Gaming Academia Gets More Mainstream Press 86
jimharris writes "Eventually every area of human activity comes under the scrutiny of scholars. After thirty years, it's time for video games to go to college. The New York Times has an article (free registration required) called 'The Ivy-Covered Console', that talks about several lucky professors who play games for a living. The challenge, they say, is to develop a language of criticism to analyze video games." One particularly unfortunate quote: "Dr. [Barry] Atkins admitted that he didn't finish Half-Life before writing about it in his 2003 book, 'More Than a Game: The Computer Game as Fictional Form,' (Manchester University Press), and only later realized he was two minutes from the shocking plot reversal at the end when he stopped. 'I am very nervous that I got it wrong,' he said."
Half-Life (Score:4, Funny)
The very ending was cute, though.
Re:Narrow selection of games (Score:5, Funny)
Prince Hamlet enters, torn by guilt, grief, jealousy, and vengeance, and soliloquizes with stirring poetry about his problems. Then he proceeds to launch heavy artillery at Queen Gertrude and Claudius. "O that this too too solid flesh would melt 'Neath the heat of a Plasma rifle blast." Wow, even better than the original!
Re:Narrow selection of games (Score:4, Funny)
Prince Hamlet enters, torn by guilt, grief, jealousy, and vengeance, and soliloquizes with stirring poetry about his problems. Then he proceeds to launch heavy artillery at Queen Gertrude and Claudius.
But just imagine the duel with Laertes!
Trumpets the while
HAMLET. Come on sir.
LAERTES. Come my lord.
They play
HAM. One.
LAE. No.
HAM. Judgement.
OSRIC. A hit, a very palpable hit.
LAE. Nay, thou'rt lame; thou campest; I'll not play with thee.
Pokemon... (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, I am a pokemon fanatic. How did you guess? I would have filled up my Ruby's Pokedex months ago, except for the fact that I have to do actual work up here in the University of Wisc @ Madison...
In case you're wondering, I do have hundreds, if not thousands, of hours logged on my Pokemon games.. Have Yellow (first one), Blue, Red, Silver, Gold (2), Crystal, Sapphire, Ruby, Pokemon Stadiums 1 & 2, and the special release of Pokemon Yellow Gameboy. It does take dedication, and hard work, but you can catch em all.
Re:Researchers vs. Developers (Score:2, Funny)