The Quixotic Engineer

Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics continues to be a fascinating read. This is, in large part, because so much of his analysis of comics can be directly applied to video games, a new medium currently sorely lacking in critical vocabulary. McCloud has a knack for asking the right questions, and the further I read the faster the little wheels in my head begin to spin. The first chapter of the book asked the question “what is comics?”, which led me to question the definition of video games.

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Over the holidays, I picked up a copy of Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. It’s a comic about comics as a medium, and the concepts and vocabulary (abstraction, closure, transitions, etc.) that define it. McCloud avoids using specific artists, styles, genres or themes as a template, focusing instead on a critical universal examination of the artform. As someone who recently rediscovered comics, it’s been a truly fascinating read. The book also interests me because I can relate many of his ideas to another nascent medium that is of particular interest to me: video games.

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This last week, I was invited to take part in an incredibly ambitious podcast by Michael Abbott of The Brainy Gamer. As part of his gamers confab series (in which I was kindly invited to participate back in September), he has invited nineteen fellow bloggers to talk about their personal favourite games of 2008. Amazingly, the twenty of us picked twenty different titles, showing just how diverse this year in gaming has been.

The three volumes run for about an hour each, which may seem a bit daunting if you’re not a regular podcast listener. However, the discussion is insightful, entertaining, delightful and well worth your time. You can find my conversation with Chris Dahlen and Michael “Sparky” Clarkson in the second half of Volume 2.

• Download Volume 1, Volume 2 and Volume 3 [MP3]
• Subscribe via iTunes
• Subscribe to the feed

I also wrote up my top 10 games of 2008 for Snackbar, as part of their staff picks series. Once again there was very little selection consensus, a stark contrast to 2007’s focus on titles such as Bioshock and Portal. A pessimist (*cough*) might say that this is a symptom of the large number of “great but flawed” titles released this year. I choose to believe that this is the natural progression of video games maturing as a medium. The audience for games is no longer homogeneous, and neither are our tastes.

My second review over at Snackbar Games is now up, wherein I compare Sam & Max: Season One for the Wii to a sitcom. I doubt I’m the first to describe it as such (the name and format certainly lend themselves to the comparison), but I think I’ve made a convincing case as to why it is apt.

Snackbar Games – Sam & Max: Season One Review

On an unrelated note, I know a number of us are compiling “best games of 2008” lists this month (some happily, others not so much), but a year is a long and memory is short. I can hardly remember what February was like, let alone what games were released that month.

With this in mind, I took a moment to scrape the Giant Bomb release calendar and compile a master list of games released in 2008. I hope its handy in jogging your memory about some of the great titles released last winter (hint: No More Heroes).

Disclaimer: I received a review copy of Sam & Max: Season One via Snackbar Games.

As often happens with hyped-up games, Mirror’s Edge fell short of many people’s lofty expectations. Some complained about its length (I managed to complete the story mode in two solid evenings of gaming). Others criticized the cliché-ridden story, which was seemingly written with the philosophy that: “Sudden betrayals are shocking, the more the better!” However, I think most people would have overlooked these flaws if DICE had managed to nail the gameplay. Unfortunately, Mirror’s Edge is the victim of a compromised vision.

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