There is a moment within Undead Nightmare in which everything you know about protagonist John Marston is turned on its head. It was so poignant, I had to write a note about it to Rockstar’s Sam Houser. (Rockstar is the publisher of the downloadable content, which is an addition to the brilliant Red Dead Redemption.)…
Two words: Tim Schafer. Two more words: Grim Fandango. I’ll be on the road until next Wednesday. But come back them for what I consider the most moving moment in games in the past month or so. Drive on.
So how to wrap up the series about TV and movie executives knowledge of videogames? At the Future of Television East conference, the first guest was Matt Blank, Showtime’s longtime CEO. Along with HBO, Showtime features the best dramatic series on television. From Weeds to Dexter, the quality is compelling, moving and addictive. Surprisingly, one…
You could tell he gets games. Probably the most outwardly passionate executive at last week’s Future of Television East conference was Alan Seiffert, a senior vice president at SyFy Networks. He was engaged. He sat forward when he spoke. He was animated. He was proud of his company. Some executives sat on these panels acting…
At the Future of Television East conference last week, Microsoft’s Frank O’Connor sat on a panel that focused on the grail of transmedia. Halo’s franchise development director is a shortish, stocky guy who looks like a feisty boxer. And he’s proud bordering on arrogant about the lauded series of games that sold so many Xboxes.…
Today, at the Future of Television East conference at NYU’s Stern School of Business, I heard a fair amount of high level executive talk about TV and videogames. The good news? TV executives seem to care about games far more than they used to. But how much knowledge to they actually have? Starting Monday, I’ll…
Back in the raging 1990s, Oscar-nominated animator Bill Plympton partnered with 7th Level to release a game based on his over-the-top cartoons, many of which had been seen on MTV and in the culty animation festivals that were becoming so prevalent in many cities. By today’s standards, Take Your Best Shot, Twisted Arcade Games for…
It’s cliche to say that most movies turned into games are mediocre, or worse. After all, they’re based upon branding and focus groups and generally are marketing tools more than inventive games that move games forward. But just imagine what a terrific platformer director Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away would have made. What a great loss…
This morning, THQ announced that Apocalypse Now screenwriter John Milius has written a novel to be released in tandem with the release of the science fiction game Homefront. It’s called The Voice of Freedom. Homefront, as you’ll note in my G4TV preview, has a wild premise that’s somewhat plausible — at least to the more paranoid…
A while back, I spent many, many hours with Sam Houser at Rockstar Games. We talked about, well, everything under the sun for a narrative history of videogames that will be published next April. Houser’s mind is imbued with a wonderfully extreme, dedicated passion for games and an abiding, maven-like hunger to understand American popular…