Author: Joseph Butler-Hartley

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Art, Gaming and First-Person Emotions

Joseph Butler-Hartley Editorials, JB-H

After reading Paul Izod’s article ‘A Stick to Beat Gamers With’ about the negative image and consequent low self-esteem of the gaming industry, I was drawn into a melancholic stupor. He was right. The word ‘gamer’ is often wrongly synonomous with ‘loner’ or ‘wierdo’, and it isn’t fair when there are imaginitive and sophisticated games being made. Games that devote more effort to its jiggle physics than its narrative serve only to fuel the undesirable and unfortunately ubiquitous view that gaming is a debauched and even potentially dangerous pastime. So for this editorial, I’m going to selfishly cheer myself up by championing gaming as an artistic medium.

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Aliens: Colonial Marines

Joseph Butler-Hartley JB-H, PC, PS3, Reviews, Xbox 360

I sat down to play the much maligned Aliens: Colonial Marines with two different biases moulding my expectations. On one hand, being a lifelong Aliens fan, the prospect of rushing down blue corridors with two-mouthed other-worldly life forms in hot pursuit filled me with anticipation; on the other hand, I found it hard to doubt that practically every game reviewer on the planet was wrong.  I don’t need to tell you of reception this game has received. The cashier who served me at my local games retailer frowned and slipped the game into a bag shamefully as if I’d just bought an erotic magazine. Things did not bode well. Read more …

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Horror Show – Lone Survivor

Joseph Butler-Hartley Features, Horror Show, JB-H

You know, there is an easy way to do horror. All you have to do is make the environment in which the player stumbles around dark, make visibility low and finally (and this is the clever part), have the chosen monstrosity leap out suddenly accompanied by some hideous shriek.  Although this technique might very well provoke a split-second reaction from the player, who may produce a sort of, ‘waah’ noise on occasion, it doesn’t make a game scary. It makes a game jumpy, and jumpy and scary are two disparate things. I like to call this brand of horror ‘dumb horror’. Read more …

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Horror Show – Condemned: Criminal Origins

Joseph Butler-Hartley Features, Horror Show, JB-H, Xbox 360

Horror games have become more and more infrequent in recent years. Perhaps it’s due to the gradual desensitisation of gamers who think nothing of firing both barrels into the back of a soldier’s head because he’s on the other team, but games are just less scary nowadays. However, there are games out there that will terrify and entertain in equal measure, and I’m writing this feature to celebrate those games that do manage to scare and discuss where many games are going wrong in terms of horror. I thought I’d start off with Condemned: Criminal Origins, because it is undoubtedly horrifying. It is illegal to distribute copies of Condemned in Germany. That is the sort of game we’re dealing with.  Read more …