

Eddo Stern is a multimedia artist working around the politics and philosophies of games, and the games of politics and philosophy. In a review of his recent exhibition at Young Projects in LA, Sharon Mizota makes note of two games displayed for public play, Darkgame and Goldstation, which touch on existential issues core to gameplay mechanics. In explaining Darkgame, Mizota reveals the doubled-edged sword of creating a conceptual art game that privileges the mechanisms of fun over fun itself: “Darkgame (v3.0)” is a wall-sized projection of an avatar — a slim, black, humanoid silhouette — running through a partially darkened,…

video At a recent press preview in NYC, I had a chance to demo parts of the upcoming Rayman Legends, a follow-up to 2011’s Rayman Origins. Legends‘ gameplay will be familiar to fans of Origins, only slicker: it carries on Origins’ distinct, painterly art style, now with even more refinement and the addition of mixed 2D/3D elements. Legends also builds on Origins’ classic platforming with the Wii U touchscreen by implementing a unique co-op mode that allows a second player to tap lums, cut ropes and pull levers on-screen to help player-one reach their end-goal. Christophe Héral— the composer behind Rayman…

Alison Bechdel, author of the classic, queer comic Dykes to Watch Out For, is distinguished not only for her comic contributions, but for popularizing “The Bechdel Test,” a test for movies that has three requirements: One, it has to have at least two women in it, who Two, talk to each other about Three, something other than a man. Simple enough, right? Except it’s harder than one might think to find moves that follow these rules. The Bechdel Test effectively lays bare an inadequacy in the breadth of cinematic diversity, as well as the hierarchical gender-relations therein. Pitting movies against…

According to a recent report from The New York Times, Resorts World Casino in Queens, NY is facing a continual slew of assaults by angry players against its gambling machines. “I lost $300 without a bonus, so yes, I broke the machine,” George Govan, a 56-year-old man from Brooklyn, told security guards when he punched through a terminal screen in January, according to court records. “And I’d do it again.” (Mr. Govan pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 90 days in jail.) Apparently this is not a new phenomenon. Marcus Prater, executive director of the Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers, which…

According to Epic Scents, a new company set to create air-fresheners of licensed videogame characters, Capcom’s Mega Man smells like “the essence of a boy put into a man’s role.” Um, ok. But what does that smell like? “There is a purity in him, he has a real pure heart,” Kavanaugh said, “but there is also masculinity, and bravery.” Those three notes, purity, bravery and masculinity, become the trinity of notes that form Mega Man’s scent. For the purity of heart, the perfumers went with a very fresh clear note, like a fresh tropical breeze. For Mega Man’s masculine side,…