A More Vile Form of Copying

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 31, 2012

There’s a form of copying that’s far more pernicious than piracy. They say the key to creativity is hiding your sources. It’s mostly true. Even as Chris Crawford argued nearly 25 years ago, creativity and originality is a spectrum with one idealized end that lies only in theory. But the other extreme is all too […]

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The Magic Game-Making Box

Posted by Rampant Coyote on January 28, 2012

Okay, there’s a quote I love but I forget who said it – someone at Bioware I think. I thought I’d try to harness the power of the Internet to get the exact quote and who said it. Basically, the quote goes something like this: If you were to build gamers a magical box that, […]

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PC World Interview – More on Warhawk and Twisted Metal

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 21, 2011

Wow, you get a double-dose of ancient history from me this week! More Warhawk and Twisted Metal goodness! PC World has published an interview with me about the early days of Playstation game development. This interview has a few discussions in common with part 1 of my Matt Chat interview. Kinda funny how they coincided […]

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Modern Game Journalism: The Movie (Trailer)

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 16, 2011

Mega64 is at it again. Here’s the trailer to the movie you hope you will never see… Modern Game Journalism: The Movie – The Trailer Get More: GameTrailers.com, Mega64 – Modern Game Journalism: The Movie: The Trailer HD, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360   It’s funny ‘cuz it’s true… painfully, painfully true. Sometimes Mega64 […]

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If Quake Was Made Today…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on November 2, 2011

As a bunch of “old-school” RPG fans hang out here, we’re accustomed to griping about how “dumbed down” RPGs have become over the years. But it’s not just our favorite genre. As much as we complain about RPGs becoming first-person shooters, first-person shooters aren’t what they used to be, either. To illustrate this point, this […]

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Greek Mythology? Yeah, Right.

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 25, 2011

Can someone explain what the heck this comic-book woman has to do with Greek mythology? I mean, she doesn’t really look Greek, does she? More like Emma Frost in full-on White Queen mode. Yeah. I know.  It’s like all those other online games that sell a scantily clad woman on the ad who either has […]

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Why the RPG Hate?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 14, 2011

There’s an obviously linkbait article over at IGN (which works, I’m linking to it here) which praises the upcoming Elder Scrolls title Skyrim by talking about how it doesn’t play like an RPG.  The article summary states, “Even if you think RPGs are dumb, this is a game that will command your attention.” While most […]

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Post-Release R&R?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on October 3, 2011

Ah, with Frayed Knights 1 all released and stuff, I’ve been able to enjoy a wonderful several days of rest and recuperation, catch up on playing games and TV shows, and even get some sleep for a change. Maybe I’ll finally finish that stack of books I’ve been meaning to read… *SNORT* Okay, yeah, I […]

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In the Future, All Games Will Be First-Person Shooters

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 13, 2011

Matt Barton joins the dogpile onto beloved franchises that are being remade as plain ol’ shooters: Matt Barton Podcast #2 – Absolutely Reticulous! With word that Syndicate is joining X-Com in reincarnation as an FPS, old-school fans are left wondering what’s worse: that classic games that they loved aren’t being made anymore, or that they […]

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Why Mainstream Developers are Going Indie, Redux

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 7, 2011

Funny how this seems to be a topic of interest lately. Why are all these veterans of the mainstream games industry chucking the apparent safety of their jobs and going indie? Two words: Creative Freedom The second highest reason, sharing ideas with the world, pretty much speaks to the same thing. Game developers are creative […]

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Why the RPG Genre is Losing its Distinctiveness

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 29, 2011

The top names in the mainstream games biz – many of whom have a history of producing computer and console RPGs, have now come to question the relevance of the genre. A former Interplay producer claims that RPGs always wanted to be action games at heart, but just lacked the technology to do so.  Even […]

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Are Games Too Long?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 22, 2011

According to CNN, fewer players are “finishing” long games now: Why Most People Don’t Finish Video Games When I first saw this article last week, my first thought was, “Crap! Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon is taking testers 30+ hours now. Is it too long?” Maybe. The article cites several key reasons why – […]

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Google+ Opens Social Gaming

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 12, 2011

Like this was ever in doubt… Google+ Launches First Set of Social Games There are some curious differences between this and Facebook. First off – it’s not an “open platform.” At least not yet. They are starting with only a few partners for now and gradually letting more onboard to effectively beta-test their system. Will […]

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Sucking the RPG Genre Dry

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 5, 2011

I still haven’t played the game, so I don’t feel qualified to comment. But maybe you can. Mike Laidlaw explains changes to Dragon Age 2 I dunno, but it sounds telling to me how he takes pains to demonstrate how they aren’t trying to clone the gameplay in Devil May Cry: “There’s a LOT of territory […]

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Diablo III: Lord of Bling?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 2, 2011

The Diablo III news at the beginning of this week caused quite a stir: 1. The game requires a constant Internet connection to play. Basically it is “online only,” no matter how you want to argue semantics. 2. Items in the auction house will be bought and sold for real-world money. With Blizzard taking a […]

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A Terrifying Tale of Indie Game Development…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on July 27, 2011

… Wherein one developer frantically battles near-bankruptcy and changes game design repeatedly to avoid starvation, and eventually releases Amnesia: The Dark Descent to very impressive sales. The Terrifying Tale of Amnesia (at The Escapist) I gotta tell ya, this is a lot more riveting than the standardized-format post-mortems available in Game Developer magazine / Gamasutra. […]

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