Critical Distance - February 24th

[Cameron Kunzelman]

http://www.critical-distance.com/2013/02/24/february-24th/

So this is something that I think would be really great every week--posting Critical Distance for the previous week and talking about things we liked and didn't like.

A short thing to start: I think this Evan Narcisse interview with David Brothers is really wonderful. I have been following Brothers' work for the past four or five years, from his old forums posts to 4th Letter and everything in between. He's a pretty interesting example of someone who has worked in the video games industry while not being considered a "video games person" (he has written lots of strategy guides under contract.) 

I like the interview in that it is going to a smart person outside of our fairly insular games writing/making circle and asking for opinions on games, which Brothers handles really well, and you can tell he's been thinking about the issues extensively. Anyway.

[Dan Cox]

While I think this has the potential to generate discussion, it also opens the doorway to complain about Critical Distance itself. For example, I have already seen "Cameron Kunzelman's game got linked to? Doesn't he contribute to Critical Distance?" as a response to this latest post.

But, on a better point, I really like that CD has more non-English entries now.

[Johannes Köller]

But, on a better point, I really like that CD has more non-English entries now.

I suppose I also like that it has some of my words in it. On the off chance that anybody here ever reads or spots interesting German articles you should send them to me for evaluation. If you don't speak German, fret not, simply send all articles in funny-looking languages you see.

[Cameron Kunzelman]

Dan this has happened forever and ever and ever and being a contributor doesn't mean you can't produce a cool piece of writing or a game. I like to think that Kris or whoever is doing it whatever week is always pretty open about when they are curating a contributor's piece--I was called an underling, after all.

I also don't think that Critical Distance is some kind of holy grail that can't be criticized. It doesn't some things really, really well, but it isn't collecting everyone. That said, I think Kris does an amazing job of trying to be inclusive and taking all suggestions and articles very seriously. If you have a critique, feel free to make it, but CD is one of the very few social goods that the video game writing community has.

[Dan Cox]

I'm aware it's happened before, Cameron.

What I worry about, and this is a conversation I have had many times over the last few years about CD, is when it breaks from linking to writing and for whom. And, in case you think I'm not critical of my own inclusion, it's happened for me too early last year. I didn't want that to happen and question if it would have been in that list had not both David and Eric been on that episode.

Kris does a fantastic job. A phenomenal job even of going through upwards, and I know this because I've had conversations about this too, hundreds if not thousands of entries most weeks. It's often thankless and she, and anyone else who does it that week, has to put up with crap like me complaining about it afterward.

However, and this is point I'm trying to make through my whining about it again, is that it's an archive. It has a bias. It might not even be a conscious one, but it's there. The social connections that exist outside the site are often encoded on it.

[Zach]

please please -please- start a separate thread about CD's selection bias. it's a discussion, but it's different from talking about the cool things that WERE linked.

Evan's article was awesome. he talks about Friday a bit and mentions the context it was in, which reminds me how  few games there are about hiphop other than Def Jam. There's DJ Hero which was incredible but had this problem of being a tough game to learn, not a good party game, and having an expensive controller at a time where everyone was sick of custom plastic controllers (BUT AN AMAZING SOUNDTRACK). inFamous:Second Son in particular really needed a protagonist that wasn't a white guy after finally getting rid of Cole an awkwardly trying to shoehorn race into the second game (in a really, really racist and embarrassing way) 

Also I loved Zolani's piece on Antichamber/nature http://fengxibox.blogspot.ca/2013/02/on-antichambers-nature-music.html for a few reasons.

I love how he nails this idea that Antichamber has the trappings of a horror game - lack of control, lack of understanding. And he pulls in this idea that this unique and kind of surreal soundtrack has a calming effect to counteract the pure weirdness of the geometry of the level, that these two parts combine to make a bigger whole. I mean I played Antichamber and I kind of noticed these elements in the back of my head but not in any conscious way. Zolani made me revisit that experience and realize what went into it. It's a great example of what I personally find enjoyable to read. 

[Brian Taylor]

damn I wish we had made that CD map

[Zoya]

I love that work is being done on soundscapes. Zolani's post raises a lot of interesting points. I love the idea that a soundscape might appear to contradict the visual landscape but actually be augmenting it -- not either/or but both... and...