Recent content by Thaius

Hey Escapists! It's been a while since I've been active on these forums, but since then I've gone on to teach a video game literature class to high school students, and I've started a webseries based on the course! This is one of the monthly literary analysis episodes, where I explore the...

I'm a teacher working on a video series exploring storytelling in video games, and wanting to get a bunch of episodes written before actually putting the series online. Right now, I'm working on an episode exploring the storytelling triumphs and failures of the Call of Duty franchise. World at...

"End of Silence," by Red. Just, every song is absolutely wonderful. Their later album, Until We Have Faces, isn't quite as good, but still fantastic. I'd also put "The Heart of Everything," by Within Temptation, on the list.

Either would serve the purpose well, but for the sake of avoiding potential awkwardness with The Room's decently graphic sex scenes, I'd go for Birdemic.

Better male actors? Hugh Jackman as Valjean is a freakin' dream, especially for the musical. I'm insanely happy with the casting. Thing about the Liam Neeson movie is that, while the first half was pretty much perfect, the second half raped the story so badly the whole thing left a bad...

I noticed this too, and it surprised me. Especially considering this is the first time the musical has been adapted to film so completely; short of things like filmed concert editions and such, this is the first time a film has adapted the musical instead of taking its story straight from the...

This discussion is for future iterations of the class; I already have this year planned out. I haven't had too much experience with RTS games, and I'm not going to try to teach on a game I haven't played. So I'll play some of the recommended games over the course of the school year, and I'll...

Okay, awesome then. I've seen a lot of people hold the, "It's only good interactive storytelling if it's all about player control," which simply isn't how it works. Guess I jumped to it on that one; sorry about that. But yes, the concept you speak of is certainly a valid one, and it's being...

Oh, there are plenty of games fitting the criteria. Many of the best I can't use in the class (be it due to an M-rating since this is a high school class, or because system exclusivity makes them too inaccessible), but they certainly exist. Sure, most video games suck from an artistic...

I think it will be. I'm so glad the school went with it; it's a charter school spread throughout my county, so they're more willing to try new media classes and such than the public system would be. I'm real excited to see how it turns out. Though the logistics are a pain... I honestly think...

Tomorrow I start my teaching job. One of the classes I'm insanely excited to be teaching is Video Games as Literature (the study of video games as a storytelling medium). I have a pretty good setup for the course, I think, but I have one friend who constantly laments the fact that I have no...

Uh, yes. Yes it is. That's why it's on this list.

If you say so. But no. You've now activated my detail-oriented fanboy mode. :D You don't have to read it if you don't want to, but this will be really fun to write anyway. And this only for Book 1; there's no way in which later seasons can be accused of having significant amounts of...

Filler? As a fan who's seen the show 8 times from beginning to end, I can guarantee there is only one episode in the entire series that is entirely irrelevant to later episodes (The Great Divide). Book 1 did have a lot of seemingly disconnected and meaningless episodes, but they got better...

If Windows 8 inspires developers to move to Mac (say what you will, but it's not nearly this restricted), I will laugh. And dance.