When it comes to video games, Hollywood has it all wrong.

But with the recent release of indie film The Legend of Zelda: Hero of Time, it seems gamers can finally watch a faithful adaptation of a great game. It’s not a big budget production, but the film crew nailed it better than the hot shots at large movie companies.

Sure, they don’t have the best special effects or big-name actors, but where the rest of the movie industry has failed, indie filmmakers can create movies actually deserving of their video game-based content.

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Sam Lake is the lead writer behind Remedy Entertainment’s Alan Wake. His scripts helped propel the Max Payne series to positive reviews, and his writings will be equally essential to this new title’s success.

But it’s rare for developers to prioritize the role of a writer like this. Frequently sidelined as an afterthought, writers — also known as narrative designers, depending on your opinion — hardly ever work as closely with a development team as Mr. Lake does.

Rather than marginalizing writers, more developers should take Remedy’s approach and embrace them. We’ve seen the success of story-driven games like Metal Gear Solid. Narrative designers make games come alive, and we simply can’t afford to treat them like dirt anymore.

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Whether you’re shooting zombies, terrorists, aliens, or Nazis it seems that most first person shooters all follow the same simple formula.

Pit a player in an epic environment with a desperate conflict in which his/her faction or side is losing. Then have their respective faction enlist their help to somehow turn the tides of war.

The player then must slaughter their way through countless armies and foes in order to achieve victory and save the world. Now throw in some explosions and engaging firefights throughout the game and you got yourself a FPS.

Predictable? Yes, and many have complained as a result, but will the FPS genre change anytime soon?

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For countless generations it has been said that the children are our future. But exactly what does this mean? A superficial interpretation will merely state that the youth will take over the roles of tomorrow.

However, as older generations are physically replaced by newer generations, there is also an introduction of new ideas, new values, and new perspectives that result in an overall change that expands throughout all social, cultural, political, and economic spectrums.

Often times, popular culture plays a large role in influencing future values. So, this begs the question of how will the generation of current popular culture, which also includes video games, come to view the world?
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CD-keys and game authorization codes are not only annoying for most PC gamers, they’re generally accepted as standard procedure. In fact, they’re so standard that you find yourself letting your guard down — forgetting that titles under the banner of “Games for Windows” should not be so readily trusted; after all, Windows is in the title.

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Upon its 2006 release, Gears of War became a hit among the Xbox 360 community almost immediately. While the gameplay was sound, it was criticized for not introducing anything truly groundbreaking or “new” into the third-person shooter genre. Well, Gears of War 2 it out, and it has been met with much of the same criticism. So what improvements can be made to the series if, (more likely when), Gears of War 3 is released?

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The new Xbox 360 commercials are dumb. Sure, there’s lots of eye candy and pretty music, but just think about the commercial for a second: they show some people watching an Xbox 360 in motion and enjoying, only to later find out that the 360 has EATEN THEIR BRAIN, hollowing out their skulls and replacing the insides with colorful images beamed in by some ungodly TV technology. Last time I checked, moms and politicians everywhere are still arguing that video games rot our brains, so I can’t say this ad speaks in the gamer’s favor. Furthermore, let’s pray that HDTV (Head Destroying TV?) isn’t some secret government plot to erase our minds.

But I digress; the point is, it can be hard to get your point across in a 30-60 second commercial, and most of these attempts end up being failures (that laughing baby doll from the first PS3 commercial still gives me the creeps). Yet over the course of the medium’s few decades of existence, there have been a few successful ad campaigns that have, at the very least, given us half a minute of pure enjoyment. Here are a few that have stayed in my mind throughout the years:

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It’s a big deal when a street date is broken for anything. Usually, it involves a lot of messy legal issues between the two companies. Apparently, 7-Eleven (yes, the convenience store) didn’t know this, and some stores were selling the long-awaited Gears of War 2 and World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King early. However, the most surprising news here is that 7-Eleven sells games. Who knew?

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