Loris Z.com

I found out about this while reading RockPaperShotgun. It’s a mod that adds six new areas, new items, characters and quests.

I feel like I’m gonna take the dust off my copy, and I wanted something to during the day, when the heat is killing me.

So here I go, you Conclave bastards…

(Oh, the mod can be downloaded here)

Great, just what I needed: a wonderful distraction.

Many years ago, when the only way I had to play pc games was to stalk some friends, I was really into a series of games named X-COM. Turn-based sci-fi strategy. Man versus the Alien Invasion. Research. Science. Shootings. Fear.

I’ve just read at RockPaperShotgun that there’s a team making an opensource variant of it, named UFO: Alien Invasion.

(UFO was the american name of the X-COM saga)

I’m downloading it now, biting my nails. It looks very good.

The official website is here.

They’re looking for beta testers, so if you have time, give them a hand?

I leave a couple of screenshots.

Kyle Orland plays a different game each weekday during his lunch hour, and writes a stream of consciousness review of it. I don’t necessarily agree with some of the things he says, but it’s an interesting thing, worth reading.

Games for Lunch

(Via Kieron)

I’ve been browsing Insert Credit since last night, reading a lot of things. That website is a wonder, I tell you. Two thing I want to keep at hand:

Tim Rogers review of Super Mario 3. And his review of Metal Gear Solid 2.

I was reading a feature last night, around 3 am, while drinking some coffee. I arrived at a page that almost made me choke with laughter.

Can’t find it now. I’ll see if I can post the link around.

God. I’m gonna need a new, all powerful pc to run that.

You can download the trailer here. (right click, save target as…)

Interesting:

Maybe I can say, “Okay, enjoying simulated murder is wrong. Grand Theft Auto is okay because the simulation is so poor nobody would confuse it for the real thing. And besides, Grand Theft Auto is a really brilliant game; it’s not just about gratuitous violence.” But that opens us up to the slippery slope - I’m drawing the line on one side of GTA but now you have to ask - “What about God of War? What about Manhunt? What about the future when the violence is going to be even more realistic?” And if we’re drawing lines, nothing stops my friend from drawing the line on the other side of GTA

(From Kieron Gillen’s website)

But we’re not laughing, because we don’t get it. Video games were one of the great cosmic pranks of our generation, but the chuckle went straight over our heads. Our parents weren’t quite sure about those games — they might be, y’know, addictive, or something — but they made the kids happier than anything else in the world on Christmas morning, and when they were trying to perfect the Triangle Jump they weren’t using a laundry marker on the walls.

This is glorious.

(Go and watch that video!)

“The question is not whether or not videogames are art, or can be art; that’s a terrible question. Asking if anything is or is not or can be or can not be art is a truly horribly bad question. It’s an microphone-off-shirt-collar-ripping, “This interview is over” kind of question. If I were a producer of any kind of entertainment, that’d be my reaction. Furious exasperation. For God’s sake, before you ask if videogames are art, ask if they’re entertainment. And if you confirm that they are indeed entertainment, ask if they are, or are not, terrorism. ”

An excellent essay by Tim Rogers, found on Kieron Gillen’s site. At Insert Credit.

New Games Journalism rejects this, and argues that the worth of a videogame lies not in the game, but in the gamer. What a gamer feels and thinks as this alien construct takes over all their sensory inputs is what’s interesting here, not just the mechanics of how it got there. Games have always been digital hallucinogens - but games journalism has been like chemistry, discussing the binding reactions to brain sites. What I’m suggesting says what it feels like as the chemical kicks in and reality is remixed around you.
While drug-poetry is certainly one approach to the subject matter -and one the earlier State experiments turned to - it’s not the strongest. “Bow, Nigger”, while being clearly totally subjective, austerely embraces Hemmingway’s cleanness. The tone has to be confessional - what happened to you and how it made you feel - or people simply won’t believe it, or be interested. Pub anecdotes with delusions of grandeur, essentially.

I stumbled upon this on a time where I’m thinking about the subject a little too much. As everything that holds a certain importance in my life, the pieces starts appearing at random, and decantation takes care of the rest.

Bow, Nigger, is a brilliant piece on gaming journalism, and if you have a interest in any of the two, you should go read it. Fuck, go read it anyway.

All of this was found on Kieron Gillen’s website.