Fathers in video games don't typically turn out to be very good role models or successful parental figures. Often, they end up being surprise villains, or they turn out to have been neglectful or abusive (physically or emotionally). A lot of times, parents in video games turn into cannon fodder, dying early in the game in order to push the protagonist into his or her heroic role.
Very rarely do you have a father character in a video game who sticks around and actually gives his children any amount of love or support. That's why I think Harry Mason is such a special character in video games, and quite possibly the best video game dad of all time. So this Father's Day, I'd like to take a moment to pay tribute to this wonderfully-designed gold-standard of video game parenting.
Harry Mason goes through hell and puts his life on the line to protect his seven-year-old adopted daughter in quite possibly the most fatherly display of love and dedication that you will find in a video game.
I recently had conversations with an old friend of mine from high school (screenname Huh?Mr.Box!) who had recently played the Silent Hill games for the first time. I expected to hear that his favorite game was Silent Hill 2, and that his favorite character would be James or Pyramid Head. I mean, that's what every Silent Hill fanboy says, right? Personally, I'm fond of Heather from Silent Hill 3. I'll admit, I had a huge crush on her when I played the game for the first time (and before you start calling me a perv, I was 17 when that game released!) because it was so unusual to see such a well-developed female character in a game.
I was surprised, however, when my friend's favorite character ended up not being James, or Pyramid Head, or even Heather, but rather Heather's father: Harry.
I guess with all the crazy characters that the Silent Hill series is known for, Harry kind of gets lost in the shuffle as being too "normal". But when asked why he liked Harry so much, my friend eloquently responded: "because he's such an awesome dad!"
And you know what, Harry is an awesome dad!... [More]
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Tags:Harry Mason, Father's Day, father, single father, parenthood, adoption, gender equality, Silent Hill, Silent Hill 3, Cheryl Mason, Heather Mason, Alessa, Christophe Gans, Huh?Mr.Box!
Recently came across Toronto-based software engineer Alex Curelea's blog, in which he describes the psychology behind why Diablo III may not be as satisfying as Diablo II was. It was a good read, and very quick too.
In the analysis, he compares Diablo fans to monkeys who are rewarded with flavored juice when they pull a lever after a specific sequence of shapes is displayed on screen. Eventually, the monkeys begin to associate the reward with the sequence of shapes, and the reward center of their brain becomes stimulated when the sequence appears, rather than when the actual reward is given later.
[More]
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Tags:Diablo, Diablo II, Diablo III, Blizzard, Alex Curelea, psychology, Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Skyrim, Bethesda, From Software, RPG
I'm a pretty big Spider-Man fan. As such, I tend to get pretty excited when a new Spider-Man game is announced. I was pretty impressed with some of the things Beenox accomplished with Shattered Dimensions, but still didn't feel like the game hit its potential. Last year's Edge of Time game was a monumental disaster, and kind of has me turned off a bit with regard to Beenox's approach to Spider-Man games.
Having been underwhelmed by Beenox's last attempt at a Spidey game, I was a bit disappointed that they were going to be handling the movie tie-in.
I haven't been keeping very well-informed about the game. I haven't watched any trailers or previews. Pretty much the only info that I've gotten for it have been a few previews in GameInformer. But I did finally watch some E3 footage:
UPDATE: June 17, 2012: Uncut gameplay video from GameInformer validates my complaints
Came across this preview of The Amazing Spider-Man game that was released yesterday on GameInformer's website. The video contains several minutes of uncut gameplay, which includes footage of Spider-Man webswinging well above the tallest buildings in the vicinity, making it all but impossible for his webs to actually be connecting to anything. [More]
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Tags:Spider-Man, The Amazing Spider-Man, Marvel, comic book, movie, Beenox, Activision, E3, GameInformer, Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions, Spider-Man: Edge of Time, comic
Just came across this article on Kotaku about the new "Infinity Engine" that is supposed to introduce real-time physics simulation into Madden NFL 13.
Let me give you a minute to piece back together your blown mind.
That's right, Madden NFL is finally throwing out it's more-than-a-decade-old animation engine (developed for first-gen PlayStation 2 versions of the game) in favor of real-time physics simulation.
EA Sports has been releasing a series of "Madden 13 playbook" videos since May, but I haven't really been paying too much attention to them until now. The early playbooks were focused on presentation and relatively minor gameplay tweaks (the kind that we're used to seeing every year). Today's playbook (number 4), however, has me very excited!
I've been pretty harsh on Madden the past few years, but this video has me more excited about the game than I've been since Madden 10 (which turned out to be a flop). [More]
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Tags:Madden NFL, Madden NFL 13, EA, EA Sports, Tiburon, Backbreaker, Infinity Engine, physics, NCAA Football 13, NaturalMotion, sports, football, Euphoria engine
Much ado has already been made about the re-recorded dialogue that is to be used in the Silent Hill HD Collection. Critics like myself have already been accused of being “haters” and "unwilling to accept change". Fortunately (or is it unfortunately?), Konami has given "haters" like me plenty of reason to hate the Silent Hill HD Collection.
Table of Contents:
I have extra copies of the original games. If you want to play them (and you know me personally), you can borrow them! [More]
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Tags:Silent Hill, Silent Hill HD Collection, review, Silent Hill 2, Silent Hill 3, Konami, Hijinx, PS3, PS2, Team Silent, KCET, James Sunderland, Heather Mason, Douglas Cartland, Claudia Wolf, Laura, survival, horror, survival horror, XBox 360, Eddie Dombrowski
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