It’s all about the narrative. This week, two games, both widely divergent in theme and scope, caught my fancy because of their stories. Neither will likely sell like L.A. Noire here in the U.S., one because it’s too small, and the other, because its nightmarish tale is weird and long-winded. Yet both are fascinating examples…
It’s been a bit of a rough week. But it’s great to know that Critics Circle member Andrew Yoon has a landed a new gig as East Coast Editor of Shacknews. Yoon’s got a fine, critical eye and a properly ascerbic writing style. I’ll be checking out Shacknews much more often now that Andrew’s there.…
Mike Snider at USA Today did a fine profile of my new book on Tuesday. I was asked to do a piece for their website. That did not make it in to the package. So here it is now, light and breezy in that USA Today style. Five Things You Don’t Know About All Your…
Adam Moss, the editor in chief of New York magazine, is one of the greatest Manhattan editors – ever. He hires the best and the brightest, and he was my first editor when I came to New York City. He gets writers in the sense that he lets them shine while getting what he wants…
Back in the late 1990s, I interviewed Danny Bilson for a pre-E3 story about movies and games in The Hollywood Reporter. Bilson told a story about sitting on a plane and meeting a videogame executive. As the story unfolded, Bilson talked animatedly about his love for games. And he got a good gig – not…
Here’s a personal take on the 3DS, with links to a a few (but not all) of the previews I wrote for G4TV: It’s got the Wow Factor, and it’s had it since last year’s E3. Now, thanks to a Nintendo press conference in downtown New York City, it’s got a release date of…
Minding my own business, I was quietly searching for videogames that will be coming out later in the year. I’ve always thought that GameSpy has had the most comprehensive, up-to-date game release schedule. But for the upcoming Jurassic Park game, some lackadaisical writer at GameSpy wrote: “This episodic game series is based on the John…
In this portion of our week-long Q/A, Mac Walters waxes on about the Mass Effect comic. How does it distinguish itself from the videogame? And how is it like the videogame. Mac tells you, right here. HG: When you look at Mass Effect as a comic in particular, do you always look at what readers…
Today, Mass Effect’s Mac Walters continues to speak about the craft of writing, giving you a look at the complete writing process for the series which takes place at BioWare’s lair in Vancouver HG: You’re writing up to 30,000 lines of script per game. How do you manage that? MW: It’s up to me as…
A while back, Mass Effect genius Mac Walters and I had a talk about the art of writing in the science fiction videogame series, the latest iteration of which tops many year end lists this year. About one-sixth of this five-part series was published in EGM. But, as writing in games begins to get the…