Discovering The Worlds Written In Code
Shortly after trespassing into the abandoned Baker estate, you wake to find yourself sitting at the dining table surrounded by the family of psychotic redneck owners, the left hand that you’d just had chopped off stapled back on. It’s a surprising setting for a Resident Evil game, not only because you’re watching it all from … Continue reading "Biohazard Coming Home: When Survival Horror Returned…
By Resident Evil 5, the series has morphed from a slow burn horror game that emulated a B zombie film into a bombastic action horror co-op spectacular, using a selectable mission-based structure that told an episodic story about bioterrorism. The change from classic survival horror began as early as RE2, adding action elements, scope, and … Continue reading "Resident Evil’s Revelations: How…
Videogame history is incremental additions to mechanics and systems, series and genres, and technology and production pipelines, and following their cinematic shooter Resident Evil, Capcom began applying its 3D action model to more genres, swapping elements to experiment without breaking. The PlayStation 2 primed the design for the design’s second generation, and Jun Takeuchi’s Onimusha: ……
In Miyamoto Musashi’s landmark The Book of Five Rings, the legendary Japanese swordsman illuminates a lifetime’s worth of martial arts philosophy, expressing the warrior archetype as a carpenter who must master all the tools of his trade to build a fortified defense in a world where violence has consequences. Videogames ability to convey those consequences … Continue reading "To Live and Die by…
Aya Brea’s date night at Carnegie Hall is tragically cut short when the show’s new singer eyes her in the audience, activating an unknown ability deep in her cells that lights everyone in attendance on fire except the stunned NYPD detective who chases the mutated Eve backstage. The theater is a perfect place to start … Continue reading "Parasite Eve (or, SquareSoft’s Experimental Cinematic RPG)"
A Biohazard Outbreak When Special Tactics And Rescue Squad’s Bravo team goes dark in Raccoon City’s Arklay Mountains while investigating grizzly murders, the Alpha team rescue party finds itself in a firefight against bloody claws and gnashing teeth, a scene Resident Evil brings to life with real actors dashing through the woods towards the safety … Continue reading "Splicing Gen(r)es:…
If the original Street Fighter represented Ryu’s quest to climb the metaphorical mountain of martial arts mastery through willpower and multi-disciplined training, then Seth, Street Fighter IV’s boss, is the antithesis, an engineered creation that technologically combined the moves of the greatest fighters to leap straight to the top. By SFIII, the series’ core evolved … Continue reading…
The first chapter in Transformers: Devastation showcases the game’s strong design, pitting the Autobots led by Optimus Prime against the Constructicons. Transforming between their bot and alt forms, the Decepticon construction crew is deadly individually and tricky when grouped, and both sides unleash melee weapons and guns before transforming again and hitting turbo. These cool-looking … Continue…
Iterating gameplay is a crucial part of the videogame design process to streamline the strong elements and improve the weaker, especially important for competitive genres where devs balance thousands of different aspects to make it fair. But with a game’s subsequent releases, a developer risks changing the base structure too much and making it unrecognizable. … Continue reading "The Rise of…
With its rhythmic striking system that hits at different heights, Street Fighter‘s combat system was expanded to become a branching, freestyle duet in SFII, sung by the sound effects and character voice samples. After Street Fighter Alpha’s swappable systems pushed the series’ fighting game formula to it’s limits, Capcom streamlined its base mechanics and meter … Continue reading "Mixin’ Knock Out…