Recent content by Bongo Bill

I'd say it's less a matter of whether you've got a reason to be doing it - although this is certainly a large part - and more a matter of whether the act of doing the same basic thing over and over again is literally the same few actions repeated. Each frag in an FPS plays out differently...

That was me five years ago, though not because of the interface density. Rather, it was because they frontloaded the game with all the most boring fetch-me-X-of-Y quests. I don't know, nor do I particularly care to find out, if they've fixed that in the intervening years.

Zynga's success is based on marketing. Automated viral marketing, to be precise. Not on design. I've always said that marketing is the most important part in determining whether a game is popular, and furthermore that traditional games not published by Nintendo have utterly failed to be...

I seem to recall reading somewhere that Valve has actually already made and tested the patch that would disable Steam's copy protection. Can't find the source - if someone would oblige, that'd be just swell - but there's hope yet.

I am continually surprised at how well the premise for After Curfiew works. I can guarantee you that when I collaborate with alien invaders in exchange for nominal dictatorial control over the dystopian ruins of civilization, starting my own late-night talk show will be one of my top priorities.

The solution: eliminate the level grind and go with purely organic divisions to content.

I like hard games but sometimes it is too much. I feel confident in my ability to resist cheats when they are available and really savor the challenge, but apparently some people are not so confident.

I'd like to believe that, but I've seen it devour too many souls. Right in front of me, even!

Compounding this is the classic problem of DikuMUD mechanics, raiding, and the like. Begins to feel like work. Some people end up paying for an activity that feels like something they should be getting paid for. If an MMO existed that I was confident was a good game and which would go for...

That's what I like about your articles, Shamus: the relentless optimism that flies in the face of all experience.

Better a bad demo than no demo, I guess. That's one trend I'm glad to see. The last demo that sold anything to me was Braid.

You're a monster.

I take issue with the use of the term "conservative Christians" to describe the people doing this. Let's not dignify these morons by associating them with conservatism or Christianity.

Punishment is not the only reason to fear committing a crime. There is also the matter of social stigma. Sure, nobody can send you to jail for robbing that store, but everybody knows you did it without a second thought. You'll never face punishment for killing that guy, but for the rest of your...

The games weren't the really important part of this. Abandonware sites come and go, and HotU really didn't have enough bandwidth to host all of those otherwise-unavailable games. But, in the days before Mobygames [http://www.mobygames.com/]' database got really substantial, it was a gold mine of...