video games

“Warlands” Optioned

May 24, 2011 News

Andrew’s first ever romantic comedy screenplay has been optioned. The script, called “Warlands,” deals with a pair of video gamers who fall in love with the same girl gamer. “I never thought I’d write a romantic comedy,” Andrew says, “but I think the story is unique and it had been bothering me for over ten [...]

3 comments Read the full article →

Game: Donkey Kong Country Returns

April 14, 2011 Culture

One of the troubles with technological art forms is that the technology sometimes forces the shape of the art.  Alfred Hitchcock used to complain about this in the movies, even though he was always one of the first to experiment with whatever  new technology came along.  He wasn’t convinced that sound improved film (note Vertigo [...]

3 comments Read the full article →

Video Game: Castlevania, Lord of Shadows

March 12, 2011 Culture

I’ve never liked this franchise much.  I’ve usually found it laughably melodramatic and repetitive.    Plus it’s stuck with that ridiculous title, a holdover from its pixilated origins back in the 80′s. But this latest entry, Lord of Shadows, is different – though it’s still got the ridiculous Castlevania name-tag.  A lot of folks complained [...]

2 comments Read the full article →

Me on Video Games vs. Life

January 24, 2011 Books

Last Friday’s Wall Street Journal ran my review of Jane McGonigal’s Reality is Broken:  Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World: Ms. McGonigal’s notions about how to enliven what gamers call “RL” (“real life”) run the gamut from shallow to, well, that’s it, really. It’s not that she has nothing [...]

1 comment Read the full article →

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune

December 15, 2010 Culture

I wanted to play this game before I played the excellent sequel, but when I popped it into my PS3, it froze on the third or fourth scene.  This was apparently a fairly common problem but if you’ve got an internet hookup, the PS3 now automatically downloads an update that fixes it. If you’ve played [...]

2 comments Read the full article →

Game: Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

November 26, 2010 Culture

For gamers, this is like crack cocaine.  Except, you know, you don’t have to become a prostitute to support the habit.  Unless you want to.  But no, seriously, I loved this and then loved it some more.  Couldn’t stop playing it until the last boss cursed me and died. Can’t for the life of me [...]

0 comments Read the full article →

Video Game: Heavy Rain

September 25, 2010 Culture

This is one of those games that come out every now and then that’s supposed to bring us closer to the realization of full interactive storytelling.  Indigo Prophecy was the last one I played–by the same developer, Quantic Dream–though there may have been others in the meantime.  Generally, I find these games interesting but I [...]

1 comment Read the full article →

Game: Prince of Persia, The Forgotten Sands

August 14, 2010 Culture

The original Prince of Persia, which I never played, was a 1989 platformer for various ancient systems.  When I found the series, in 2003′s Prince of Persia:  The Sands of Time, it had morphed into one of the funnest things ever, a sensational third persion actioner that mixed Lara Croft style jump-and-gun adventure with a [...]

1 comment Read the full article →

God of War 3

July 8, 2010 Culture

First of all, do not let your children play this video game.  If your child is under the age of, say, 35, and you find him playing this game, beat him senseless.  With a broadsword.  That’ll learn em. No, but seriously, amidst all the bloodshed and gore – and there are some brutal scenes here [...]

6 comments Read the full article →

Assassin’s Creed II

April 10, 2010 Uncategorized

When the first Assassin’s Creed video game came out, everyone said how great it was and I–alone, unbowed and unafraid!–declared that it was dreadfully repetitive.  Then, when this sequel came out, all the people who had praised the first one announced, “They’ve fixed the problem of its being repetitive.”  Ha!  Ha, I say!  Where were [...]

1 comment Read the full article →