You are currently browsing the Scripted Sequence blog archives for April, 2012

What Makes a Good Video Game Villain?

April 29, 2012 General / Waffle
2 comments

(This article contains spoilerific spoilers for Baldur’s Gate 2, Final Fantasy 7 and Dragon Age 2)

“The pain will only be passing,” we are informed. “You should survive the process.” Should.

With David Warner’s masterfully delivered opening lines we’re introduced to the coldly detached and ruthlessly calculating Jon Irenicus. It’s not long before circumstance carries you away from his underground lab, but his far-reaching influence is felt again and again as the game progresses.
Continue reading …

The Virtual Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Gaming

April 28, 2012 General / Waffle
5 comments


“All stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.”

Death is pretty final. Once it happens to you, you don’t get another go. Game over, so to speak. But in games, this is almost never true. For such an enormous concept in life, how have games got death so wrong?

Continue reading …

Go Right

April 28, 2012 Console / General
2 comments


Dead good.

Pew! Beep boop! Doo doo doo. Ba-ding! (Game Music)

April 26, 2012 General / Indie
1 comment


We’ve not posted anything recently because we’ve either been ill, gone on holiday, too busy, or in Dave’s case, fretting about our beards. So sorry about that. While we sort ourselves out, here’s some lovely music from or inspired by games.

Continue reading …

Digitiser: Video Game Journalism’s Finest Hour

April 23, 2012 General / Waffle
6 comments

Digitiser

“Moc-moc-a-moc.”

Those were probably the first words that I read on Digitiser. I say “on”, because they weren’t really “in” it in the same way that my ambitions are “in” a shallow grave. No, it’s better to use “on”, as in there are pictures of me “on” the internet.

Because Teletext video game ‘magazine’ Digitiser was very much on our television screens throughout a large part of the 1990s and into early 2000s, and those words were suspended there, soundtracked by Big Breakfast presenter-types Johnny Vaughn and Denise Van Outen’s blurted inanities in in the background, as I ate a bowl of Cocoa Pops before going to school.

Continue reading …

Breaking the Game or Beating the Game: What Happens When You Get Too Powerful

April 18, 2012 General / PC
10 comments

It’s June 1808 and, in perhaps the greatest comeback of human history, the Byzantine Empire is the foremost world power. Having nearly succumbed to the ravages of the younger and more powerful Ottomans way back in the middle of the 15th century, Byzantium somehow survived. Then it thrived. Its borders stretch from the Caspian Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. It lays claim not only to Constantinople but to Cairo and to Rome. It holds colonies in Africa and in East Asia. Its standing army alone numbers nearly half a million men. Its citizens are the freest, richest and most enlightened in the known world.

The story of how it got there is a gripping one to be sure, full of daring military manoeuvres, desperate alliances and strokes of economic brilliance…
Continue reading …

Valve is a Marxist Commune (But not really)

April 15, 2012 General / PC / Waffle
No comments

Valve is being uncharacteristically candid at the moment – confirming that it’s working on wearable computers, as well as this blog post from Michael Abrash, detailing how he came to work at Valve. It’s well worth a reading in full, but one section stuck out.
Continue reading …

« Older Entries