I started this blog in 2007 or 2006 with a domain name gameslices.wordpress.com. My purpose for that time was to track my game experiences, slice by slice, one way or another. I do play a lot, even though I don’t think I play as near enough as I should. This applies to most of the game related professionals. Playing games take a lot of time and keeping up with the stream of new games is impossible even for those whose job description is following the game trends.
I have kept a diary of my playing starting with mobile games and recent years to record my experiences with Facebook games. Latter does not have so much relevancy with the work that I have been conducting recently. And then it has a lot. If one studies design and innovation within the games industry – of course it has. But the time I started the diaries, I was not quite sure why I was keeping them. But those are not public. And I feel like it is time for me to continue with the path that I once started. But with smaller steps.
Playing games personally and not only reading about them or watching speedruns or trailers is vital to any researcher on this field I would say. But sometimes I feel that I play games that nobody in my circles actually likes or plays. Or people just don’t talk about these games. And I am have difficulties to find someone to share my passion. I also feel like I am not valued as a customer. Most of my favorites never gets sequels, as they are not enough profitable – if done by bigger studios. They simply have something else to do and bigger bucks to collect.
What kinds of games I like then? That is very difficult to describe shortly. And I am not sure if I really even know that. I try to tell this with the help of examples:
Mirror’s Edge – for its stylistic visuals, sappy sisterhood story and the female protagonist having kind of Leeloo feel in her. This game also set me free from my perfectionist gatherer personality.
Katamari Damacy – for its overall absurdity, Kings tights and his narcissistic and bi-polar personality, rolling & destroying in general as being fun.
WTF – for its absurdity. “Part time job hell” and working for a job demon is just hilarious idea. The game captures something essential in our everyday lives and it was rather amusing to show people what I played: “I just turn these pens into right direction and put a cap on them.” Nobody asked if they could try.
Viva Pinata – for its atmosphere and characters: horstacio is so horsey. For the ridiculous difficulty and me being forced to play with the help of the game wiki without feeling that I cheat. This game made me happy.
Ratchet and Clank – for its humor and media references. And of course for the hilarious weapons. Playability of this game is in its top. If someone is about to do a platformer – he should reference this.
Bioshock – for it being located in an underwater city. For it’s quality side stories and audio messages. For it being a dystopia to make me think – for it criticizing elitism.
Impossible Mission – for its detailed furniture, characters directability, for its mad difficulty and its puzzles being always different.
And there are many more…
I set up a Twitter account AaKooPlays to record my slices of game experiences. I don’t know where it leads me, but I feel like I want to share what I experience. I know I am not in the mainstream, but I also know I am not alone. Maybe someone will follow me. Maybe I will use them later as notes and for reflection. This twitter feed is also shown on the side of this blog.
AaKoo's Game Lab 