Secondtruth Blog Archives
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The City of Heroes Closure
It was announced today, out of the blue, that City of Heroes is now going to close its doors. The news, to me, was heartbreaking. This is a small MMO, it is an older MMO, but it is my favorite MMO. There are rumors that it might be saved, but so far these are just…
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Photorealism Is Not The Limiting Factor
Photorealism is not the limiting factor in creating new genres of games. And I’m actually kind of surprised anyone believed that it was. Honestly, we’ve had “photorealistic” games for a long time. They were really popular in the ’90’s, for example, when CD-ROM games used live actors and full motion video to create a feeling…
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Batman: Arkham City: An Unfocused Critical Reading
The following will contain spoilers for Batman: Arkham City as well as, briefly, The Dark Knight Rises. I finished Arkham City today – or, at least, finished the main storyline, which is an important distinction in an open-world game. The ending (the “good end” to the main story, that is), isn’t very satisfying. The lack…
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Happy August
Here’s just a quick personal update from me, rather than an essay: What I’m playing lately:RaiderZ, City of HeroesI got an old alt, my Electric Blaster (Her name is Electric Youth, because… Debbie Gibson, of course), up to 50 during Double XP Weekend. This makes (only) the 3rd 50 from me, because A) I have…
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Trolls Versus the Straw Feminist
Over at Tap-Repeatedly, I’m having a series of conversations with Brandon Perdue about games and feminist issues. You can read Part One here, and Part Two here. More, hopefully, to come. These discussions are just two of us relating our honest views about the state of women and gaming right now. I am, obviously, a…
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Lara Croft
I’m weighing in on this new Tomb Raider thing. Specifically, what made me want to write was this insulting article (Kotaku), which gives a new context to the images we’ve seen from the new Tomb Raider game. Read through to the main article. Here I will just try to anticipate the most common rebuttals: I am…
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A Day of Horror Games at Origins
So I’m at Origins this week! Great convention, lots of neat people to meet, learn from, new games to try, etc. I feel bad for writing something that’s about to sound like a complaint. It isn’t really. I don’t know what it counts as, exactly. But here goes. Sexual violence trigger warning. Sorry if this…
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Sad to Say, Your Adventures Have Ended Here
My primary gaming computer suffered an unexpected melt-down last week. While I scavenge parts to replace it, I must turn back to the consoles. However, I also have my bi-weekly Dungeons and Dragons game to look forward to. Yesterday was the first time that an entire party has died at my table. Some GMs would…
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Origins 2012
I’m going to Origins, as I do most years! Event signup finally occurred today. This will be my last big gaming event for the year, though, as I focus on development and other stuff. Going to mix it up this year and try some games I have never played before, as I often do. But we have…
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On Magic Cake
I’ve been interested in the intersection of food and games for a long time. Because of this, I raptly follow the recipes posted on Gourmet Gaming and I’ve tried cooking a few myself. When I got the chance from Ctrl+Alt+Defeat to write a regular column, he suggested it be about the relationship between games and… something else.…
Got any book recommendations?