I tend to drift from this blog, my little anchor point, but this can be rationalized: When your livelihood entails upwards of 2,000 words a day, there’s not much left in the tank when it’s over. You can see that now. This is not my best prose.

But in what seems to me like a tradition now, I take great pride in coming back around to show off my occasional writing for The Escapist. The latest revisits Manifesto Games, an indie distribution site I wrote about for Wired two years ago. Coincidentally, for the current feature I caught Manifesto in the midst of shutting the site down, which is horrible, but makes for a great story. That’s journalism, I guess.

Writing for The Escapist is always a pleasure, but as a full-time blogger, whose writing rarely exceeds 400 words at a time and rarer still includes any significant reporting, in the traditional sense, this particular article was a blast to produce. My thanks goes to the Escapist editorial team, who really know how to polish up a story. It was nice to go through that process and come out with a shiny clip. Overall, the reaction was good, with thoughtful comments from readers and no hard feelings from the Manifesto crew — I tried to be fair in criticizing the site’s faults while recounting what went down.

Meanwhile, I’ve started writing for Today @ PC World, along with my existing gigs, and VentureBeat is giving me a shot at a few articles on digital media. If you believe the best stories involve conflict and sadness, I’ve got nothing for you right now.

Newman | 1 Comment »

It’s been said that video games need a Lester Bangs, but what we really need is a Chuck Norris. Michael Pachter, known far and wide for his game industry analysis, is that equivalent.

Earlier today, Alex Navarro suggested on Twitter that Michael Pachter should have folk status in gaming. Joystiq writer Alexander Sliwinski followed with a “Chuck Norris Facts”-style anecdote, and I took it from there, with help from some fellow Twitterers. Here are 22 Michael Pachter Facts that, like his analysis, cannot be disputed:

-Michael Pachter does not predict, forecast, foretell or foreshadow. He just knows.

-One time, Michael Pachter and Colin Sebastian disagreed in their analyses. That was the last we heard from Colin Sebastian.

-When Michael Pachter gets the Red Ring of Death, he sends Microsoft a coffin.

-Motion control is meaningless to Michael Pachter, because he can control video games with his mind.

-The fighting game “Killer Instinct” was named after Michael Pachter.

-The Metal Gear Solid series does not amuse Michael Pachter, because he already knows how it ends.

-Mike Gallagher misspoke when he called piracy “the single greatest threat” to the games industry. He was actually talking about Michael Pachter.

-Publications often misrepresent Michael Pachter as a “Wedbush Morgan Analyst.” No company can contain Michael Pachter.

-Michael Pachter pronounces “Natal” like the birth term. You got a problem with that?

-Michael Pachter once apologized to Sony for calling the PSP Go a “rip-off.” He meant to say he’d rip off Jack Tretton’s arms if Sony doesn’t begin cutting prices.

-Michael Pachter does not need to blow on his NES cartridges. You’ve got it backwards.

-When Reggie Fils-Aime said he was about kicking ass and taking names, he first had to ask Michael Pachter for permission.

-Nintendo had to call its latest console the Wii because only Michael Pachter can launch a Revolution.

-Michael Pachter does not get his predictions from God. God gets his plans from Michael Pachter. (from 8bithack)

-The real reason Steve Jobs needed a new liver is that Michael Pachter called iPhone gaming a “fad.” (with 8bitjoystick)

-The real reason for the 1983 Videogame crash is Michael Pachter’s Atari 5200 kept crapping out. (from 8bitjoystick)

-Michael Pachter has learned to suppress the pon farr. He’s that logical. (from XanderSliwinski)

-Michael Pachter’s PS3 is backwards compatible. It can also play PS4 games. (from XanderSliwinski)

-Skynet finally succeeded in its mission by sending back Michael Pachter. (from XanderSliwinski)

-Michael Pachter news does not get submitted to N4G, N4G submits to Michael Pachter’s news. (PacoDG)

-Michael Pachter willed the Dreamcast to its destruction. No one can cast dreams except Michael Pachter. (SlamVanderhuge)

-No matter what word Michael Pachter writes in Scribblenauts, it turns to gold. (XboxExaminer)

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Surely, there is more to know about Michael Pachter. Throw some facts in the comments, hit me up on Twitter or tweet your own with the hash #PachterFACTS. Soon, the world will know just how important video games, and Michael Pachter, have become.

Newman | 3 Comments »

-12 year-old boy, approaching the Gamestop clerk with Call of Duty 4 in hand, mother in tow. Your parental controls at work!

Newman | No Comments »

Last time I checked, there’s no metric by which people can constantly measure their moral worth. Judging the goodness in one’s self is not as simple as reading your fuel gauge.

So why do video games make it that easy?

Mass Effect, Fallout 3 and InFamous — all of which inject morality into a medium that deals primarily in wins and losses — present the player with a kindness meter, accessible at any time, like the entire game is played in the presence of St. Peter. They even take it a step further by alerting players to their “right” and “wrong” decisions. Karma meter goes up, karma meter goes down.

Moral gauges are a cheap way of coping with gaming’s inherent black-and-white nature. Instead of presenting the player with morally gray areas, the system is broken into 1’s and 0’s, accumulating one way or another until the game’s character is decidedly good or evil. (A third option, in some cases, is “Neutral,” which accomplishes nothing.) But the real problem is that the player knows about it.

Yahtzee says video game morals fail because players must either “sing the orphans to sleep or murder their dogs, with no middle ground.” He’s right, but I don’t agree with his argument that video game morals need to “drink some paint and retard themselves out of existence.” There’s room for improvement here, and it starts by abolishing the moral barometer.

Most players, I believe, are inclined to enter a moral choice game knowing which side is for them. That’s certainly how I do it (always the good guy, natch), and I hear comments from others to the effect of “I’m playing as evil this time around.”

That decision would be harder if the player couldn’t tell what’s wrong or right. Consider, for example, a segment in Mass Effect where the player must choose to kill off a potentially dangerous alien species or risk humanity by letting the aliens live. It’s a great dilemma, but in a system where players know to strive for good or evil the decision becomes a lot easier. The player no longer has to weigh the consequences (there aren’t any, but more on that in a moment) because the decision lies solely in whether there are Paragon or Renegade points to be gained.

A necessary ingredient for successfully removing moral gauges is gray area. The more ambiguous a dilemma is, the harder the choice will be for players — unless there’s a convenient meter that reads their decision back as data, undermining the choice’s unknowns.

So without moral gauges, how will players know the consequences of their actions? By putting actual consequences into the game, of course (and I’m not the first to argue this). Fallout 3 does change the world somewhat to fit the player character’s personality, which makes it all the more strange that a Karma meter still exists. Once this crutch is removed, decision-making in video games will be a Hell of a lot more interesting.

Newman | No Comments »

In most video games, death is inevitable. It’s often the penalty for failure, and on fewer occasions a plot device meant to pull your heart strings.

But, purely in terms of compelling narrative, does it work?

My former colleagues at The Game Reviews, Joe DeLia and Sinan Kubba, were kind enough to have me on their Big Red Potion podcast to discuss the matter. It was a free-wheeling, enjoyable conversation, and it’s up now for your listening pleasure. You can listen to our particular joint, download the MP3 version or subscribe to future episodes.

Be warned, though, the podcast is chock-full of spoilers — bound to happen when you’re talking about the climactic moments in Fallout 3, Final Fantasy VII, Madworld and so many others.

It was my first podcast, and I had a great time. Hopefully I’ll be back in the future to discuss something less morbid.

Newman | No Comments »

Yes, yes, I joined the Twitter trend, way late. Check out my page. At least I bought a netbook before everyone and their mother started doing it.

Though I can’t resist the occasional snarky remark, I’m trying to do some fun stuff there, like 140-character game reviews and the return of Random Game Idea in bite-size form.

In other news, it came to my attention that a cadre of real estate Web sites were using my blog as a sort of SEO backdoor. I don’t know how they did it, but after a little snooping I found a directory full of bogus blogs, hosted on my domain name, in my /blog directory. Now that they’re all vanquished, we’ll see how my traffic figures plummet. For good measure I changed my FTP password. You can’t game the gamer, pal!

Newman, Random Game Idea | 2 Comments »

Last November, I spotted a Craigslist posting seeking walkthrough writers, and I threw my hat in the ring. In those early freelance days, it was one of many applications I would fire off each day.

That evening, a guy from Mahalo.com called my cell, asking if I’d be interested in writing a Call of Duty: World at War walkthrough — starting the next day. Mahalo is the “human-powered search engine” that provides viewers with links and info on various topics, but lately they’ve found success as a generator of original walkthroughs. I’ll try anything once, right?

Fresh copy of game in hand, laptop by my side, I sat in front of the TV and started plugging away, delving into one of the strangest ways of playing video games that I’ve ever experienced.

A child of the Late Atari/Nintendo era, I’m a pretty skilled gamer, but I usually don’t think much about what I’m doing, particularly in the moment. Sometimes the grind of an easy first-person shooter requires little more than autopilot, and I can let my mind wander as I cull the enemy horde. Writing a walkthrough prevents this practice. I think about exactly what I did and how I did it, and write it down before it slips the mind. Furthermore, all those times in gaming where you magically conquer a challenge by a stroke of good fortune or some weird glitch — those won’t fly. They’re the bane of walkthrough writing, because you then have to play through the section again in order to synthesize a printable strategy.

In talking about this with curious friends, I describe walkthrough writing as simultaneously enjoyable and tedious. On one hand, I’m playing video games, and for that matter, it’s closer to literally being paid for playing video games than any other form of game writing. Even with reviews, you have to sit down and type when you’re done playing, whereas walkthrough writing occurs during the act of play. Still, the stop-start nature of penning a walkthrough inherently ruins the flow of a game, to the point that it does become a bit of a chore.

Yet, I’m still writing them. In fact, I’m on deck to start a Resident Evil 5 walkthrough this weekend.

It’s funny, because each time, when really in the grind of typing out repetitive gameplay strategies, or wishing for a game to end already (as I tend to do with most games these days), I swear these things off. But I always come back. The monetary aspect doesn’t hurt, but I do in some ways enjoy that whole process of picking up a game on launch day, sitting down with it and starting a massive gaming binge. It’s something I don’t often have time to do anymore, and I like having an excuse.

Newman | No Comments »

Oh, you’re still here. Sorry.

I’ve been pretty busy lately, and this blog has obviously taken the back seat. While I can’t promise that will change, I’ve got some ideas for keeping this baby fresh. Life as a freelancer is good, and there’s plenty to report. More on that soon.

In the meantime, check out my new Web site! It’s stocked with recent clips, an updated resume and a design that doesn’t look terrible. I really wanted to come up with analogy to end that last sentence but it’s just not happening right now.

Be back soon.

-Jared

ps, oh yes, I’m ditching the Amazon ads. Don’t know what I was thinking.

Newman | 1 Comment »

We’ll see how this goes, but I’d like to occasionally post in this manner to let you know what I’ve been doing.

Just before Halloween, I spit back at violent video game legislation for Technologizer. This piece could use an addendum with today’s news of a supposed link between violent gaming and long-term aggression in children. I haven’t read the study itself, but the CNN article doesn’t say whether the findings indicate a problem that’s worse in games than in other media. The study’s author, Craig Anderson, has made a name for himself in this line of work, and has made that assertion before. Still, a talking head in CNN’s article (Anderson’s input is notably missing) says that desensitization and imitation by “children who watch violence” are the main issues here. That could well apply to other, less-persecuted mediums as well.

I tried my hand at writing for The Game Reviews, where I mostly function as an editor. With a feature article that involves World of Goo creator Kyle Gabler in the works, I wasn’t sure whether a review of the game would be prudent. In the end I found it too difficult to restrain my enthusiasm. See my glowing praise for yourself.

Finally, this is older, but worth mentioning. Someone paid me to write a semi-humorous article about The 5 Worst Mega Man Weapons of All Time. What a blast.

Newman, Indies, Humour, Violence | 2 Comments »

It looks like I’ll get a chance to put some editorial fingerprints on The Game Reviews, which ironically turns every mention of its name into an awkward sentence.

Kidding aside, I’ll be an associate editor, cleaning up news, reviews and features for the benefit of all. I got started by editing Brittany Vincent’s essay on the statement, “Nobody ever shed a tear over a video game character’s death,” by Orlando Sentinel film critic Roger Moore.

Vincent’s piece is drenched in sarcasm, as you’ll see:

How could one feel for what is being displayed on a television screen? What individual in their right mind could tear up over the death of marine Paul Jackson in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in his last few moments of life? Soldiers die all the time. To become misty-eyed over such an insipid attempt at storytelling is completely outrageous. Saving Private Ryan is much more deserving of emotional distress. Because you know, you sit and watch.

Personally, I’m more for calling out video games’ shortcomings (thus far) rather than unequivocally rooting for the medium, but I suppose a good backlash is always in order when some dreaded outsider comes around, spitting his bile.

Have I shed any tears? Hmm, can’t recall. When I stare at the screen too long, anyway.

Newman, Games as Art | No Comments »