Comments on: Following Ultima through the Years

By: David Surman

David Surman — Thu, 31 May 2007 17:17:52 +0000

Good point Jesper; I have an essay appearing in Tanya and Barry’s forthcoming anthology Videogame/Player/Text on the Street Fighter franchise and the beat-’em-up genre generally from 1986 – 1995, which follows your idea. I looked at the role of special moves (and SUPER special moves) as that ‘fine detail’ you are talking about (I conceptualised them as ‘reward-spectacles’: moments of gameplay feedback indexed audiovisually):

Surman, D. (2007) “Gameplay and the Reward-Spectacle: An Analysis of the Streetfighter Series (1987 ? 2004)” in Krzywinska, T, Atkins, B. (eds). Videogame, Player, Text. London: Wallflower.

I totally loved Ultima: Pagan, was so atmospheric and involving. Casting spells with reagents and a locus etc, fabulous mechanic!

By: RPG Blog

RPG Blog — Thu, 31 May 2007 13:27:21 +0000

I mentioned this on my blog too, and saw a link to this post and was interested to see what other bloggers had to say about it.

I think it’s a really neat idea that I hope other people will take up with other games. There must be heavy gamers out there who are also good writers. If they simply posted their reactions to games as they played through them, well, that’d be some good reading I think.

By: Cristian Mancilla Mardel

Cristian Mancilla Mardel — Thu, 31 May 2007 03:48:39 +0000

It seems to be a very good idea: no doubt.
The fascination (that I feel so) appears to be a little strange for scientific purposes, but videogames are not mere things to study: they are expierences to live.