Kill Screen Magazine's Blog, page 400

Military training sim looks almost as realistic as next-gen games, probably not as fun

GameSim makes war videogames that look an awful lot like, well, just big rad war videogames. But they're actually, according to the company, "virtual training simulators."

Edge has an interesting profile on them that touches on how the tech of fun videogames is increasingly being used for un-fun purposes like war. Part of the reason, it explains, is that it’s much less expensive to have soldiers train on a game, rather than out in the field. There is of course that old, lingering ethical issue at play, that we collectively as videogame enthusiasts have indirectly funded and fueled tools that result in death being doled out. But if you're not in the mood for feeling guilty you can just treat this as convincing anecdotal evidence of how real virtual worlds are. 

Via Edge

Oh look, a soccer videogame with guns

Because guns.

Relive the Virtual Boy in its original retina-burning glory on Oculus Rift

Yeah, yeah. The Oculus Rift has the capacity to radically reshape the way we experience games and all. But what I’m really stoked about is using it to finally replay twenty-year-old Virtual Boy games as they were intended.

That dream is coming true thanks to the VBjin-OVR Virtual Boy Emulator for the Rift, developed by the shadowy “jaymat.” The Virtual Boy, if you weren’t alive when it released, was Nintendo’s red-tinted, quasi-VR device, and it was pretty much dead on arrival. We had a fantastic article on it and all the awkward neck positioning in issue 4. And the Virtual Boy is worth reviving in a more comfortable fashion, as it had some great forgotten games like Mario Clash, and Wario Land.

You can give it a whirl here.

ROCKETS ROCKETS ROCKETS has as many rockets as its name suggests

Subtlety, thy name is ROCKETS ROCKETS ROCKETS. 

For once, a Lovecraft videogame adaptation done right

Think outside the bug-creatures. 

Probably Archery is an exercise in tragicomic frustration

Definitely something.

This Seussian speech synthesis machine was the ‘80s alternative to Siri

Once upon a time in 1989, before app-whisperers like iPhone’s Siri and Windows’ Cortona fit conveniently in our jean pocket, people built rather large and strange-looking speech synthesis machines, like this one. The Talking Machine, a 230cm rack of pipes that looks like something out of Dr. Seuss, was built by Martin Riches, who controlled it via home computer and posited it as art. Here are a few technical details from Riches’ blog to help you process what you’re seeing and hearing: “The machine is arranged like an organ; a pipe for each speech sound. Each pipe consists of a noise-maker—a reed or whistle” and also has a filter piece that shapes the acoustic blast into speech. I would say it’s impressive how far we’ve come, but I’d much rather have this gizmo than my generic white phone.

Via Prosthetic Knowledge

Kentucky Route Zero dev says moral choices in games are pretty worthless

Moral choices in games come in one of two or three colors. You can go with killing the zombie-infected kid, or you let him live. Speaking with GameChurch, who continues to consistently pump out thoughtful, provocative interviews, the devs of Kentucky Route Zero called into question the ridiculous, binary moral choices found in games like those by Telltale. Here’s what Jake Elliot and Tamas Kemenczy had to say:

Jake: There are games that are about these monumental moral choices that are these kind of really inductive and very simplified moral philosophy games but they don’t really go anywhere interesting with it. They just let you save a puppy or kill the puppy. You know, moral choices (laughs).

Tomas: A lot of games are struggling to understand goodness or mortality. Those are pretty spiritual subjects.

In other words, it’s one Isaac and Abraham moment after another, lacking the nuance of morality that we face, like, 99.99 percent of the time. The whole interview is a good read, so I totally recommend you check it out.

Kentucky Route Zero devs says moral choices in games are pretty worthless

Moral choices in games come in one of two or three colors. You can go with killing the zombie-infected kid, or you let him live. Speaking with GameChurch, who continues to consistently pump out thoughtful, provocative interviews, the devs of Kentucky Route Zero called into question the ridiculous, binary moral choices found in games like those by Telltale. Here’s what Jake Elliot and Tamas Kemenczy had to say:

Jake: There are games that are about these monumental moral choices that are these kind of really inductive and very simplified moral philosophy games but they don’t really go anywhere interesting with it. They just let you save a puppy or kill the puppy. You know, moral choices (laughs).

Tomas: A lot of games are struggling to understand goodness or mortality. Those are pretty spiritual subjects.

In other words, it’s one Isaac and Abraham moment after another, lacking the nuance of morality that we face, like, 99.99 percent of the time. The whole interview is a good read, so I totally recommend you check it out.

Check out these hand-drawn tributes to mysterious glitch Pokemon types

Glitch Pokemon have a special place in every Pokemon fanatic’s heart. Sure, they could eat your save, but the fact that you could fight alongside a scrambled error in the code such as ‘M or Missingno was so unreal and cool that it was worth the risk. 

That’s why illustrator Jordan Rosenberg and Iasmin Omar Ata are putting together a zine of artwork dedicated to those infamous, wondrous, glitchy sidekicks. The art that will be included, which you can see more of in this interview with the curators at The Creators Project, are truly inspired. If you want to get in on this (and who wouldn’t?), they are currently raising money the old-fashioned way, by sending you a free Japanese Pokemon trading card when you donate $3 or more on their blog. 

Via The Creators Project