Words about videogames.
These are my new colleagues.
This is the new site.
I’m now Senior Reporter (Australia) at Polygon.com.
Artwork by Juhana Schulman.
P.S. I won Best Gaming Journalist and the Gold Lizzie for overall Best Journalist at the Microsoft IT Journalism Awards on Friday. I have trophies and everything!
Illustration by Kotaku reader "Sughly". kramsdesign.com
I’d been meaning to do a Kirk Hamilton-type post about my first few months at Kotaku Australia but I never got around to it because I was overwhelmed by a case of “the lazy shits” (I think that is the scientific term for it, yes). Today I was going through the Kotaku CMS tagging stories, and seeing my older articles reminded me that I still hadn’t done some kind of a story round-up here on Zero Light Seeds. So here it is! Below are links to most of the big features I wrote during my first five months at Kotaku AU.
Gears Of War 3 Is A Crunchy Potato Chip
Fathers Of The FPS Haven’t [R]aged A Day
I Am A Body-Building. This Is ZiGGURAT
Knowing Your Rights In Game Development
Surprise Attack: When A THQ Marketing Director Goes Indie
Warco: The First-Person Shooter Where You Never Fire A Gun
Re-Classification Laid Bare: What R18+ Means For You
The Brawsome Journey: The Indie Devs Writing Their Way to Success
My 2011 In Games: Hyperdimension Neptunia And Repulsion
The Indie Handbook That Doesn’t Exist
From Brisbane To Seattle: A Strange Loop Game
Purple ‘N’ Pimpin — The Saints Are Back
The Philosophical First-Person Puzzler: Antichamber
The War Begins In The Other Ocean
What Happens To Game Developers When A Studio Closes?
One Man’s Journey Through The Solar System
Resistance 3: The Complex Game That Keeps It Simple
Will Make Games For Food… Or Funding
Working at Kotaku sure has made me a lot more prolific than when I worked in print! Aside from writing daily news posts, I’ve also been given the freedom to pursue and write the stories linked above. I used to be so pleased with myself if I was able to write two large features a month for HYPER or PC PowerPlay. I guess I used to also be some lazy jerk of a university student!
This is what some might refer to as a "Bill Henson Model".
Review: Hyperdimension Neptunia
First published in issue 212 of HYPER magazine.
To laugh or to get angry; to let it pass as just following certain anime conventions or to be disgusted by the blatant sexism that sees well-endowed girls who look and sound 11 get exploited by the camera – I don’t know how I feel about Hyperdimension Neptunia.
Actually, that is a lie. I know exactly how I feel about the game. I feel disappointed. I feel uncomfortable, and most of all I’m annoyed that of all the Japanese games that could have been given an Australian release, it had to be this one.
The premise of the game shows so much promise: four goddesses, each the embodiment of a console (Wii, Xbox, PlayStation, Sega Neptune) are at war with each other over the land of Gameindustri. Much of the amusement and humour is drawn from references to the games industry as we know it, and while the game pokes fun at genre conventions and character representations (“Breasts are symbolic for both my maturity and fertility. The size of my bust equates to my aptitude as a goddess!” says the goddess Green Heart, while showing so much under-boob it’s a wonder they haven’t reached her knees), they are often done without purpose or reason. The game relies too heavily on the player’s existing knowledge of other games in order to entertain us, rather than an engaging story, clever use of dialogue and woven in gaming references, and gameplay dynamics that are actually worth playing.
With no worlds or towns to explore, you’re left to wander through uninteresting dungeon after uninteresting dungeon, each one boringly laid out with about as much to discover and get excited about as an airplane lunchbox. Running around awkwardly to a grating soundtrack, your exploration of the dungeon is frequently interrupted by random battles that quickly become repetitive and dull as you find yourself queuing up combos before hitting skip to avoid watching the same battle animations over and over and over again.
The characters are also needlessly irritating, with every female character sounding like a whiny, vacuous child with phenomenal levels of ditsy-ness (“Hello. I enjoy arts and crafts, and I’m good at math. I know I don’t look it, but it’s something I’m quite proud of,” says Compa, THE DITZ). The representation of females as stupid and shallow is offensive, and the level of fan service is discomforting. Case in point: almost every cut-scene involves an image still of a girl in a compromising position – the camera then slowly moves to and zooms in on the part of the screen that features the most crotch and holds it there. In an early scene, Neptune gets bandaged by Compa, but the bandages have only strategically covered parts of her breasts and crotch, exposing sufficient side-boob and EVERYTHING ELSE, all while we can hear the sound of her squeals. Every time Compa falls over, the camera also ensures we get to see what colour her knickers are (white).
Is this all a joke? If so, is it meant to be funny? Because rather than take a meta approach and be intelligently self-reflective and humourous, there appears to be a strong undertone of “Hurr…videogame references…durr…” and the kind of sexism that is simply too prevalent in a lot of Japanese anime. It’s gross. And while it could be funny, it’s just not. When all is combined, the interesting idea that showed so much promise falls flat on its white knicker-covered arse and stays there, waiting for the camera to zoom in.
1/10
Story first published in issue #197 of Hyper magazine and re-published 17th March 2010 by GamesIndustry.biz.
THE RISE AND FALLOUT OF RED ANT
They were one of Australia’s largest independent videogame distributors until the Australian dollar crashed and brought them down with it. A year on from the collapse of Red Ant Enterprises, documents have emerged that raise serious questions about unexplained loans made by the company, as well as the movements of its director and his wife.
Continue reading ‘The Rise And Fallout Of Red Ant’
