Since I got back into Destiny 2 a few months ago it’s been in fairly constant rotation as an in-between game. It’s something I’ll play when I’m not playing a new game like Final Fantasy VII: Remake or pulling a Civilization binge. It’s something I refer to as a smooth-brain game, borrowing a term from… Continue reading The Grind
Tag: Destiny
Playground
Over the summer, I started playing Destiny 2 with my brother. We were both big fans of the first one, though divided by console choice and unable to play together. With his getting a PS4 and a summer of quarantine, it was time to dive into the sequel in a big way. Then we stopped… Continue reading Playground
Story Language
A while ago, Merriam Webster (y’know, the dictionary) published an article that I found fascinating. It was about language as it’s used in Star Wars and it’s a short and interesting read. The gist of it is this: In Star Wars, George Lucas used a lot of plain, English words to create his world. There’s… Continue reading Story Language
Play Together
Easily the highlight of my time playing Destiny was Vault of Glass. It’s a raid, that is a really difficult mission that requires serious teamwork and a pretty major time investment. It took work to even find a group to play with: I play on the PS4 and didn’t know anyone else who played Destiny.… Continue reading Play Together
Emerging Exploration
Mass Effect: Andromeda is a magnificently glitchy game. I have seen a crewmate go through osmosis while talking to him, I've fought an alien dinosaur that suddenly stopped moving its body (but still glided along the jungle floor and attacked me), and, through cunning manipulation of my space-car's six wheel drive and boost functions, have… Continue reading Emerging Exploration
Bang For A Buck
Movie tickets here in New York short you around $15 a pop. Which is a lot for a movie, but we go anyway because, y'know, movies. So it's worth it, price of admission and all that for those two hours. Conversely, your typical new video game costs $60 at base, ignoring deluxe editions, special editions,… Continue reading Bang For A Buck
The Elusiveness of Fun
What is fun? No, not what’s fun to do, what does “fun” mean? Johan Huizinga, a Dutch guy that wrote a lot about play and what play means, said in his Homo Ludens that “this last-named element, the fun of playing, resists all analysis, all logical interpretation.” He goes on to lament that there’s, to… Continue reading The Elusiveness of Fun
More Thoughts on Destiny’s Story
So with my Rationale out of the way, I picked up Destiny’s expansion-sequel The Taken King and put… many… hours into it. It’s a huge improvement on the base game and, for a change, feels like a complete game with stuff like story and what not. Which is great, because Destiny had world building in… Continue reading More Thoughts on Destiny’s Story
In Defense of Destiny’s Story
I talk about video games a lot on this blog, because I love them and play a lot of them. I also write about storytelling because it’s kinda my thing. Now, there’s a lot to say about video game narrative, which, honestly, can apply to narrative in general. Games are special because narrative — or… Continue reading In Defense of Destiny’s Story
Background Details
There’s a building I can see outside my window that’s under construction. I’m not sure what it’s going to be or where exactly it is, but it looks to be somewhere in TriBeCa. The basic structure of it is there, there’s a crane going up the side, and it looks like the skeleton of a… Continue reading Background Details
Essays, Not Rants! 