Glitch Faced

Nintendo's been making a lot of noise in the gaming news lately. CEO Satoru Iwata recently announced he was taking a pay cut thanks to poor sales of the Wii U console. Following the negative news the company has made a point in trying to move in a more positive direction. One thing in particular has caught my attention and I can't stop thinking about what it could mean. They've come out in saying that they will be shifting focus to health and fitness products in the future. Nintendo took the world by storm with the Wii and it's motion controls that to a small degree got people up and moving a bit more while playing their games.  Shortly after they released Wii Fit which was an even more impressive offering for exercise and gaming combined. They have continued the trend with the 3DS's built in step counter, and even more recently the Wii Fit U.  There's been one fundamental problem with each of these endeavors though; they're all, kind of, gimmicky. Now, ...

Video games, since their inception into modern culture, have always made it a point to try and convey some semblance of a story to the player. And as the technology behind them advances, so does the complexity and richness of the stories they are telling us. In the early days of video games, the hardware had major limitations in how it would allow developers to tell their stories. We will take a look at a few examples of storytelling conventions in the past and then look at how they evolved into what we have available today. Space Invaders gives away the game's entire plot in two words. Because, seriously, who could tell what was really going on otherwise? The sprites in the game look bug creatures while the artwork on the cabinet showcases a frightening, glowing eyed Sasquatch. If a child were to play the game today with no idea of the title and on an arcade cabinet devoid of any artwork what they would make of it? The enemies look more like crabs and octopus while the ...