Recent content by Rob Zacny

To Die at the Hands of Your Own Creation Alan Wake may look like a game about a writer trying to find his wife, but it's really a story about the game's troubled development and the toll it took on the people who made it. Read Full Article

Maybe, but I'm not so sure. I think it's more of a stretch to say that Zane's diving suit is not a reference to Bioshock. I mean, this game came out three years after Bioshock, and I find it impossible that nobody at Remedy ever noticed that their figure of salvation bore more than a passing...

To Die at the Hands of Your Own Creation Alan Wake may look like a game about a writer trying to find his wife, but it's really a story about the game's troubled development and the toll it took on the people who made it. Read Full Article

Trying to write a shorthand description of Euros just about gave me fits, especially since I knew anything I wrote would over-generalize. Perhaps I should have said, "less eliminationist", since that's the main point I was trying to get at. In a lot of competitive American games, losing comes in...

Arkham Horror is in my stack, but I haven't gotten around to it. Is it really heavy on the administration stuff? I've heard the game is a bit of a beast any way you slice it, but my impression was that it's just really long. I think you've hit on one of the major problems board games face in...

Digital Cardboard and Electric Dice There is one form of social games that has been around for a very long time: board games. Rob Zacny tells us how many game designers and players are paying more attention to the simple social interactions had around a board with some plastic pieces. Read...

As a former Imperial pilot, I applaud your devotion to Order, but did you miss the part where the Empire USED its superweapon to destroy a planet full of people? Or that the Empire did it just to make extra-sure the galaxy was properly afraid of a moon-sized space laser called the Death Star...

The Player and the Pusher-Man The success of a game now seems to hinge on how "addictive" it is, not just whether a game is fun. Rob Zacny ponders whether the trend of such manipulative gameplay is ethical. Read Full Article

I'm not sure how you can say Matrix Games' price points are lower. They might be slightly lower, on average, than they were during the Talonsoft / SSI days, but they are far more expensive than most other PC games. This might seem like nit-picking, but I think it's very much to the point of your...

For me, the issue is that there was actually too much going on there for me to tackle in this piece. Because getting into achievements touches on a lot of other topics, like motivation, and different types of achievements, and why players place so much value on meta-game elements. It's an...

The Player and the Pusher-Man The success of a game now seems to hinge on how "addictive" it is, not just whether a game is fun. Rob Zacny ponders whether the trend of such manipulative gameplay is ethical. Read Full Article

Slow Death In a Shady Glen Many games deliver the arcade-y feel of shooting at animals as they frolic across your screen. The Hunter offers a more realistic approach to hunting and nature conservation as Rob Zacny learned after one wild shot brought unexpected shame. Read Full Article

A Gamer in the Kitchen Cooking is time consuming, enraging and frequently dangerous. But if you have a mind for details and an obsessive focus on self-improvement, you may find the hobby a natural fit. Rob Zacny explains how gamers and cooks have more in common than you may think. Read Full...

Are You Happy Now? Christmas can be a bittersweet time of year for a PC gamer. If your hardware is up to snuff, you have a feast of games to choose from. But what if your system clocks in just below the requirements for the hottest new game? Rob Zacny takes us back to 1997, when a new computer...

The Agony of Defeat Typically, videogames about war are only interested in portraying the winners' perspective. But one World War II simulation discards the standard hero narrative in favor of a much deeper, darker and more nuanced approach. Rob Zacny explains why Silent Hunter III is a model...