Author: Dean B

  • Death of the Developer

    Written by Dean Bowman and Susan Marmito This article contains spoilers for the endings of Prince of Persia (Xbox 360) and BioShock. As a relatively young medium, intellectual discourse around videogames has only just begun to emerge. For instance, little has been written still on how games tell stories and how the way they tell…

  • Roads to Freedom – A Defence of Final Fantasy XIII

    Just as when Fenris’ over-sized maul comes into contact with Qunari skulls, Dragon Age II is dividing quite a few opinions. Like Mass Effect 2, this sequel has overhauled and refined the gameplay of the original to an impressive degree, making a promising game with a great story into something extra special. But if there’s…

  • Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together

    Confusingly credited as Ogre Tactics Saga Episode 7 in the intro screen (the first five games were never actually produced), Tactics Ogre: Let us Cling Together is a stunning remake of the second game in the series, launched in 1995 on the Super Famicom in Japan. I find the fact that a game with this…

  • Slow Boat to China

    Just recently I’ve been re-playing Jade Empire, which I think, short of Mass Effect 2, may be Bioware’s best game in terms of both story and gameplay. But for me it’s the setting that I find most compelling. The game borrows liberally from Chinese history and mythology, even if it does introduce such fanciful concepts…

  • The Renaissance of the Point-and-Click Adventure

    Past: Introducing the Rubber Chicken With a Pulley in the Middle After two decades of often bizarre prototypes (including one rumoured to have been built by the military using a bowling ball for the track ball) the first commercially successful, widely available mouse shipped with the Apple Macintosh Lisa in 1983; its single button forming…

  • Good Old Games

    I’ve been feeling nostalgic of late. Perhaps it was discovering my Megadrive (the first console I ever owned) in a cupboard and running through Green Hill Zone once again. Whatever brought it on it’s no doubt been exacerbated by my Christmas present: 1001 Games to Play Before You Die. I admit, there seems to have…

  • Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together

    When Final Fantasy Tactics by Yasumi Matsuno (the virtuoso designer responsible for the magnificent Vagrant Story as well as a hefty chunk of Final Fantasy 12, two of only a handful of games ever to have been given a perfect score by Famitsu) was reissued on the PSP by Square-Enix it was a revelation. The…

  • Gray Matter

    Created by famed game designer and story teller, Jane Jensen, and having been lost in development hell for the last seven years, Gray Matter occupies a similar status within its genre as the long awaited Duke Nukem sequel. Although given that its genre happens to be the cult world of the point and click adventure,…

  • Keep It Unreal

    “All these people like my mother paying counsellors and clinics to reattach them to reality: all these people like me paying Sony and Sega to reattach us to unreality.” I came across this line in a chapter entitled ‘Video Games’ in David Mitchell’s incredible novel Number Nine Dream recently and it lit a fuse in…

  • Would You Like Fun With That?

    As I’m sure you don’t need to be reminded, shopping over the Christmas period is a hellish activity, but even worse is working in retail (especially for a misanthropic grinch like myself). You’re pinned behind the counter being blasted by inane Christmas songs, whilst being forced to repeat the same few phrases over and over…