New Games Journalism: Ten Unmissable Articles

The excellent gamesblog at the Guardian has been doing pieces of late on the phenomenon known as New Games Journalism (a topic we've mentioned here in the past). They have an article listing ten unmissable pieces of New Games Journalism, articles that help to define the genre. From the article: "This is a varied bunch, but I think what connects them is emotion, insight, and often a narrative rather than methodical structure. Whatever, just read and enjoy."

Comments

The Great Scam

[knight37]

I had just read The Great Scam the other day and was very entertained by it's great writing style. However, from talking to EVE Online players, I (like them) have come to believe that the piece is a total fabrication. That is not Journalism, that is just creative writing. Lets call a spade a spade.

Well here they are:

[NEOtaku17]

A Rape in Cyberspace

Possessing Barbie

Dreaming in an empty room: a defense of Metal Gear Solid 2

Shoot Club: Saving Private Donny

ZangbandTK: Confessions of a Dungeon Hack

The Great Scam

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Going Planetside

Red Eye #114

Sex in Games: Rez + Vibrator

insert credit

[bskin]

I personally think this review of Katamari Damacy over at insert credit is one of the best reviews of a video game I've ever seen. It really cuts to the heart of what games are all about and why this silly little game is so fun. Made more of an impression on me than most of the reviews linked from this article. I ran into it by accident on Google one day, and now I read the site pretty regularly. Was very impressed.

Re:Please...

[jeblucas]

Yep, I'm with you guys. Here's two of my OMM favorites: the Crate Review System, which introduced the STC ratio for video games. That is, the "Start-to-Crate" ratio. How long into a game until you see your first crate. I still think of this when I see a crate--just smashed some today in Ratchet and Clank. They were crates of money.

And the infamous Asheron's Call Beta Log. This was amazing. Pretty much sums up MMMMMPORPPRPPRPPGS.

To Be Specific...

[realityfighter]

Here's a list of each article and the exact sentence that made want to stop reading. Just for reference, I tried reading these as if I was reading any other piece of journalism or opinion in a paper or online publication, and yes, I am an English major.

From A Rape in Cyberspace
"A good many months ago -- let's say about halfway between the first time you heard the words information superhighway and the first time you wished you never had --"

I stuttered before I even finished this sentence, as, for one, it has a very snooty "I know more about the Internet than you, you unwashed thing" ring to it. But I was more annoyed that Dibbell was hamming up his already captivating and empathy-inducing story of virtual rape with this cheesy noir hyperbole.

From Posessing Barbie
""I have a confession to make." typed BabyDoll."

I confess, I was really looking for a quick way out of this one. Any "real" journalist, or heck, let's say creative writer, should check punctuation before they publish something. People wonder why the rest of the world doesn't take NGJ seriously. Maybe it's the shitty sub-par editing?

From Dreaming in an empty room
"And . . . to a certain deeper extent, creepy as hell."

The ellipsis in this sentence totally blew me away. Not only is it in completely the wrong place, but Tim felt he needed to expand it with extra spaces. Call me crazy, but if I'm reading an article and I see an ellipsis with extra spaces, there had better be something great after it. As you can see, there isn't. It's a horrible stew of a sentence, flailingly trying to piece together bits of common idiom into a coherent thought. Also, for God's sake, Tim, capitalize your title so it looks like one!

From Shoot Club: Saving Private Donny
"When it came time to make a man jump on a banana, he pronounced it 'gay' and put the controller down."

At first, this seems like a normal, slightly stilted sentence. Nothing a little bit more editing couldn't fix. But you should know that until this point in the narrative, it was all in present tense. In fact, Tom returns to present tense for the rest of the paragraph. I would make fun of him for it, but I just can't find anything else to say.

From ZangbandTK: Confessions of a Dungeon Hack
"Plain, though no-one would ever say that to her face for fear of her tearing off their arm and using it as a particularly bloody stole."

Is it a fragment? Is it a run-on? Is it a poor choice of voices? Is it an adverb obstructing the flow of expression? Holy shit, batman! It's all four rolled into one! At this point I should clarify that what I'm objecting to here isn't writing that's wrong in a technical sense. We're all adults here, and I feel we can use sentence fragments as we please.

What I'm objecting to here is writing that is aesthetically bad. Seriously, try reading this without feeling nauseous. Maybe if you're a native German speaker, you're used to seeing long strings of similar-looking words. I envy you, because this makes me woozy.

From The Great Scam
"You would then sell these pebbles for approximately the same price that an illiterate slave would have received for an ounce of cotton."

Okay, so technically this isn't the first sentence in the article that doesn't make sense, but I was so incredulous over his line about this being a story of "the worst of the human condition," I read longer than I should have. I think the objection here is obvious: it makes no sense. On top of that, it's belligerent, whiny, and exaggerative. It belongs on a slashdot thread about P2P, not in one of the supposedly "best" articles in New Gaming Journalism.

From Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
"What games communicate convincingly is the now."

Actually, this was a fairly decent article except for the tightly-pa