Recent content by Same River New Water

This reminds me of my experience with Viva Pinãta. It's all smiles and children's television tie-ins on the surface, but underneath is an infernally complex system of levers and pulleys like something designed by a deep-strategy grognard savant.

People who play video games, on average, are younger and spend more time on the internet than those who don't. This isn't a media effects issue, it's a demographic one.

Bingo. I'd say this has less to do with sexism and more to do with some people in general, and maybe some gamers in particular, being a bit socially reclusive.

It's interesting that a pastor's daughter would hone in on a game called Beyond Good & Evil. I would never bother to play Viva Pinata of my own accord. But to watch a skillful green thumb cultivate a garden that grows at rocket speed... that's very nice. I put off playing any of the...

Haha, I see nobody tells the editor to stick to the word limit! :P Russ, I hope your friend did meet up with those Russian girls, like he said. The world is a better place if his story is true. (Too bad for you, though.) As for going out with a gamer: I highly recommend it. Truly, it is...

So, voting for politicians based on their personal lives is a pretty bad idea, hey? I'm glad we've learned that lesson.

Good point, though when the OP said that a disproportionate number of characters are American, I assume he wasn't talking about the sort of "American" that has a thick Indian accent and a childhood in Mumbai.

That's why most games do star Americans, but it's no reason why they should. It's like saying "we should make a TV show about dancing because a lot of TV shows are about dancing right now." It's TV executive logic. As a side note, there are more wars going on in the world than the ones you...

Here are the countries of the world ranked by democratic freedom, as rated by The Economist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index#2008_ranking The USA polls strongly, at #18. But how many games star main characters from: 1 Sweden 2 Norway 3 Iceland 4 Netherlands 5...

Hmm, that's a big questionable. America might be the biggest single rich market, but it doesn't make up more than half the affluent population of the world. I believe Europe is currently the biggest market for games, for example. And your "Turkish commandos" example sounds fine to me...

Outstanding issue! I can see why the PDF format might not be viable, but it's what first made me love this site, waaaaay back in the early days. That and the quality of the articles, of course. Russ, your article on post-apocalyptic settings prompted me to buy all three Fallout games.

I tend to prefer Western RPGs, but I'm not sure I should compare them. They're just a different genre. There are certainly some excellent JRPGs, but the genre in general features the same flaws so consistently that it becomes tempting to groan at anything new which is described as a JRPG.

Most people - including most people in this thread - are against political correctness because they either: a) misunderstand what it really is, or b) are prejudiced and don't like being called up on it. When people hear "political correctness", they think of this straw man set of laws that...

I'm not engaged yet, but we're well beyond just "dating" and we'll probably get married eventually. Call it "de facto". The man speaks the truth! It's not like my lovely lady ignores me all day, but as soon as I hit the power button on that console, I cannot get a moment's peace. I can hear...

Being a committed gaming non-snob, I once made an effort to play Madden (2007 or so), reasoning that despite the sneers of hardcore gamers, one of the most popular game series of all time must have a lot going for it. I couldn't make head or tail of it. I couldn't find a tutorial, I couldn't...