Vita

I'm still between review games at the moment, so I started playing Silent Hill: Book of Memories on Vita. I liked the demo and I'm a big fan of dungeon crawlers and Roguelikes when they're done well, so despite all of the negative talk I heard, I decided to go for it. I'm about ten levels into the campaign so far, and I think it's actually pretty good—but that statement needs some qualification.

It's time again for one of my "house-cleaning" posts where I toss up a bunch of random bits and links to stuff and get it off of my computer.

I was listening to a podcast recently (and I've heard this same thing multiple times from other people over the last week or so) and I was shaking my head at the way the speakers were discussing recent Events Which Shall Not Be Named. Over and over, they were so insistent that reviewers are "getting paid off" for good scores.

In the wake of the success of Obsidian's Project Eternity Kickstarter, supporters are eagerly watching the stretch goals to see what promised goodies will be put into the game. Meanwhile, I am hoping to see one thing left out: voice acting. Done correctly, voice acting can significantly improve a Japanese RPG. However, recording voices for characters diminishes a Western RPG, regardless of the reading's quality. For this reason, I feel that Western RPGs should avoid having voiced dialogue.

Extra Credits has an interesting two-part discussion about the hero's journey, a concept explored by Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Thatgamecompany's Journey is the game example featured here (along with The Legend of Zelda) but this seems to be a concept exploited in all entertainment genres.

Speaking of games which weren't quite home runs, I have to admit that I'm shocked to say that Dishonored isn't floating my boat. I loved the demo at PAX and it has all of the elements that should appeal to me, but now that I've been sitting down with the full version... it's just not clicking. It's just not coming together. It started well, but it's gone... cold.

Although it's exciting to see so many great games start popping up in the fourth quarter... there are too many great games popping up in the fourth quarter.

A funny thing happens to a person when he or she gets older. The person remembers how things used to be, or, at least, how they used to be for that person. There have been times over the past few years where I've become increasingly more frustrated with video games in the current time, and I feel that my reasons are fair… but I might be unfairly basing my dissatisfaction and disappointment on my own perspective and memories of how I remember video games as I grew up.

The guys at Extra Credits take a look at "power creep." For those that don't know, power creep is when elements introduced in a game grow in power compared to when the game was originally launched. Or something like that. Given how prevalent persistent worlds have become and how common it is for games to be patched with new areas, features and items, power creep can become a huge issue for the loyal fanbase. This Extra Credits video takes a look at power creep and solutions that would fix it—or at least keep it at bay.

A few weeks ago, it seemed like there wasn't a single thing to play. Now, it seems like there's too much to handle!