You could be fooled in to thinking my output is on the decline. These days I am lucky to get one post up a week here on DoFuss (though I already have one ready for this week) but the reason is not a dip in my passion, but instead an increase in unseen (or at least alternately located) work.

Contributing to a number of sites saps the time I can dedicate to DoFuss, but does have the advantage of generating links and netting me some free games. Yes, I wish I had more time to play games I wanted to and dedicate to my the site here, and no, many of the games that I now ‘have’ to play are good. But the experience of writing under editors to deadlines is proving more satisfying than I could have ever anticipated.

Here is a selection of links and snippets from recent reviews and articles on a number of sites. My pride in each piece varies it is true, indeed it is interesting to see how temperamental I can be when a game holds no interest, or when I write while overly tired. Still it makes a good cross section of my work in recent months, so see what takes your fancy and go and have a look.

Game People is a new UK based site that is already gaining traction by virtue of some fantastic writers and their column on The Escapist. Every article focuses on an individual’s perspective about a game. It is unabashedly subjective, aiming to give readers the opportunity to understand each contributor’s personality and decide whose opinion they trust.

At Game People I am known as Scared Gamer. Writing articles and reviews from my own personal experience I focus on fear and violence in games. Here is a fraction of my work for the site, with lots waiting to be posted and still more sat as unfinished files on my desktop.

Dragon Age Origins – PC (Review)
Dragon Age Origins roundly impressed with genuine relationships and perplexing moral choices. While everyone will play this game for different reasons, I fell in love with the characters and their stories.

See the full article here.

Metroid Prime Trilogy – Wii (Review)
Metroid Prime Trilogy’s genuine sense of place not only sucked me into its universe but unnerved me to the core. Helmeted claustrophobic scary excitement and all on the diminutive unassuming little Nintendo Wii.

See the full article here.

Spectrobes: Origins – Wii (Review)
Spectrobes: Origins has all the gloss and quality you’d expect from Disney. Although not hugely improving on Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals this is a strong Japanese style Role Play Game once you get past the sacchrine visuals and storyline. That’s about as scary as it gets though.

See the full article here.

Dementium: The Ward – DS (Review)
Dementium: The Ward manages the impossible, a full 3D survival horror on the DS. In hand though it is unclear whether we really wanted this. Clever ideas and atmosphere wrestle with the small screen and dark visuals to make their impact. There are strong moments here, provided you find a secluded spot in which to play.

See the full article here.

Vertigo Again (Article)
Some fears are innate; from birth they afflict every one of us, from an ingrained understanding of the threat posed to us. One of the most primitive of these is the fear of heights. The majority of people learn to overcome this fear, or at least control it. Others are not so lucky, their dread becomes so acute that it manifests its self physically causing dizziness and nausea. In some rare cases this fear can grow to an irrational level, making even moderate heights insurmountable.

See the full article here.

Sounding Scared (Article)
I never realised how evocative sound could be. I suppose I should have, remembering the night I was near paralysed by the sound of children playing on rusted playground equipment - memories of Silent Hill flooded in to terrify me. Yet even this drunken encounter didn’t drive home to me just how powerful sound could be.

See the full article here.

Little League World Series Baseball 2009 – Wii (Review)
Little League takes Wii-Sports Baseball to the next level without overcomplicating the action. Hoping to take a breather from scary games this week, I had forgotten my sporting misapprehensions. Little League World Series Baseball on the Wii helped me put them to bed once and for all though.

See the full article here.

Play Devil is a European site, established ten years ago. Here I focus primarily on reviews of XBLA and PSN games. It has been a mixed bag as regards the games I have received, with some being amazing (and pre-release) while others have had me near homicidal at the though of having to complete them.

Editorially they are very supportive, but being small they also often need to court favor with publishers which sees some of my scores and text muted before they are published. So far this has never been dramatic enough to cause any really trouble as the granularity in the 100% scale has left me feeling on the whole uncompromised, but it would be interesting to see what would happen if one day I was completely contrary in my opinion to the majority of other sites.

Gravity Crash – PSN (Review)
Gravity Crash relies on the pull of gravity and physics to supply much of its challenge. Your craft suffers the constant downwards pull of gravity, ensuring that there is no idle time in the game, as unless you are careful you ship will drop to the surface of the planet.

See the full article here.

Pixeljunk Shooter –PSN (Review)
Over the course of three titles Q-Games has managed to build the Pixeljunk brand into one of the most recognized in the downloadable console space. Every game in the series has been to all outward appearances disparate, each with its own visual style and gameplay. But underlying each title is a single common thread; stylish and inventive two-dimensional gaming.

See the full article here.

Smash Cars – PSN (Review)
Smash Cars makes a good first impression. Your tiny R.C. monster truck is cute when juxtaposed against the life-sized beach and pier setting of the opening levels. Tearing around the track give a good sense of speed that combines well with the light nature of you diminutive car. Somehow the floatier feel these small cars makes the game stand out from a lot of other arcade racers on the market and goes some of the way to excusing some of the cars more outlandish properties, such as the ability to jump (and the inclusion of nitro).

See the full article here.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – PS3 (Review)
The writing was refined both in the characterizations and the scale of the story. Returning characters are expanded upon, and perhaps more importantly additional cast arrive. Each member is significantly more believable than the majority of game characters thanks to the wonderful script, which is bought to life by the vocal talent. Through out the interaction between the cast members is a joy to listen to, and fortunately it isn’t limited to the cut scenes as characters continually banter back and forth continually, ensuring that you are consistently entertained even when the action is of a slower pace.

See the full article here.

Military Madness: Nectaris – PSN (Review)
Perhaps my biggest problem with Military Madness comes from its story’s heritage. An Earth force sent to battle convicts rebelling from their force labour mines on the moon. While it is undeniably clichéd, the plot serves as a serviceable setting for the action. Unfortunately the moon does not serve as a fantastic environment for today’s more visually demanding audiences.

See the full article here.

Video Game Reviews is UK site I contributed articles to for a short time. Recently the editor of the site contacted me again to write some articles for its sister site Xboxer 360 (so I must have been doing something right). Here are two of the articles I wrote for them, and keep an eye on Xboxer 360 for my upcoming article ‘Post Natal Depression’.

Sex, Lies and Console Wars (Article)
Now I have to ask you bear with me through this comparison of why “console wars” are stupid. Some of what is said to many could be considered immoral, but I regret none of it and everyone involved was aware of my situation. It regards a time in my life when I was broken hearted and I went on what something of a binge before I left University. It was a week of fun and stress that made me realize it doesn’t matter what you have you should be happy with it, and more importantly, there is no need to try and denigrate other peoples fun for the sake of you own sense of self worth.

See the full article here.

An Open Letter To Fanboys (Article)
There always seems to be huge furore over console exclusive titles. Games that platform holders either developed themselves, or heavily subsided. The presumed quality of these titles is based solely on the simple fanboy logic that if their manufacturer of choice feels a game is good enough to grant it the seal of ‘PS3 Exclusive’ or ‘Only on Xbox 360’ then somehow it must be justifiably better than other titles on the market.

See the full article here.

It was not really a random remark, but a question so simple that I had somehow never asked it of myself. My friend (and podcast co-host) Darren was visiting me in Japan and we were considering my return to the UK when he asked, ‘Well, what do you really want to do?’

Whenever I had considered my options up until that point I always though about my proven talents and what would make me money while at the same time not driving me mad. I had considered opening a bar, teaching, maybe even trying to earn a PhD. But in all my deliberation one clause had been missing, and Darren asked it, ‘…really want…’

In the third grade of middle school Darren and I had actually tried to write a gaming magazine for our school. I remember that I had no understanding of the bracketed comments from Ed. I knew it referred to the editor, but my idea of what that meant was hazy at best. Believing them to be humorous I inserted random ‘funny’ comments throughout my childish prose. We never finished a single issue of our ‘magazine’ but my passion for gaming never diminished.

My answer came to me faster than I had ever imagined, ‘I want to write about games’. Yes, not the most eloquent of responses, but my point was clear enough. My doubts about any ability I had to actually to achieve this were secondary to the question posed to me, because what I really wanted was to talk about games as a profession.

It was only after moving to Japan that I began to realise there was a new audience for games. While the foreign populous of gamers would be hard to define as ‘average’ their numbers were liberating. I began having adult, and often drunken, conversations about all facets of gaming. Design, story and cultural implications were reoccurring topics in which I found myself consistently and vehemently defending games as more than mindless entertainment.

My isolation from English gaming magazines at this time turned me to new sources for my information. Suddenly rather than GameTM and Edge I was reading numerous websites and discovering that while much of their content was reminiscent of magazines I read when I was younger, yet every site hid an undercurrent of mature discussion in some of their posts.

As my western friends slowly returned to their home countries my debates on the merits of gaming abated. I turned to websites for information and dialogues. I found the best of the online receptacles of information could flit within single articles between the serious considered opinions I held, and a jovial humour that ensured the writing never became stale.

I was at this time that I turned to podcasts. I found them an invaluable source of information that didn’t require the same engagement as reading an article. Shows that could last for hours gave voices to writers, and shows like GFW Radio gave me a broader view of current topics in the media and insight into the construction of articles while never ceasing to entertain.

All this brings me to the birth of DoFuss.net. Not as a career, but as a learning tool and portfolio. In creating the site, I changed the way I think. Everyday sees the genesis of a new topic for discussion that I may or may never realise in text. I now can’t imagine attending events or following the game industry without the critical eye and focus my writing has given me. It is a change I adore.

I confess my reflections of the decade have been somewhat personal. But I don’t think I am alone in my experience of the last ten years. Blogging has exploded, offering more outlets for opinion and information. It is a trend I am sure will only continue to grow and while I embrace it I do bemoan the fact that the noise sometimes makes it harder to separate the ‘Okami’ from the ‘Imagine Horses’.

Thank you Darren, for inspiring this obsession of mine and letting me discover what I really wanted to do. Also thank you to any and all who read this or my other articles on DoFuss (or the other sites I contribute to) I appreciate your time and input (especially Feitclub and Blokey for their continuing contributions).

Next post will be back to gaming proper, I promise.

I have to listen to every show through again while I edit. Because of this I have started to notice a very different tone (and length) depending on my cohort for the episode. My conclusion is that I am failing in my roll as a host. Not that this is necessarily bad, but next time (whoever is with me) I am wrestling back some control and giving this show some consistence.

Maybe.

This episode underwent a number of late changes. Our special guest (Blokey from the UUDD forums) was unfortunately unable to make it at the last moment, so will be joining us next time. Darren was also unavailable so it fell to Dan to pick up the mantel of the second spot.

We touch on numerous topics as summary of which can be seen here courtesy of Dan’s impeccable planning. It was fortunate his outline was so thorough too, otherwise there wouldn’t have been a show because the plan was to revolve everything around forums and Blokey… YOU HEAR THAT BLOKEY.

Ahem… I am sure he will be able make it next time along with Darren, so keep an eye on the site for that. Enjoy the show.

The gaming audience has expanded in the last decade. From the pastime of children and cool/geek dads, games have widened their reach to embrace almost everyone. Whether it is annoying you with Mafia Wars invites on Facebook, or quietly playing Sudoku on an iPhone, the chances are each of your friends spends at least a small percentage of their life ‘gaming’ (even the sporty ones you think looks down their nose at you).

Casual gamers (or non-self identifying gamers) of course make up a vast proportion of the gaming populous, people who use social games as a mild distraction between emails at work. But the expansion of gaming’s acceptance isn’t limited to these ‘uncommitted’ groups. The children who used to play are now professional people and, contrary to the protestation’s of their mother, they never grew out of gaming.

As gamers aged their interests outside gaming diversified, and they wanted this reflected in their games. New genres emerged to appeal to these new demographics. Games designed to cater for ever facet of life could be found. Social, party and casual games all bought the hobby out of the bedroom and in to the public consciousness. Even traditional games started to see a change, with mature titles (in the literal sense of the word, not gore and oversized boobies) starting to gain visibility along with the stereotypical ‘kiddie’ diversions.

A mature development community, eager to stretch their creative legs, met this audience. From the big budget boxed titles to smaller downloadable titles, more variety and risks began to be seen in the topics games addressed.

Scattered among this wealth of new titles are products that it would be hard to clarify as games in the traditional sense of the word. While some have argued that they are games because you can ‘play’ them, I maintain that they are more akin to interactive art. Programs that allow artists to create playgrounds, allowing the audience to interact with their vision in a manner no other medium could.

Which brings me to my memory of the last decade, my discovery of The Path. I had intended to make my decade memories less recent but I find it hard to ignore the impact one 2009 title had on me. I have written extensively about it already, extolled the virtues of the game and its developers (Tale of Tales) at length on numerous sites. Yet still I feel a need to revisit it.

Perversely I am sure I have spent more time writing about The Path than I ever did playing it, but that is exactly why I am so impressed by it. Like any piece of art it stays with its viewer after the experience itself is finished. It inspires conversations and debates for me to this day and now informs my outlook on the medium. These statements are by no means exclusive to The Path, but while most ‘games’ just affect my view of gaming, The Path that directly challenged my views of art and the world before it tried to entertain me.

To further elaborate on The Path would be a disservice to the developer/artists at Tale of Tales. To ask you see their work, its fragility and innocence, is the best compliment I can pay them (even if you only try the demo). If you do, pay attention to your character when she idle, to the artefacts on screen as you move through the world, think about what they were trying to convey through every element of the design, and the story they wanted to tell. If you feel nothing, then it simply wasn’t a piece of art that spoke to you; there will be some that do, if you continue to keep an open mind about the titles you consume.

I had always though games were capable of being art but The Path was my first experience with something committed to the feeling and message the designer/artist wanted to produce. Since then I have delved deeper, learnt of other games that managed to be just as thought provoking (such as “Every day the same dream”), but The Path was my first and continues to hold a special place for me.