N'Gai Croal
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Aug 13, 2007 01:25
Q Games' Gunpey for PlayStation Portable
Time flies when you're having fun...or when you're arguing with a good friend. Along with MTV News reporter Stephen Totilo, we've thus far debated and discussed God of War II, the Halo 3 multiplayer beta and Manhunt 2. In this installment, which is also being posted on Totilo's blog MTV News: Multiplayer,
we're taking on an entire category: small games, also known as short
session games. Why? Because as the staff of Level Up gets older, we're
finding ourselves unwilling to commit to the 10-20 hour experiences of
most AAA titles, and increasingly drawn to simpler, more repetitive
games that we can pick up and put down at our leisure.
In the
spirit of our topic, Totilo and Level Up agreed to limit the length
of our individual entries to 500 words or less. Some excerpts from
Round 1:
N'Gai Croal: As we've discussed before, games are
a generally ineffective medium for the plotting and character
development aspects of storytelling. They're much better at action and
exploration, the latter involving moving through landscapes and/or
architecture in order to accomplish one's goals. But during my play
session with The Darkness, my boredom stemmed from my increased
aversion to exploration. I didn't want to navigate a 3-D world. I
wanted a limited, clearly defined play space. I wanted simple rules. I
wanted waves of obstacles to dodge and enemies to blast. I wanted to
twitch and shoot and have the pleasure centers of my brain tapped over
and over again, perpetually poised on the razor's edge between
conscious thought and reflexive reaction.
Stephen Totilo: Let’s praise the short stuff! But
let’s also wonder: why is it so arresting even for serious gamers like
you and me again? A major factor is that games are getting a little
more in step with the rest of popular culture. Short games are to long
ones what downloadable songs are to albums, what E-mail was to letter
writing (and then IM was to email and then texting was to IM). These
days the cultural oddity is the 60-hour Final Fantasy. Oh, and "Harry
Potter" novels and Vs. Mode exchanges (But which one is truly worthy of
a movie adaptation?)
Click on the link below to read Round 1 of our exchange in its entirety.
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