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martynzachary
A blog for those who spend more time thinking about gaming than gaming
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Top Five Left 4 Dead 1/2 Custom Campaigns
In August 2010, Chet Faliszek announced Valve would begin to rotate biweekly custom-made campaigns on the official servers of Left 4 Dead 2:
Every two weeks we are going to feature a new community campaign on our servers. We will feature one campaign at a time to make it is easier to find games. We’ll be …
ReadVideo Game Criticism and the Question of S#%t
I had (erroneously) assumed that I would never, ever be writing about s#$t in video games, but after recently posting my conceptual/generic analysis of The Binding of Isaac, questions of merit, value/quality and meaning, as well as the overall relevance of video game criticism, emerged – chiefly at Rock, Paper Shotgun, as usual, the Mecca of …
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Latest Post: The Bird’s the Word
17/03/2012 – 13:06
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-  Wie das CIA ein ehrgeiziges Display in nach al-|... by hausiotoummap in Interview with Epic Games’ Jay Wilbur
- Yeah, as soon as it’s done! –Alexei by VoxExMachina in Video Game Criticism and the Question of S#%t
- Your original piece was so strong. The fact that... by Martyn Zachary in Video Game Criticism and the Question of S#%t
- Your original piece was so strong. The fact that we... by VoxExMachina in Video Game Criticism and the Question of S#%t
- Not being into BioWare, Nabeel’s articles on the topic are always a new... by Martyn Zachary in Prepare The Canons
- [NB] Wow, with only 6 hours to spare they did it! A rollercoaster of a Kickstarter: http://t.co/gOhqdaEp Congratulations to @Camouflaj! 6 days ago
- [NB] I hope @Camouflaj's Republique Kickstarter makes it: http://t.co/ihTGSvbT Only twelve hours go, it's going to be close! #KeepHopeAlive 6 days ago
- [NB] iOS hit Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP is now available on Steam: http://t.co/ln4ETXNA Comes with the terrific soundtrack for free. 2012-04-17
- [NB] Regarding GFWL being the chosen DRM for Dark Souls PC, I think TotalBiscuit summed up the issues quite nicely: http://t.co/kFA5jK6k 2012-04-17
- [NB] We did it! http://t.co/jKPNjPhk Dark Souls: Prepare to Die Edition coming to the PC on August 24th. 2012-04-17
- More updates...
The Return of the Pong Trap
18/01/2010 – 00:25
…just to refresh your memory on this very relevant, ongoing issue! Via MTV Multiplayer.
Ship’s Log: Reaching Vooju Late March
17/01/2010 – 06:06
While The Biller’s latest pirate game, Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island, has already reached the northern shores of the adventure-loving Germany, those of us who would, erm, prefer the English version will have to wait for March 26th – that’s when the game is to be published by Mamba Games.
Rockstar Will Be Rockstar
16/01/2010 – 18:35
The hot topic of the week was Rockstar’s Tiger-like, sudden fall from PR grace. The boulder started rolling downhill on the 7th, when a thick and elaborate blog entry, “Wives of Rockstar San Diego employees have collected themselves” was published at Gamasutra. The post was a call to arms by the wives of Rockstar employees seeking to highlight the workplace injustices perceived to exist at the studio. The post gained considerable momentum in the press and ultimately produced a circulated internal response on the 15th.
But that’s not really all: Springing up like mushrooms after the rain, we have actually received a barrage of various reports more or less in accordance with the Rockstar wives’ complaints. To recap, we have already discovered the dazzling Red Dead Dedemption (on the left), very much awaited here at The Slowdown, to have had an extremely arduous development path. We have also heard how there are other issues afoot at Rockstar San Diego and how Rockstar quietly settled a telling class action suit with over 100 employees the April of last year.
In addition, we have read subsequent allegations of how Max Payne 3, in development at Rockstar Vancouver, is being similarly mismanaged. We’ve written about Max’s questionable Brazilian wax before, so you can consider that more fuel for the fire. Be as it may, yesterday, Rockstar finally officially responded, though in veiled and indirect fashion, to the swirling sea of speculation above.
Their weapon of choice: A series of wallpapers.
Rocketbirds: Revolution! Review
15/01/2010 – 01:45
A finalist in three categories (Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Excellence in Visual Art and Excellence in Audio, with the amount of nominations shared only with Closure and Trauma) in this year’s IGF competition, Ratloop Asia’s Rocketbirds: Revolution! is looking to be the early bird that catches the worm this year.
At the end of its animated intro, “OBEY” reads imprinted in upper-case on the sides of two massive missiles standing upright, shining and erect, at once establishing a poignant scene of the promulgation of violence and power.
What Could Have Been: Irrational Games’ SWAT 4 Dead, AKA Division 9
14/01/2010 – 18:57
Irrational Games (formerly known as 2K Boston) has come out of hiding with a new home, a revamped website with a glossy Web 2.0 sheen and a fully integrated community component. Not only are there new forums for fans to sign up on, but the member account features extend to rest of the site, allowing users to comment on news posts and interact with each other and the developers themselves. As well as the the social network aspects there is a meta-game leaderboards system, based on points and achievements that can be gained by doing things like befriending other people and posting on the forums. As predicted, the company celebrates its legacy with sections on all its previous titles and promises of new content to fill them in the future.
In the anticipation leading up to the site launch it was expected that the studio’s unannounced project would be revealed, but it seems that we will have to wait a little longer for that, as Creative Director Ken Levine explains in his blog post. Meanwhile, he speaks of “secrets”, and introduces the theme for the site’s content this month: discarded ideas. The following weeks will focus on the concepts and assets that were created for games but were ultimately left out of the final product. Starting things off is a new podcast series, Irrational Behaviour, lead by former games journalist Shawn Elliot. The first episode features the developers discussing various ideas that were cut from games, like dogs in wheelchairs in Bioshock, as well as a previously unrevealed project that never passed the prototyping phase, a game called Division 9.
Game Informer’s ongoing coverage of Irrational Games’ rebirth fills us in on how Division 9 came about. What started out as SWAT 5 became something that eerily resembles Valve’s Left 4 Dead, a tactical shooter with a co-op play and endless hordes of zombies to face. Irrational’s design included a more strategic layer, with base-building and resource management, and the project was deemed too ambitious and lacking in appeal. Fortunately for fans, the studio put together a trailer of sorts that demonstrates their concept. The video shows footage from the raw, unpolished prototype that was put together in a week to convey the premise to the suits.