The Doglion

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Hunger Games was my follow up after I had finished A Dance With Dragons. I needed something to fill the void and get me over my depression at having to wait several years for more G.R.R.Martin goodness. I mention this to put my state of mind into some context and what I’d wanted from this book. Read More

Hello there. It’s been a long time since my last post. But now I feel like writing again. About “Breaking Bad”. I just watched the last episode of season 4 and felt like sharing some thoughts not just on the season, but on the series itself. There will be spoilers a plenty here, so go watch the show if you haven’t yet.

Breaking Bad is flawless, and it amazes me every time I watch it. The challenge with TV shows that feature a continuous narrative, as opposed to having separate plots for episodes (a la sit-coms like Friends etc),  is to keep the story tight and engaging. This is a tremendous ask for any writer. Every episode must be good on its own, and advance the narrative evenly, if not turn up the tension more than the last. There’s been shows that went out of steam at some points during their lifetime and it’s never a welcome thing. Events would happen that feel far-fetched and unnatural or like downright cheating on the writers part. It strains our suspension of disbelief. But not with Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad. Read More

[This review contains spoilers, so don't even think of reading it if you plan to play i!t]

Portal 2 is a game that does everything right, but your experience can vary quite a lot depending on if you have played its predecessor before. Valve did really the best possible job anyone could have done on a sequel of a game that drew much of its acclaim from an innovative and quite genius feature.

I’m talking about the portal gun, of course, and if you have played Portal before, this game will not give you quite the same feeling of joy right from the start. Instead, you’ll feel happy to be back in Portal’s world, and intrigued to see the new things. There’s a fine balance here to strike, to ease new players into the game but also to give veterans new things to feast on. I find Valve did perfectly in almost every aspect. Read More

The first Portal was, and is, a very special game. I hadn’t known about it when it was released and only found out about it after my friends told me to give it a try. They said “It’s a really cute little puzzle game. You’ll be done quickly, but it’s worth it, and it doesn’t even require monster hardware!”. Needless to say, I gave it a try and sure enough, I was quite amazed by the brilliance of the portal gun and the gameplay that it offered. It’s a rarity these days, to start playing a video game and to just feel this pure joy of play. Portal was just…fun. Read More

Today I finished the long-awaited indie point-and-click adventure game Gemini Rue, and just wanted to share some impressions with people who have played it themselves.

Gemini Rue is from a gameplay point of view a classic adventure game. You control a protagonist by selecting objects of interest with the mouse and have the option to interact with them by choosing to look at them, do something with your hands, talk to them or do something with your foot. The puzzles weren’t frustrating, but also not so easy that one could just click their way through the game without having to stop and think every once in a while. I was never primarily into the puzzling aspect of point-and-click adventures to be honest, but the puzzles of Gemini Rue were enjoyable and felt like they fit in very well, enriching the experience. Only twice did I feel like I was stuck because of a puzzle not very well integrated rather than my lack of wit. After looking at the hints (over the years, I’ve learned to keep my self-discipline at a good degree when using walkthroughs for adventure games) for both puzzles I had to admit that I simply hadn’t given enough thought for an alternative approach. Read More

Oh My God this is game awful. To put it into perspective: Final Fantasy 7 was the first RPG I ever played. I was 9 years old, the game came in 3 discs, which was by itself already epic, and it left its imprints on my memory ever since. When I look at FF7 today, I have to congratulate Squaresoft on a job well done. The story, though confusing and contrived was highly dramatic and one really felt a sense of nervousness at the sight of Sephiroth. On top of that Square slapped their tried and true RPG gameplay and everything was well. Crisis Core was supposed to be a work of love and pure fan service for those who loyally defended their favorite game as the best RPG (if not the best game) of all time. Instead, it’s a game that does not even survive on its famous name. Read More

I just watched a very interesting documentary film about text adventures. It’s called “Get Lamp” and was directed by Jason Scott. If you’re into game design and the art of story telling, regardless if it’s movies, books, games, music or whatever, then I dearly recommend this film to you. It’s really interesting and also captivatingly done as a documentary.

So the film basically contains a load of interview snippets with influential people such as Scott Adams (Creator of Adventure Land) or Mark Blank (Co-Creator of Zork), as well as people who are just really enthusiastic about Interactive Fiction and love it with all their heart.

It takes a look at the history of the text adventure genre, the broader definition and characteristics of interactive storytelling and also at a look at the current state the art form is in, with a shy look at the possible future. Read More

I like Bioware. I like them because they consistently make games with well thought out designs. When you play a Bioware RPG, you can expect good to exceptional writing, a logical and consistent game world, lots of content and relatively high production values. Bioware is a game company like your favorite restaurant. You can trust them to deliver a good product that you will enjoy because you can trust them to stick to their strengths.

What you can’t expect from Bioware are rash and revolutionary concepts. They’re like the Christopher Nolan of the game companies – never on the cutting edge of the artistic aspect of the medium, but consistently getting better at refining their classic strengths and moving forward with each creation, step by step. Read More