Video Games in TV: Law & Order Criminal Intent

"Some TV shows just don't get it." Part of a periodical series: Video Games in TV.

Do I really have to sit through another one of these? This episode was especially unbearable. It doesn't get a whole lot overtly wrong, but the whole thing is just so boring.

Season 3 of Law & Order: Criminal Intent had an episode called "F.P.S." that, surprisingly, wasn't about first-person shooters (or should that be "unsurprisingly," considering how little these shows understand about gaming?). A bunch of money goes missing and a young woman gets thrown off of her balcony. Somehow it all gets traced back to a team of video game developers; apparently one of them was jealous about how the other guy spent his time and concocted a convoluted conspiracy to eliminate a third party. Detectives Goren and Bishop rush to the scene of the awkward, yawn-inducing love triangle.

As usual, a run-down of the episode with pictures, video, and commentary awaits in the full article.

Great Games You Never Played: STALKER

"Fine, obscure gems." Part of a periodical series: Great Games You Never Played.

The STALKER games (in order: Shadow of Chernobyl, Clear Sky, and Call of Pripyat) are somewhat unique in the realm of first-person shooters. Whereas most shooters are content to be linear corridor-crawlers with heavily scripted action sequences, STALKER goes for a non-linear open-world formula based on quests, inventory management, and exploration. This alone makes the STALKER games a rare gem, but they also feature some of the best atmosphere you'll ever experience in any game.

Set in the irradiated "zone" surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the radiation and fallout from its fictitious second melt-down have caused biological mutations in the local wildlife. All kinds of hazardous, supernatural anomalies litter the environment. The zone is a dark, hostile place that only scientists, scavengers, and mercenaries dare to brave. You play an amnesiac adventurer who has to venture into this twisted, mutated wasteland with one simple objective: kill a man named Strelok.

STALKER has it all: tight, sophisticated shooting mechanics; conventional RPG elements like quests, inventory management, exploration, and NPC interaction; and a rich, thick atmosphere that sucks you into its dynamic world that simply breathes with life (and chokes in decay). STALKER is an effort of ambition that's unmatched by any other game; it tried to be something different, and succeeded at being something more. If you've never experienced the glory of STALKER, then perhaps it's time you did. More after the jump.

The Top 10 From 2011: Best Reviews

In which I highlight some of my best articles from 2011. Shameless self-promotion with a chance to get some of my favorite pieces back on the front page. Huzzah.

Just to round out a solid trifecta, this time I'll be ranking ten of my best reviews. These won't be the ten best games I covered, because a lot of the games I covered sucked, quite frankly. These are the ten reviews that I had the most fun writing, and which I feel are some of the more descriptive and analytical ones. Exempt from this list are any reviews I wrote of free indie games, since I've got a separate list linking back to those articles. Click the full article for the full list.

The Top 10 From 2011: Best Editorials

In which I highlight some of my best articles from 2011. Shameless self-promotion with a chance to get some of my favorite pieces back on the front page. Huzzah.

This time around I'll be ranking ten of my favorite editorials, those opinion pieces where I rant with divine authority on the industry: what's wrong with it, what needs to change, things that are good and we need to see more of, etc. I apparently had a lot of opinions back when I started this blog; here are some of the more interesting ones that also tend to have more original ideas and analysis than what other critics come up with. Click the full article for the full list.

The Top 10 From 2011: Free Indie Games

It's that time of year when everyone reflects on the year's greatest achievements and ranks them in order of their success. Since I hardly ever play new releases, I can't compile a list of the top ten releases from 2011. Instead, I'll be highlighting some of my best articles from 2011. Shameless self-promotion with an opportunity to get some of my favorite pieces on the front page again. Huzzah.

I played a lot of free indie games in the past year. Most of them were pretty good, but some of them were a lot more memorable than others. Some of them had that extra spark of creativity to make them truly unique and original. Some of them were just a lot more fun than the rest. Not all of these games were released in 2011, but here are my top ten favorite free indie games that I covered in 2011. Click the full article for the list.

First Impressions of Zelda: Skyward Sword

I had the opportunity recently to play about an hour's worth of Skyrim Sword, which was all it took for me to conclude that the newest Zelda game completely sucks. Well, I'd need much more time to come to that conclusion, really, but there were a couple of things that failed to impress me with the game's introduction sequence.

First on the list of stupid things I noticed is that this town in the sky is called "Skyloft." Seriously? They couldn't come up with a more original name than Skyloft? We already know from the game's title and every other detail of this game's release that it's set in the sky, does the starting town really need to be called Skyloft? For a society that treats living on islands in the sky as the mundane norm, you'd think they would have a less ostentatious name. It'd be like if I called my house "Brickdwelling"---it's not a name, it's just a dumb description of what it is.

More of my nitpicking awaits in the full article, after the jump.

A Big Thumbs Down for Metroid: Other M

Changing the formula of a 25-year old series can be a much-needed breath of fresh air when all of its conventions begin to feel too tried. Sometimes change can be very beneficial, such as the case with Metroid Prime, which took a 2D side-scrolling series and made it into a fully 3D, first-person perspective with resounding success. Sometimes, however, the changes just don't work, and you end up with a game that doesn't capture the magic of its original formula, nor the refreshment of its new direction.

Such is the case with Metroid: Other M, a joint effort by Nintendo, Team Ninja, and D-Rockets to blend the gameplay styles of the first-person "Prime" trilogy with the side-scrolling platforming of the originals, with a newly prominent emphasis on narrative and backstory. Some of the new elements and twists work pretty well, but a slew of other problems drag the game's few prime achievements down into oblivion.

Plenty of criticism has already been leveled against Other M, but most of the professional reviewers only complain about Samus's characterization in the new story/backstory, and nitpick a few other problems (like the awkward control scheme). In the end, they still gave high praises to Other M, when the game doesn't deserve anything more than a mediocre "middle of the road" score.

Other M was a nice experiment, but the results are not worth praising. Besides the big issues mentioned above, there are a lot of smaller details and problems that ultimately make the game feel bland, generic, and soulless--almost a chore to play. It's nice to see Nintendo taking risks with such a staple franchise, but I hope they learn the lessons from this one and refine the experimentation process in their next release. More of my review / analysis after the jump.