If you are a videogame nerd you will love Well Played. And When I say nerd, I don’t mean everybody who plays videogame players, but those who enjoy exploring the esoteric realm of videogame study (ludologists and narratologists, you know who you are).  A description of the journal from their website: The Well Played Journal is a forum for in-depth close readings of video games that parse out the various meanings to be found in the experience of playing a game. It is a reviewed journal open to submissions that will be released on a regular basis with high-quality essays.…

Sheldon J Pacotti, writer of Deus Ex, has released a videogame creation tool called Game Blocks. John Walker at Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Described as “a free library of visual programming ‘blocks’ for first-time game developers,” Game Blocks is the result of something Pacotti built for an interactive writing course he teaches at the University of Texas. The idea being to encourage others to create non-linear storytelling in games. It’s a visually simple tool, based on BYOB, that lets you construct scenes without being stuck in a linear path, as well as include simple physics, and even platforming. Pacotti tells me,…

An enhanced version of Baldur’s Gate has just been released for iOS. I haven’t downloaded it yet — that much game on a mobile device and always at my disposal is dangerous. I risk slinking off to the bathroom at work or turning my productive commute into an unproductive one. Very soon I will get it, and very soon it will take over my life. – – – For all the joy and pain I will get out of it, BioWare went through their fair share of the same to get it to me. Eurogamer ran a piece that discussed the…

A new iOS game was created with the purpose of both educating and raising money for HIV prevention. The game is called THRED and is born from a partnership between Coca-Cola and RED, the latter being a company which tries to reduce the prevalence of HIV in the style of the “pink” movement to fight breast cancer. At Gamasutra, a designer of the game spoke about the implications of a game as means of fundraising: Lee Perry, president and designer at BitMonster (and former Gears of War gameplay designer) explained why Coca-Cola opted for this approach. “One major limitation with things…

There are those moments in games that burn themselves into your memory. How could you forget the beauty and horror of the “Waltz of the Flowers” moment in Bioshock. The battle with Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid and its absurd destruction of the fourth wall always makes me laugh: “You like Castelvania don’t you?”. What about the bitter hopelessness and irrelevance of morality after you nuke Megaton in Fallout 3? These moments often come to epitomize their particular games, if not containing their very essence. Judging by its mention in nearly every review and repeated discussions elsewhere, it seems that the takeaway moment from…

The most iconic and appealing character in the upcoming Bioshock Infinite almost never was. Ken Levine recounts the difficult development process with Eurogamer, with a few hilarious tidbits: “A million times during the course of the game, because it was so hard to get right, there were people who said, ‘we really should cut Elizabeth.’ When we started working on it, we’d do level reviews and I’d say, ‘So where’s Liz right now?’ They’d say, ‘Well, she’s back in the closet over there,’ Nobody knew how to manager her. Levine said he had to put his foot down and insist Elizabeth…

David Beckham, of bending fame, has departed our beloved world of soccer for the more glorious world of football — by which I mean he is going to back Europe. As much as fans will be wondering where his next tenure will be, Beckham is surely anxious over his decision. What happens if he goes to PSG? Barcelona? At a top team he may get benched if he can’t match the best young players, but at a poor team he might be a waste. If he can’t manage to gauge these many possible futures, he can always turn to Football…

Sick of Guild Wars 2 yet? Tired of MMO after MMO which just rehashes the same old thing? Maybe it’s time the mold was broken. Erik Kain’s Monty Python and the Holy Grail MMO may do the trick. Here are a few selections from he laid out in exquisite detail earlier this year: Knight (class) Knights are strong, heavily-armored, and not terribly bright. Armed with sword and shield, Knights are the tanks of Monty Python’s Holy Grail: The Game. Not known for brilliant tactics, they nevertheless make up for this by being extremely bloodthirsty. Occasionally a Knight will suffer from…