Moving Pixels Podcast

We aren't talking about how games test your reflexes. What we discuss this week is how games simulate physical experiences and how those experiences add to our immersion in game worlds and heighten the drama in video game storytelling.

Despite games often being thought of as a mental exercpoise, they certainly have a physical component too. We aren't talking about how games test your reflexes, though. Instead, what we are interested in is how games simulate physical experiences and how those experiences add to our immersion in game worlds and heighten the drama in video game storytelling.

The second episode of The Walking Dead, "Starved for Help", has finally arrived, and we could hardly wait to sink our teeth into more of the innovations that Telltale has brought to the adventure genre.

If you are at all interested in the creative process, in what makes creators tick, and how they deal with their creation once it is out there, you should see Indie Game: The Movie.

Of course, our Moving Pixels podcasters are interested in video games, but this week we discuss why Indie Game: The Movie should probably be seen by anyone interested in the creative arts.

We often discuss the complex economic systems generated by multiplayer games, in which players buy, sell, and trade with one another. So why simulate an economy in a single player game?

This episode we discuss the economies of single player games, how they motivate action, how they provide players additional goals, and how they can just spiral out of control, simulating nothing that we can recognize from real life economics.

Following the success of Double Fine's kickstarter for their adventure game, interest in what the web site can do for video game development has grown.

A host of potential games, some classic remakes and promised sequels along with new independent projects, are looking at Kickstarter as a viable new way to finance gaming projects. This week we consider the influence of crowd sourcing on game development.

And, of course, since our own Rick Dakan has been working on a game of his own that will in part be funded by a kickstarter, Rick has some direct insights of his own on how crowd sourcing works.

After a long hiatus, Max Payne is back. The voice of dirty neonoir is similar, but not all of the oft celebrated gameplay is.

This episode we consider Max's transition from the darkened streets of New York to the sun splashed swanky penthouses and seamy favelas of Brazil. We consider how Max Payne 3 may or may not carry on the themes of loss and redemption of the previous episodes and whether or not a cover-based system is a benefit to a more modern version of the franchise.

This week the Moving Pixels podcast crew takes a look at the latest adaptation of Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead.

While the familiar trappings of a zombie-filled setting might be at risk of oversaturating the American media landscape, Telltale's latest episodic adventure game proves this video game genre might not quite as dead as some have pronounced it to be.

At the suggestion of a listener, Andrew Grech, Nick and I decided to revisit (for the first time for both of us) the cult classic FPS, No One Lives Forever.

The game has a great reputation for its clever parody of spy thrillers and for its forward thinking game design. We decided to put that reputation to the test and see if No One Lives Forever has anything to offer gamers over a decade after its initial release.

The Witcher 2's release on console seemed an appropriate enough reason for the Moving Pixels podcast crew to have a look at last year's well regarded PC RPG.

To call the The Witcher 2 ambitious is an understatement, as it is a game that approaches the question of how much control the player has in crafting the story by offering expansive branching paths rarely seen before in games. We are of differing opinions regarding the success that CDProjekt has had in doing this, though, and in their presentation of the politics and pathos in the game's narrative.

As an escapist medium, video games offer an experience that other mediums do not. You can imagine being Luke Skywalker or Spider-Man or any one of countless super humanly powerful or charming or interesting individuals from the movies or books or comics. However, you can only play witness to their heroic acts.

Video games allow you to be these people, though, not just thrill to their amazing feats from afar. What happens, though, when those people in video games are people that we would never want to be?