TWO New Edge Columns
So I forgot to update last week. If you follow my column through my blog, this is like a double feature! Check ‘em out:
The Undeniable Case for Pink Floyd: Rock Band
Now that Harmonix Music Systems has shipped The Beatles: Rock Band, they have nowhere to go but down. PR guy John Drake says they spent 17 months on research and development for the game, investing more personnel than they’d ever sunk into a single title. Who else deserves that kind of treatment? Led Zeppelin? U2? Herman and the Hermits?
My money’s on Pink Floyd. Not only could they move enough copies to make it worth everyone’s while: they would also push the music game genre in directions that even the Beatles couldn’t muster.
Tell Me a Story: Corvus Elrod and the Honeycomb Engine
Elrod raises a classic problem of how to make an interactive narrative in games. Those of us who look for a good story with our gameplay will keep pushing for more subtlety and freedom in the choices we make. But if you take away the rules, you don’t have a game – you have something closer to improvised theater, or campfire storytelling, or at worst, a student drama club exercise. Creativity’s great, but how do you judge it? And what about the players who don’t want to tap their imaginations? I can only guess what would’ve happened when I played D&D as a kid, if we didn’t have rules to keep us in line. We would’ve spent the whole night just punching each other in the face.
