Moving Pixels Podcast

This week Jorge Albor and I are joined by game designer Matthew Gallant to discuss Riot Games's free-to-play sensation, League of Legends.   There is much to talk about here, from Riot's successful business model to its varied gameplay offerings to its management of its very large and (*ahem*) very complicated community.   We consider this video game and the nature of such "eSports" from just about every angle.

Between them, hundreds and hundreds of hours committed to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Rick Dakan, Nick Dinicola, and Mattie Brice get together to discuss the varied approaches that they took to exploring Skyrim.

Saints Row: The Third is a title that arrived at the close of the year to a surprising amount of fanfare. Most often seen as a Grand Theft Auto clone, though sometimes admired for some of the polish that it brought to the open-world, crime game, the Saints Row series has often been treated as a competent, but not especially exceptional alternative to GTA.   By ratcheting up the general insanity of its world (way, way up) and embracing extreme stupidity and the extremely puerile, though, Saints Row has seemed to have drawn much acclaim. Our podcast crew debates the merits of this over-the-top aesthetic and considers the relative value of "just plain fun."

This is a weird episode. Because while all three of our podcast regulars appreciate Arkham City on some level, boy, do we all have some criticism to level at this sequel to what many feel was one of the best games of 2009.

In view of our topic, this episode of the Moving Pixels podcast is expansive. In other words, this is quite a long episode.   Nick Dinicola, Mattie Brice, and I found quite a lot to discuss about the open world genre this week. It is a genre that has become widespread across the medium over the past decade (thanks in no part to a little game called Grand Theft Auto III). Worlds of all kinds have been built for players to explore, telling stories in genres as diverse as crime, the western, fantasy, science fiction, and even schoolhouse drama.   We talk a little about what the genre means to this last decade in gaming and what kinds of worlds most compel players to explore them.

This week Nick Dinicola and I are joined by our fellow blogger Mattie Brice to discuss, in part, the games of the year.   However, with PopMatters posting a forthcoming list of the best games of the year, we discuss more specifically that list, our writers' tastes here at PopMatters, and also what Game of the Year might mean in general to gaming.

Battlefield 3, Gears of War 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Saints Row: The Third, Uncharted 3. That's a whole lot of 3s.   While focused especially on the "trilogies" being concluded in 2011, this episode Rick, Nick, and I discuss the year in gaming on the whole, while considering whether or not the glut of sequels at year's end is a blessing or a curse.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution was a game that closed out the usual doldrums of summer gaming. We actually recorded this episode just a week or two after the release of the game, but due to a number of scheduling conflicts, the episode just slipped for some reason into this, the closing moments of the holiday game season.   Nevertheless, the release of this new Deus Ex is one of the more memorable gaming moments of the year, so while you may be crawling through Skyrim or reuniting with Drake or Ezio Auditore, take a break and return with us just a couple of months to consider the success or failure of a prequel to one of the most admired games of ten years ago.

Due to some technical difficulties on my end, Jorge Albor quite graciously (and quite last minute) filled in as host for this episode. This is probably for the best, as he probably did a better job at moderating this conversation than I ever could have. (For those unfamiliar with Jorge, you really should check out he and Scott Juster's weekly gaming podcast at ExperiencePoints.net-it's well worth your time.)   So, this week features a host of new voices alongside Jorge, some of whom identify as gamers and some of whom do not, as the Moving Pixels podcast attempts to explore the concept of the so-called "girlfriend on a couch game." As a phrase coined by journalists to describe a particular kind of game, the "girlfriend on a couch game" seems like one in need of some discussion. We decided, though, not to discuss "girlfriend on a couch games" but instead to see if we could find out what kind of spectators these supposed games are geared for by talking to some "girlfriends on couches" themselves.   No

The cutscene in games has arguably taken many forms, from the simple and minimal narrative vignettes of Ms. Pac-Man to the lushly animated FMVs that were once one of the prime selling points of the Final Fantasy series. Many now view these experiences as intrusive moments in a game world that disrupt visual consistency or serve as storytelling short cuts that don't do the medium justice.   This week the Moving Pixels podcast crew discuss the history of the cutscene in video games, what they may or may not have evolved into, and whether or not they still have a place in video game storytelling.

The boss fight has been a part of gaming since very near to the time of its inception. Serving a variety of roles in offering greater challenge, suggesting the climax of a game and plot, and just simply creating a spectacle for the player, has the boss fight merely become a cliched and expected "requirement" of games?   This week we consider the history and evolution of the boss fight in gaming, as well as the possibility of alternatives to this most expected of medium conventions.

With the holiday game season upon us, the Moving Pixels blog and podcast crew have turned their atention to some of the biggest releases of the year. The ostensible "final chapter" of the Gears of War saga is, of course, one of these most anticipated of titles.   Given Gears importance in this console generation, as one of the titles associated with the Xbox 360's early days, the crew discusses how the trilogy has been brought to an end, its approach to multiplayer play, and speculates a bit on where this franchise may be headed in the future.

So, as my colleague in podcasting, Rick Dakan, observed, this week's episode is a little self indulgent (but that's okay, I guess, as I just wrote a little about the relationship between self indulgence and gaming last week).   We have been wanting to discuss a bit about how it is that "the gamer" identity is formed, so we spent some time chatting a bit about our own relationship to games and gaming and how we came to play the ways that we do. We consider our relationship to chess, sports, board games, and RPGs and what these things might have to do with who we are. Confessional as some of this discussion might be, there are some interesting similarities that emerge between our experience of growing up as gamers.

High scores, achievements, leveling up. The system runs on points, measures us in points, validates us in points.   This week the Moving Pixels podcast considers the value of points. What points matter to us? Why do we want them? Why do they matter?

Nothing says vacation quite like a beach full of zombies.   After the controversy and excitement surrounding the release of its trailer earlier in the year, many gamers wondered whether that possibly exploitative, possibly sophisticated bit of a teaser for Dead Island was really representative of what this open world, survival horror hybrid would be.   This week the Moving Pixels podcast attempts to answer that question as well as considers other elements of the zombie-infested beach fronts of Dead Island.

So, our Moving Pixels podcast crew spent a couple of weeks playing in fits and starts (well, because that's the way you have to play social games) the beta version of Sid Meier's CivWorld.   The game seems an effort to capture a narrower audience of Facebook gamers, a more hardcore crowd, or possibly to introduce casual players to the Civilization universe. We consider the game's success at doing so and whether or not social games can legitimately appeal to a hardcore audience.

Maybe serving as a follow up to our discussion of difficulty in games comes a discussion of something that usually makes gaming "easier", cheating.   We consider whether cheating matters in both single and multiplayer gaming as our discussion strays from the most malicious hacking and griefing to even the seemingly benign use of FAQs and video walkthroughs to help us "get through".

Difficulty can be frustrating. It can also create challenge for the player.   This week the Moving Pixels Podcast considers how difficulty contributes to the pleasure and pain of gaming.

This week regular podcast contributors G. Christopher Williams and Nick Dinicola are joined by veteran podcaster Scott Juster of ExperiencePoints.net for a discussion of auteur theory and how it may or not apply to a discussion of video game development.   Playing fast and loose with the concept of the auteur, we consider both some aesthetic concerns, issues of intentionality in communicating such a "signature" of self in a game, and how marketing and commerce might be affected by the way that game developers present themselves to the public.

This week G. Christopher Williams and Nick Dinicola form a dynamic duo of flash game playin', flash game analyzin', and flash game discussin' excitement.   We take a look at three of 2011's more interesting releases, Jonas Kyratzes's Alphaland, Thomas Brush's Skinny, and Sarah Northway's Rebuild. Two of the titles are platformers and one is a turn-based strategy game, and they feature anxious video game worlds in progress, scary mommy AIs, and, of course, the hungry zombie hordes.   If you want to play along as you listen (or better yet, before you listen), you can find Alphaland and Skinny at New Grounds. Look for Rebuild over at Kongregate.