Sunday is about lifting a cold glass, hearing the thud, and realizing your coaster is stuck in the bottom. Before you pick it up, let’s read this week’s best articles about gaming (and gaming-related things).
In The New Yorker, Simon Parkin writes about how Battle Royale is taking over video games. Parkin examines the Japanese novel that gave birth to the video game phenomenon, from the Arma 2 mod to giants like Call Of Duty.
To introduce long-distance bullet drops, they rewrote the game’s ballistics system, and in the process realized that the series had been accelerating over the years, with characters running at about fifty miles an hour. In Warzone, it’s nearly impossible to hit distant moving targets. The animators installed a bank of LED lights in the studio that would fire in sequence to show how fast the character was running; after trying to run a red light, they reduced their top speed by 20%, causing some in the convoy to hesitate. decision. “A designer said to me, ‘Congratulations, you ruined this game,'” Infinity Ward’s studio head Patrick Kelly told me.
Tom Phillips wrote a news article for Eurogamer about how the history of Cyprus is becoming an issue in Pokémon Go. It was eye-opening how many players in the Cyprus buffer zone were deprived of a game built around community. It’s also a lively history lesson for someone like me who doesn’t know much about the country’s past.
History lessons aside, the country is still divided by the UN buffer zone, a red ribbon on the map that runs across the middle of the country. The internationally unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus lies to the north, while the greater Greek Cypriot-dominated part of the island lies to the south. In between is the buffer zone – an area that sounds like a hazard on paper, but is actually home to 10,000 people – where Pokémon can’t spawn naturally.
On The Verge, Mia Sato and James Vincent venture into CNET’s AI-powered SEO money machine. Company morale is low, and their use of AI-generated words is largely kept under wraps. Not to mention that it’s moving “content” toward a farming model where a click and a quick flash of an ad will suffice.
On her last day, CNET senior editor Rae Hodge sent a farewell email to hundreds of her colleagues, imploring them to view their AI colleagues with more suspicion. Her email begins with a screenshot of a resignation letter generated by ChatGPT. “I’m writing this letter using AI-generated content,” the note read. “While these words may not have been written by me, I hope they express my sincere appreciation for my colleagues and the work we have accomplished together.”
For Unwinnable, Madison Butler compared The Case Of The Golden Idol to Return Of The Obra Dinn’s storytelling and player presence. According to Butler, it’s the games’ differences, not their similarities, that make them stand out in the suspense genre.
The Golden Idol case, on the other hand, is completely linear. As the plot develops, Edmund Cloudsley and his cohorts use idols to gain popularity and influence, and the tension of the game hinges on whether anyone can stop them from rising to power and usurping the British monarchy. The answer is yes, thanks in no small part to Edmund’s hubris. In the end, neither the Idol nor his wealth could save him, and the Rebellion was destroyed along with the Idol. Watching Edmund’s downfall offers a catharsis, unlike the satisfaction of getting a job done in O’Bradin Returns. The record of events in “The Case of the Golden Statue” is more of a cautionary tale than a ledger of arrears paid.
This week’s music is The One by INJI. Here’s the Spotify link and the YouTube link. rustic, warm, so Catchy.
That’s it for this week, have a great weekend!