The Inspiration

http://www.wurb.com/stack/

I've been reading Carl's blog for about four months now and it's a really great read. Simply put, this blog was directly inspired by his work. There is a method to what he's doing, and an 'oath' but I will just tease you with those. Hopefully you will click on the link to see what he's up to. What he's been doing for PC games, I hope to do for console games. What I'm going to do is play the games I'm playing as I normally would, and at certain intervals blog about it. I will touch on the design of the game, the story (though lightly I don't want to spoil things), graphics, control and just just about whatever comes to mind.

I figure I like Carl's work for the same reason I want to write in this blog. We both LOVE games. Each one is an intricate experience that we really want to talk about. I've tried to get into the review business but it feels too divorced from the actual experience of playing itself. As a reviewer the responsibilities implied (at least) seemed to create a lot of dissonance for me. Reviewing bad stuff was worse. Here at game-SAGA I plan on just chatting about what I'm doing in a game, the challenges and the victories. I may not get so involved in the mechanics as Carl does (I actually enjoy these bits a lot), but I do plan to keep a tight focus on details. In the end that is the major point here.

Writing about games all or in part for years has been about marketing. The review process has been so tightly machined that it's hard to tell what to think. gameSAGA isn't an alternative to this kind of writing, it's just different. I am obviously going to tell you about what I like and don't like about the games I'm playing, but I don't plan on playing anything seriously bad. I don't do that because it just isn't fun. If it's not fun to play, how much fun will it be to read about it?

I want games to be written about in a way that is respectful to the time it takes to play them. That's the magic of Carl's blog. Like talking about what elves go with what kind of magic, or describing the nuances of the GUI from an adventure title. Games are great, and I think this kind of thoughtful writing is only natural to the medium. After all you don't experience even the shortest of games (perhaps 10 or so hours of playtime) all at once, why should you write about them that way?

Now reading gameSAGA means putting up with my tastes in games. Obviously this can be a boon or bane. So I will now get out the major genres that I spend time with. Perhaps you don't want to read about the games you play, who knows? Better to know in advance, right? In order of preference, roughly...

1. Strategy Role Playing Games
2. Strategy War Games
3. Fighting Games
4. Role-Playing Games
5. Action Role-Playing Games
6. Management and Simulation games
7. Diablo
8. Blizzard RTS games
9. Action games
10. Sports games
11. Anything with hot ladies in it (be they wrestling, or playing volleyball or...)

So as you can see, my tastes run heavily toward the East. Names like Atlus, Sting, NIS, NIS America, and Working Designs are serious business in my house. To that point I am also an fan of anime and an over all Japanophile. Luckily for me both me and my wife fall into this category. Now I just don't play console titles. For genres 2 and 6 I consistently turn to the PC. Blizzard stuff is clearly PC as well, but you you can't avoid wanting to play games that are designed so well.

While I am on the topic of Blizzard I will mention that I don't play WoW or any of the usual mmos out there except for one, and then only rarely. Add to that the fact that it's a golf game, and you can see that I am about as far from WoW at possible at this point. I was a hardcore Dark Age of Camelot and Guild Wars player for years, but in the end decided that it just took too damn long to do anything. In general until I can talk with other players over ubiquitous voice chat with thoughtless ease, for me mmos are kind of a dead language. Other players are the point of these games, but nobody gets to know anyone because typing is a drag. It's a technology thing for me right now.

So as I play games, I will write about them. Hope you like it!