Coming Soon: ‘The Art of Video Games’ Exhibit (Or, Why I’m Glad I Live Near D.C.)

The Smith­son­ian Amer­i­can Art Museum will explore video games as art in its upcom­ing exhibit, The Art of Video Games .   The exhibit will show­case 80 video games, from the early days of Atari and Cole­co­V­i­sion to today’s next-gen con­soles like Xbox 360 and Playsta­tion 3.

Among the famil­iar titles included: Pac-Man, Pit­fall!, The Leg­end of Zelda, Final Fan­tasy VII, Rez (pic­ture above), Por­tal, Heavy Rain, and holy shit is that ChuChu Rocket I see on the list?  Here is the full list of fea­tured games .  The selected games were cho­sen by pub­lic vote, and were whit­tled down from a list of over 240 titles.  (Which helps to explain why some obvi­ous choices didn’t make the cut. Braid  and  Grim Fan­dango  come to mind.)

If you don’t live near D.C, you may still be able to attend.  The exhibit will be trav­el­ling to sev­eral other major cities, includ­ing Boca Raton, Seat­tle, New York, Toledo, Flint, and Mem­phis.  Click the link for details.

The Art of Video Games exhibit will debut March 16 and remain open until Sep­tem­ber 30, 2012.

Friday Lulz: The Poopoozela Edition

Sur­prise Poop!

Seri­ously, I almost peed my pants at this.

Glid­ing and turn­ing are the heart and soul of skateboarding.

Daniel Gezmer would like to intro­duce you to the magic of effort­less gliding.

Dara O’Brian is Really Bad at Video Games

Did you know that game devel­op­ers secretly hate you?

The 2011 Video Games I’m Most Looking Forward To

Some years just plain suck for video games; when there’s hardly any inter­est­ing new titles to look for­ward to, and the hype sur­round­ing big releases turns out to be more excit­ing than the actual game.  2011 is not going to be one of those years .

At the begin­ning of every year, I like to make a list of all the upcom­ing games I want to play and HOLY SHIT  this year is going to be awe­some (not to men­tion expen­sive).  Here’s what I’m look­ing for­ward to the most (as in, I will go out of my way to get these games on release day), in order of release date:

Dragon Age II

Release Date: March 8, 2011
Platform(s): PC, PlaySta­tion 3, Xbox 360

Set in the same world of Thedas, this sequel to Dragon Age: Ori­gins takes place in a dif­fer­ent region of the map called the Free Marches.  Play­ers take on the role of Hawke, a sur­vivor of the Blight and Cham­pion of Kirk­wall who rises to power through­out the game, which spans a decade.  One really inter­est­ing fea­ture is that the player can import data from Dragon Age: Ori­gins which will reflect choices that the player made in the orig­i­nal game.  One of the major things play­ers com­plained about in Ori­gins were the graph­ics.  So far, screen­shots have promised to be a major improvement.

Black Mir­ror 3: Final Fear

Release Date: April 12, 2011
Platform(s): PC

The third and final chap­ter of the The Black Mir­ror point-and-click adven­ture hor­ror series for PC picks up where the sec­ond game ends. Play­ers return as pro­tag­o­nist Dar­ren Michaels, who is haunted by the generations-old curse that runs through his bloodline.

Red Johnson’s Chronicles

Release Date: TBA, Spring 2011
Platform(s): PlaySta­tion 3

This PS3 exclu­sive promises to be a cross between the CSI and P rofes­sor Lay­ton titles in terms of game­play, with beau­ti­ful, styl­is­tic graph­ics that take full advan­tage of the PS3 hard­ware. You play as Red, a pri­vate eye inves­ti­gat­ing a high pro­file mur­der in a gritty, urban set­ting akin to New York City. This may turn out to be the most adventure-ish adven­ture game yet for PS3!

Por­tal 2

Release Date: April 18, 2011
Platform(s): PC, PlaySta­tion 3, Xbox 360

Por­tal was the sur­prise hit of 2007, and fans of the orig­i­nal game have been clam­or­ing for a sequel ever since.  In Por­tal 2, play­ers return to the Aper­ture Sci­ence facil­ity to find it dilap­i­dated and will again face rig­or­ous phys­i­cal tests as we help to rebuild.  We can expect the same inno­v­a­tive style of physics-based puz­zle game­play that made the orig­i­nal so great.

L.A. Noire

Release Date: May 17, 2011
Platform(s): PlaySta­tion 3, Xbox 360

Set in a very real­is­tic 1947 Los Ange­les cre­ated as a visual homage to 1940s noir films, L.A. Noire will have play­ers solv­ing mur­der mys­ter­ies in an open-ended, sand­box style envi­ron­ment.  Rock­star promises to deliver “a vio­lent crime thriller that blends breath­tak­ing action with true detec­tive work to deliver an unprece­dented inter­ac­tive expe­ri­ence.”  If this game turns out to be any­where near as good as Red Dead Redemp­tion , I think we can safely put it in the run­ning for Game of the Year.

ICO / Shadow of the Colos­sus HD Collection

Release Date: Q1/Q2 2011
Platform(s): PlaySta­tion 3

Orig­i­nally released on PlaySta­tion 2, ICO and its spir­i­tual suc­ces­sor Shadow of the Colos­sus are con­sid­ered to be two of the most impor­tant games in terms of artis­tic expres­sion and emo­tional response.  Fans of the orig­i­nals as well as new play­ers who want to expe­ri­ence these jour­neys for the first time will be treated to a high-definition remake for the PS3 that will also sup­port 3D.

The Last Guardian

Release Date: Q4 2011
Platform(s): PlaySta­tion 3

The newest Team ICO title that fans of ICO and Shadow of the Colos­sus are eagerly await­ing, The Last Guardian will share the same styl­is­tic, the­matic, and game­play ele­ments of its predecessors.

Alice: Mad­ness Returns

Release Date: Q4 2011
Platform(s): PC, PlaySta­tion 3, Xbox 360

If you were a fan of Amer­i­can McGee’s crit­i­cally acclaimed Alice game for PC, no doubt that this upcom­ing sequel—also designed by Amer­i­can McGee—is on your radar.  Tak­ing place 11 years after the events in the first game, Alice relo­cates from Rut­ledge Asy­lum to the care of a psy­chi­a­trist in Lon­don where she con­tin­ues to strug­gle with real­ity, slips back into mad­ness and returns a Won­der­land over­rid­den with evil.

Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception

Release Date: Novem­ber 1, 2011
Platform(s): Playsta­tion 3

I con­sider Uncharted and its first sequel two of the best games I have ever played—and I have played a lot of games.  I can’t even begin to imag­ine how devel­oper Naughty Dog will be able to top itself with this third install­ment.  The game is set pri­mar­ily against the arid, desert back­drop of  the Ara­bian Penin­sula as pro­tag­o­nist Nathan Drake goes in search of the leg­endary lost city, Iram of the Pil­lars.  The story will focus heav­ily on the friend­ship between Drake and his men­tor and fre­quent trav­el­ing com­pan­ion Vic­tor Sullivan.

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Release Date: Novem­ber 11, 2011
Platform(s): PC, PlaySta­tion 3, Xbox 360

Tak­ing place two-hundred years after the events of Elder Scrolls IV: Obliv­ion (which, btw, if you haven’t played it, shame on you),  Skyrim returns play­ers to Tam­riel, which has erupted into civil war. Play­ers take on the role of the last-surviving Dovahkiin (trans­la­tion: “Drag­onborn”) to save the world from Alduin, god of destruc­tion.   As in pre­vi­ous Elder Scrolls games, I expect an adven­ture of epic pro­por­tions.  The lat­est issue of Game­In­former has a GORGEOUS 10-page spread pre­view of this game, and it looks absolutely stunning.

I Am Alive

Release Date: TBA, 2011
Platform(s): PC, PlaySta­tion 3, Xbox 360, Nin­tendo Wii

A new, orig­i­nal (read: non-sequel) title that I’m really excited about.  A major earth­quake has destroyed Chicago and sep­a­rated it from the main­land.  Your goal is to sur­vive the apocalyptic-like sur­round­ings by for­ag­ing for food and water, and ward­ing off enemies—other human beings who threaten your own sur­vival.  Oh yeah, and you’re also try­ing to find and res­cue your miss­ing girl­friend, too.  The game has been in devel­op­ment since 2005 and suf­fered numer­ous set­backs, but is planned to be released some­time this year.

The Leg­end of Zelda: Sky­ward Sword

Release Date: TBA, 2011
Platform(s): Nin­tendo Wii

2011 is a pretty piti­ful year for Wii games, with not many new titles on the hori­zon.  But a new Zelda game, typ­i­cally her­alded by Zelda fans like the sec­ond com­ing, could make up for it. (Though I’m keep­ing my expec­ta­tions in check due to the dis­ap­point­ment that was Metroid: Other M .)

Dia­blo III

Release Date: TBA, 2011
Platform(s): PC

Bliz­zard has yet to announce a release date for its much-anticipated hack & slash sequel, but most fans of Bliz­zard games are accus­tomed to wait­ing. I just hope not for too much longer!

Child of Eden

Release Date: TBA, 2011
Platform(s): PlaySta­tion 3, Xbox 360

Remem­ber the shoot­ing game Rez ?  (And how amaz­ing it was?)  Devel­oper Tet­suya Mizuguchi, the man who gave us Rez, returns with a new game sim­i­lar in con­cept and game­play.  Like Rez, the game­play will be a har­monic fusion of sound, vision and touch as play­ers rhyth­mi­cally shoot at var­i­ous tar­gets that pro­duce melodic sounds when destroyed.  I can’t wait to expe­ri­ence it in glo­ri­ous HD on my 60″ Mitsubishi.

Dead Island

Release Date: TBA, 2011
Platform(s): PC, PlaySta­tion 3, Xbox 360

When I first heard about Dead Island —a zom­bie sur­vival hor­ror FPS set on a deserted island—I dis­missed it as just another zom­bie game. But that was before I saw this trailer .

What games are you really look­ing for­ward to this year?

Why ‘Reality is Broken’ Is a Must-Read for Every Gamer

And now for some­thing com­pletely different…

If you con­sider your­self a gamer in any capac­ity, you have prob­a­bly not gone through life with­out some­one telling you, at some point, that video games are waste of time, or you have no life, and other insult­ing mis­con­cep­tions that non-gamers often spew at us.

In her new book, Real­ity is Bro­ken , vision­ary game designer Jane McGo­ni­gal hopes to change such attitudes.

Let’s be hon­est: Video games typ­i­cally get a bad rap.  Blood, sex, vio­lence, gore, moms seduc­ing 13-year-old boys on Xbox Live, the boy who shot his par­ents for tak­ing away Halo… Sen­sa­tional head­lines about video games tend to over­shadow the medium itself.

But what about all the pos­i­tive ways in which games influ­ence our lives?  Beyond basic read­ing com­pre­hen­sion and hand-eye coor­di­na­tion, video games can teach us how to set and achieve goals, adapt to new sit­u­a­tions, learn from our mis­takes, help and influ­ence oth­ers, and even how to be an effec­tive team member.

For the mil­lions of Amer­i­can gamers (over 174 mil­lion, to be more pre­cise) who already real­ize these ben­e­fits, Real­ity is Bro­ken is a refresh­ing and encour­ag­ing study of how video games improve our lives and the rea­sons why we need them.  Jane McGo­ni­gal advo­cates that video games are so omnipresent today because they are able to ful­fill basic human needs that we are oth­er­wise lack­ing in our mod­ern lives.  In short, “real­ity is bro­ken” and McGo­ni­gal believes video games are the “fix.”

“Draw­ing on pos­i­tive psy­chol­ogy, cog­ni­tive sci­ence, and soci­ol­ogy, Real­ity Is Bro­ken uncov­ers how game design­ers have hit on core truths about what makes us happy and uti­lized these dis­cov­er­iesto aston­ish­ing effect in vir­tual envi­ron­ments. Videogames con­sis­tently pro­vide the exhil­a­rat­ing rewards, stim­u­lat­ing chal­lenges, and epic vic­to­ries that are so often lack­ing in the real world. But why, McGo­ni­gal asks, should we use the power of games for escapist enter­tain­ment alone? Her research sug­gests that gamers are expert prob­lem solvers and col­lab­o­ra­tors because they reg­u­larly coop­er­ate with other play­ers to over­come daunt­ing vir­tual chal­lenges, and she helped pio­neer a fast-growing genre of games that aims to turn game­play to socially pos­i­tive ends.”

No mat­ter what kind of gamer you are, from the week­night WoW raider to the casual DS gamer—even non-gamer—you will find your­self inspired by the views Jane presents in her book, and per­haps even in awe at all the inno­v­a­tive, ground­break­ing ways that game design­ers through­out the world are using their tal­ents for the greater good.

Book Giveaway!

Would you like to win a copy of Real­ity is Bro­ken? Cour­tesy of The Pen­guin Press and TLC Book Tours, one hard­cover copy of the book will be given away to one of my read­ers in the U.S. or Canada.  If you’d like to enter to win, sim­ply leave a com­ment below using your email address.  I will ran­domly select a win­ner on Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 28 and will con­tact you fur­ther by email.

Good luck!

‘From Bedrooms to Billions’ is a New Documentary about the Evolution of Video Games

From Bed­rooms to Bil­lions is a new doc­u­men­tary by inde­pen­dent film­mak­ers Anthony and Nicola Caulfield ( Night­fall Films ) about the hum­ble begin­nings of video games, and how pas­sion­ate gamers have trans­formed them into a bil­lion dol­lar industry.

Here’s the trailer (which, very appro­pri­ately, is set to Pin­ball Wizard):

As some­one who was prac­ti­cally born with a joy­stick in hand, I am very much look­ing for­ward to see­ing this film.  From the press release:

‘From Bed­rooms to Bil­lions’ is a film about the remark­able story of how a small num­ber of indi­vid­u­als from around the world made up of enthu­si­asts, hob­by­ists, school kids, bed­room coders and entre­pre­neurs, whose vision and cre­ativ­ity pio­neered in shap­ing the bil­lion dol­lar games indus­try which today, dom­i­nates the mod­ern enter­tain­ment land­scape.

Fun stats time!

• Video games is the num­ber one enter­tain­ment industry
• Over 70% of the world’s pop­u­la­tion plays video games
• By 2011, the world­wide gam­ing mar­ket will be worth $48.9 billion

The film is set to release in Autumn 2011.

Worst Valentine’s Day Gifts for Gamers

Valentine’s Day is just 1 day away.  So what have you got­ten for your sweet­heart who loves video games?

Stuck for ideas? There’s a ton of good blog posts out there rec­om­mend­ing awe­some V-day gifts for the spe­cial gamer in your life.  Great stuff like  this , any of these , and (my per­sonal favorite) this .

But for all the great Valentine’s Day gifts for gamers, there’s a whole lot of bad ones.  And bad Valentine’s Day gifts can lead to cry­ing, shame, and the with­hold­ing of sex.  Lucky for you, I’m here to help you avoid such pit­falls by review­ing some of the worst gifts pos­si­ble.  This is espe­cially help­ful for you non-gamers who know you want to get your Valen­tine some­thing gamer-related, but have no idea what NOT to buy.   And if you’re a gamer your­self, you should know better.

Warn­ing: Giv­ing your sig­nif­i­cant other any of the fol­low­ing items for Valentine’s Day may result in a swift and imme­di­ate breakup.

Wii Fit

There’s noth­ing like giv­ing your part­ner a Valentine’s Day gift that not so sub­tly sug­gests they should lose some weight.  While I don’t think it’s quite as bad for a girl to give this to her man, I do pity the guy who makes the mis­take of buy­ing this for his girl­friend, espe­cially if she didn’t ask for it. Get­ting a Wii Fit is anal­o­gous to receiv­ing a bath­room scale, which, FYI, usu­ally tops the lists of worst Valentine’s Day gifts .  Even if your inten­tions are com­pletely inno­cent, stay on the safe side and just assume that on some level, whether sub­con­sciously or not, she will get offended.

Generic Game Systems

For gamers, there’s noth­ing quite as dis­ap­point­ing as receiv­ing a generic game sys­tem as a gift, espe­cially if you had your heart set on a real one.  You know the ones I’m talk­ing about–they’re the no-name “all in one” con­soles with built-in games that QVC tries to pawn off on clue­less moms around the hol­i­days, or the Brand X game sys­tems that resem­ble con­trollers col­lect­ing dust in some bar­gain bin at Toys ‘R Us. They’re easy to iden­tify because A) they’re cheaply priced; B) they usu­ally say things on the box like “you’ll never need to buy another game again!”; and most rec­og­niz­ably C) THEY DON’T FUCKING SAY “NINTENDO”, “XBOX”, or “PS3” ANYWHERE!  Nobody, I repeat NOBODY wants one of these worth­less pieces of shit as a gift on any hol­i­day, let alone Valentine’s Day. Avoid!

Stu­pid Gamer T-Shirts

There’s a lot of cool gamer t-shirts out there, but also plenty of uncool ones.  If you plan on get­ting some geeky gear for your favorite gamer, make sure you at least buy one that doesn’t make them look like a com­plete douchebag.  As a gen­eral rule of thumb, you should avoid any­thing that says “1337.”  Also ter­ri­ble are shirts based on shitty games, shirts boldly pro­claim­ing how much you “pwn” (unless of course you really don’t, and you’re just try­ing to be ironic), unfunny cus­tom design jobs that nobody under­stands but you, or per­haps this shirt .

Rock Revolution

Also known as the game that ISN’T Rock Band or Gui­tar Hero.  So if your BF/GF had their heart set on either of these games for Valentine’s Day and you get them Rock Rev­o­lu­tion instead, con­grats, you fail.  It’s almost like the devel­op­ers delib­er­ately made this game to trick naive peo­ple into buy­ing it think­ing it’s one of the other two.  The track­list is sur­pris­ingly not hor­ri­ble, but hardly any of the songs are per­formed by orig­i­nal artists.  The game has also received ter­ri­ble reviews from most crit­ics and game sites.  Com­pared to Rock Band and Gui­tar Hero, Rock Rev­o­lu­tion is undoubt­edly the red-headed stepchild.

Plug ‘n’ Play TV Games

These lit­tle one-trick ponies are a close cousin to the afore­men­tioned Generic Game Sys­tems, and they come in a wide vari­ety of games rang­ing from crappy to crap­pier.  These are the kinds of video game prod­ucts you buy for some­one that only likes or has ever played one video game in their entire life (usu­ally Tetris), your grand­mother who only knows how to play card games, or young chil­dren who you don’t yet trust enough not to fuck up a real con­sole.  These plug ‘n’ play devices are typ­i­cally very gim­micky, with prod­uct designs that go out of their way to let you know what game you’re play­ing, and uncom­fort­able con­trollers. While there are SOME decent retro plug ‘n’ play devices that mimic clas­sic game con­soles, they usu­ally have excep­tion­ally shitty con­trollers and/or a lim­ited library of built-in games. The only time it’s accept­able to buy one of these toys is if you’re unable to acquire a real Atari or Com­modore 64 and are des­per­ate to play your old favorites.  Buy your Valen­tine the real thing instead!

Hope I saved you from a sex-less Valentine’s Day!

My Gamer’s New Year’s Resolutions for 2009

In 2009, I resolve to:

Quit buy­ing into the indus­try hype lead­ing up to huge game launches.  So far it has con­tin­u­ally lead to disappointment.

Give more love to my old game sys­tems. I have a closet full of old con­soles and games that prob­a­bly miss me.  I hope to find some time in 2009 to fall in love with them all over again.

Fin­ish games before start­ing new ones. I am prob­a­bly least likely to suc­ceed at this one, but it’s a noble aspi­ra­tion all the same.

Mas­ter the Hard mode on gui­tar in Rock Band .  I do all right on Hard, but some of the more wicked solos make my fin­gers hurt and my fans dis­ap­pear.  Of course, then I watch things like this and it makes me weep.

Level my war­lock to 80. I have less and less time these days to play WoW, but I’m hop­ing I can carve out a few days in 2009 to level my oft-neglected alt .

Play more adven­ture games. Even though it’s get­ting harder and harder to find decent titles within this unpop­u­lar genre, I’ll con­tinue try­ing to seek out and dis­cover great new point and click style games I love so much, and feel good about sup­port­ing the mostly indie devel­op­ers who still make them .

Embrace the game industry’s desire to make games that appeal to girls, even though they’re get­ting it all wrong .  At least they’re try­ing, right?

Stop spend­ing so much money on Wii & Xbox Live points. It’s just too easy and con­ve­nient to get in trou­ble going shop­ping on these next gen con­soles!  Actu­ally, I think I’m just addicted to watch­ing Mario run across my screen…

And finally…

Break down and buy a widescreen HDTV this year. Because right now I look too much like the guy in the above pic.

It’s a tall order, but my mind is open and my thumbs are ready.  Here’s to a fun and pro­duc­tive 2009!