Reply
‘↵Black Mesa‘ meanwhile is here—and above is a fine specimen of machinima—many more of those over at the ↑critter week thread. … Continue reading
Tag Archives: half-life
After eight years in the making, the release of ‘↑Black Mesa‘ is only nine days away. Here’s the ‘about’ ↑from its very own wiki: Black Mesa (formerly Black Mesa: Source) is a Half-Life 2 total conversion remaking of Valve Software’s award-winning PC game, Half-Life. Utilizing the Source engine, Black Mesa will reintroduce the player as Doctor Gordon Freeman, along with the original cast of memorable characters and environments seen in Half-Life. Black Mesa was built and founded on the basis that Half-Life: Source didn’t fully live up to the potential of a Source engine port of Half-Life. As … Continue reading
After our conversation in the elevator unfortunately is interrupted by ↑Francis Pritchard entering, ↑Megan Reed has to go and meet ↑Athene Margoulis, ↑David Sarif‘s executive assistant. The latter is my boss, the founder and CEO of ↑Sarif Industries, whom I now have to meet up in his office. And quite an office it is [see above], although not as impressive as the one of ↑Dr. Eldon Tyrell—but then again Sarif Industries is characterized as ‘a moderately-sized biotechnology company.’ For that the building housing his company is quite impressive. While talking with the old man [strange to say that, … Continue reading
Detail from the original cover of ↑Chris Crawford‘s 1987 game “↑Patton vs. Rommel“ As I said, all in all the public discussion on computergames is led way more differentiated in the aftermath of the amok run at Emsdetten, than it was led before. For example yesterday there was an interview with the 1980s prominent game designer ↑Chris Crawford of “↑The art of computer game design“ (↵Crawford 1984) fame, in one of Germany’s biggest transregional newspapers: “Faster, higher, more colourful—how bleak” (Süddeutsche Zeitung 288: 11) As usual Crawford is quite critical of contemporary computergames and the industry [for more of … Continue reading
↑MORRIS, SUE. 2004. ↑Co-creative media: Online multiplayer computer game culture. ↑Scan: Journal of media arts culture ↑1(1). abstract: As a new and emerging research area, computer games demand the development of new theoretical frameworks for research and analysis. In addition to the specific requirements of a new medium, the advent and rapidly rising popularity of multiplayer computer gaming creates further challenges for researchers when the text under analysis forms a locus for human interaction – structuring and mediating communication between large numbers of people, and spawning social practices and identifications within a cultural economy extending beyond the game itself. While … Continue reading
↑Garry’s mod [Gmod], of which ↑version 9.0 was released just today, is a ↵HL2-mod[ification] which allows you to ↑do uncanny things in HL2. ↑Wikipedia says: “Garry’s Mod (Gmod), a successor to the throne of the original JBMod, is a simple modification created by Garry Newman. While it does not have any actual gameplay value, it functions as a huge sandbox, where the player is free to manipulate most of the objects and features of the Source engine. This has allowed an extensive community to build up and creating mini-games with Gmod, therefore creating a “Game in a Game” of … Continue reading
There’s a lot said and written on immersion into alternative or even virtual worlds, on people getting lost in gamespace or the Internet’s interactive realms, and so on. In consequence thoughts about the questions arising with these ‘other realities’ fly into every direction. As the ‘cyberanthropologist online among the gamemodders’ I deem myself to be, I am especially interested in how the Cyberians themselves tackle this issues. The people I am affected to appropriate all kinds of related artefacts and then artistically slap the demarcations between meat- and cyberspace around with a large trout—big time. Aaron Rasmussen for example thought … Continue reading
by ↑KerLeone—translated by zeph The suitcase did not pass through the teleporter. I am speaking of ↑Half-Life 2. I just wanted to take along the suitcase from the railway station. But then I am standing in the room with the teleporter and take the suitcase with me, into the teleporter. Now—first things first—the teleporter malfunctions ingame insofar as it teleports me to oh so strange places (because a headcrab had tampered with the electronics). That’s the first dimension. Inside the game I only reach a place right in front of the window to the teleporter-room. It malfunctions on another level … Continue reading
Tomi Salo has run through the complete Max Payne 2 (MP2) game in 33 minutes and 30 seconds! Speed Demos Archive carries a collection of video-evidence of so called ‘speed runs’: “A speed run is a video of a player striving to complete a video game in as fast a time as they can manage. Sound easy? It’s not! A large number of tricks are usually used, possibly skipping whole areas of a game in the process, and there will always be mistakes.” Among goodies like a Half Life 2 (HL2) run by David ‘marshmallow’ Gibbons in 2:14:58, and several … Continue reading
Three titles I haven’t laid on hands yet, but definitely will: Half-Life 2: Raising the bar, The making of Doom II, and Masters of Doom: How two guys created an empire and transformed pop culture. When I was a kid I was tremendously thrilled by the Star-Wars movies (and still am today, I confess). This also is the root of a string of associations of mine which culminate in this research-project. With putting Star-Wars related items on sale, George Lucas started what today is well known as ‘merchandising’. I never bought a Skywalker-puppet or the like, but I went lengths … Continue reading