Note for myself: check publications at http://www.thechineseroom.co.uk/.

Just game across with A chronological history of computer, video games and related technologies.

Graveyard (Tale of Tales) is a small game (or one could say it is game-like thingie) in which player controls an old lady who visits a graveyard. All there is to accomplish is to walk to church and sit a bench next to, yet the game manages to keep you interested. If you buy a full version, there is a change that the lady dies. Designers of the game  are writing a postmortem that is still unfinished, but, even in half-finished state, is an interesting read.

Next Generation lists The top 100 selling games of the last 12 months. They promise to publish a detailed look of the selling data tomorrow (also the older list with some descriptive statistics is available).

I am not sure if the sales list is usable for anything, but I decided to make a note of this if I would like to site or take a deeper look on the best selling titles later on.

Update (12.4.): Best selling games — the analysis is available.

I have been playing Assassin’s Creed and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Both games are really beautiful in visual sense.

Altair the player character in Assassin’s Creed is depicted nicely. It is easy to make Altair jump and climb, and powerful (and easy to learn) counter attacks suits to the character which is skilled assassin. Unfortunately missions in the game are not that good. They are repetitive and boring.

Nathan Drake, the player character of Uncharted, is finely animated. The movements, actions, and expressions are believable. Nathan is pulp hero and and believable as character, even with his ability to perform inhuman jumps. The game was mostly fun to play. For me, the game contained too many long obligatory and repetitive fights. The enemies were mainly pirates, but pirate’s persistence and willingness to take bullets just seem unbelievable; how many pirates there are and why they are so eager to risk they life and die one after another.

Anyhow, Uncharted hooked me, and I played it thought quickly. On the other hand, I am not sure if I ever finish Assassin’ Creed.

BioShock seem to be interesting game, as it made Kohler title his review: “Creepy Moral Dilemmas Make BioShock a Sophisticated Shooter“.

The review left me wonder are there moral dilemmas, in which all alternatives of a choice have ingame consequences, or are there just choices where a morally doubtful alternative are better (unless you  count the representation of the alternative)?

Keith Stuart (Guardian Games Blog) discuss on Manhunt 2 ban in England in Manhunt 2 ‘ban’ – it’s good, but is it right? He raises a question whether games are judged in same standards as film. He points to BBCF report, which, quoting Stuart, “suggested that watching violence on TV could be more upsetting than playing violent video games” (Stuart, see also BBCF report, p. 13). This point can used as argument for why game violence is more dangerous than film violence, but as the report states that “[m]ost gamers concentrate on their own survival rather than on the damage they inflict on others” (BBCF report, p. 12), the argument (as supporting that game violence is more dangerous than film violence) is not well grounded, at least based on research in BBCF report.

As Stuart argues, it seems that there are different standards to film and games (and literature).

There is a worrying proposal at EU parliament:

Motion for a European Parliament resolution on a ban on the sale and distribution in Europe of the video game ‘Rule of Rose’ and the creation of a European Observatory on childhood and minors (B6‑0023/2007).

While I share the concern for children and minors, it seems that motion is attack against the game Rule of Rose in a disguise of protecting children and minors. However, is the assertion made in motion (“[Rule of Rose] features children and perverse, violent and sadistic images that are harmful to human dignity”) really grounded?

I haven’t played the game, but based on review at Game Spot the assertion seems not to be very insightful. Greg Kasavin writes:

The gameplay itself simply involves making Jennifer run around collecting things, avoiding enemies, and occasionally solving puzzles. When you’ve got Brown the dog with you, which is most of the time, you can use him to help lead you around. (Kasavin, 2006.)

Rule of Rose earns points for broaching some subject matter that’s fairly bold for gaming, and while a game with such an unsettling subject shouldn’t necessarily be fun in the purest sense, it also shouldn’t be boring. (Kasavin, 2006.)

According to the review, the game contains cinematics that might be the source of worry. If the context of the game is described fairly then, for example, Grimm’s version of Cinderella, Lolita by Nabrokov, and whole production of de Sade should also be banned by the same logics behind the motion.

It seems that I should play the game to make my own judgment. Unfortunately, the game is described to be boring.

I finished Deus Ex: Invisible War yesterday evening. The game is interesting and it seems contain branching goal structure with various endings. The game balances between offering choices to a player, that will influence how the game progress, and coherent information structure. (I need to play the game again to the how that works.) In contrast to Deus Ex, fractions are portraited more or less in neural fashion, which lead to a problem: choices in the final parts of the game seems meaningless–I did not find grounds to prefer one alternative from another. All choices seem to be equally bad. Thus the choices rendered the end to anticlimax, which was pity; I really enjoyed the game.

Dirty Dancing game is is developed by Say Design. The game is based on film with the same name released in 1987 starred by Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze. The game is told to be casual action puzzle game, whatever that means. Sounds potentially interesting game. (From http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=77018)

John Woo and Warren Spector teams up to create film and game Ninja. Warren Spector explains the idea behind the project:

This was an attempt to create a concept that would work in, and be developed for, a variety of media simultaneously. That’s something new for games — and for movies.
(Reuters)

Waiting with interest what Woo and Spector will cook up.