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Discovery Channel's Games Documentary Impresses
Rock, Paper, Shotgun notes the kickoff of a new Discovery channel series called Rise of the Videogame. Blogger John Walker discusses the show, which just began last week, with an eye towards its research rigor and friendliness to the subject matter. He comes away fairly impressed, both by the topics covered and the casting. Along with games industry luminaries like Nolan Bushnell and Al Alcorn, they chat with folks like Steve Russell (of Spacewar! fame) and Smartbomb author Heather Chaplin. "A little visually overwrought with its montage footage of real-world conflict, it's otherwise a solid, informative and supremely well 'cast' documentary. If you've read around the subject, it won't tell you anything new. But it's fantastic to hear the stories from the people themselves. Episode 2 is very sensibly about the rise of Mario, next Wednesday."
The problem the parent eludes to is that many developers think graphics are more important than the game. Graphics are nice, but if the game sucks, a polished turd is still a turd. I'd rather play a great game with decent graphics than a mediocre game that awes me with shiny for the 30 minutes I play until I decide that it sucks.
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