NGai Croal's Recent Blog Entries

• Why Co-Op Makes all the Difference

  Co-operative games may turn out to have been the most important development of 2008.

  When videogame historians look back at the year 2008, two developments will immediately stand out.
  
  The first is that it’s been a banner year for downloadable console games. Whether it was the PlayStation Network (Echochrome, PixelJunk Eden and The Last Guy), Xbox Live Arcade (Braid and Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2) or WiiWare (LostWinds and World of Goo), the online stores for each of the three major platforms served up bite-sized titles that were pound for pound as entertaining and engrossing as their full-sized counterparts.
  

  November 26, 2008
• The Importance of Being Easy
  N'Gai knows a game's easy mode is the one most people are actually able to play. So why do devs focus on super legendary hardcore mode instead?

  Two entries ago, I wrote about my reluctance to even start playing certain games. The flipside of that is completing a game once I’ve fired it up. Many factors play into this, but assuming that the game in question passes my quality threshold, how it handles difficulty is a fairly accurate indicator of whether or not I’ll ultimately finish it.
  October 28, 2008
• Is Braid Pretentious?

  "The term ‘pretentious’ generally obscures more than it reveals about the subject matter, but it often speaks volumes about those who throw it around"

  For those of us who write or think about videogames seriously, the question ‘are games art’ has ceased to be a question that is particularly interesting. Those like the American film critic Roger Ebert would prefer to draw a line in the sand between Art and Not Art; others, like his one-time sparring partner Clive Barker, would rather defend this still-developing medium from assailants.

  October 2, 2008