Ukens spalte mangler de helt store temaene og sedvanlige kjepphestene, men litt smådrops er aldri feil.
På bloggen Critical Missive har det dukket opp et innlegg som tar et dypdykk i mange ulike sider ved regenererende helse i spill, både fra utviklernes og spillernes synspunkt. Her tar forfatteren for seg både fordeler og ulemper med en mekanikk som har blitt skytespillenes status quo siden Call of Duty 2 populariserte den for syv år siden.
John Walker hos Rock, Paper, Shotgun har intervjuet et par folk fra Ubisoft om piratkopiering og Ubisofts plutselige helomvending hva alltid-på-nett-DRM angår. Intervjuet er greit nok i seg selv, ikke det mest spennende, men det fungerer bra som et bakteppe for de mer interessante refleksjonene Walker la ut i etterkant:
Asking someone a question they aren’t prepared to answer is often far more revealing than pressing “next” on a company’s prepared responses. It’s the same reason a Newsnight or Radio 4 presenter will ask a politician the question they know they’re not prepared to answer – their not answering it is the response the public needs to hear. So while I hoped very much that Ubisoft representatives would acknowledge that ‘always-on’ DRM had been a mistake – because of course it had – from their perspective this isn’t something they can sensibly do.
It comes back to the shareholders. If Ubisoft were to publically say, “The technology we’ve invested huge amounts of money in, and insisted on putting on many of our games, has been a failure, inhibited sales, and not prevented piracy in any way,” it would make for a bloody great interview response, but it would also very likely see shareholders rearing up and demanding to know why their money was wasted, and asking for the heads of those responsible.
Jared Chadwick hos GameChurch har skrevet et lite forsvar for «dating sims», hvor han hevder at sjangeren trass sine lugubre innslag lider under et ufortjent rykte. Han greier til og med å trekke inn Mass Effect i sammenhengen.
Redaktøren hos Ontological Geek har tidligere uttalt at «… Bastion can be understood at least partly as being about how to pick oneself up and move along after a horrible personal Calamity.» Aaron Gotzon har med utgangspunkt i dette skrevet en personlig beretning om hvorfor Bastion traff ham rett i hjertet og hjalp ham opp igjen etter en vond hendelse i livet sitt.
God lesning!
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