Big Red Potion Episode 15: Define Game Now June 2, 2009
Posted by shoinan in Big Red Potion.Tags: ian bogost, video games
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Big Red Potion Episode 14: Lights, Camera, Halo & Guest Appearance: CGUK.Net Episode 9 May 26, 2009
Posted by shoinan in Big Red Potion, Shout-Out.Tags: halo, movies, video games
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Big Red Potion Episode 13: Even More Death & Guest Appearance: CGUK.Net Episode 8 May 21, 2009
Posted by shoinan in Big Red Potion, Shout-Out.Tags: Big Red Potion, cguk.net, video games
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Games For Girls Part 1: Portraying Society, Culture And BFFs May 15, 2009
Posted by shoinan in Handheld, Industry, PC.Tags: video games, brenda laurel, games for girls
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In a 2007 post titled “Girls Play Games”, Brainy Gamer author Michael Abbott observed that it was “nearly impossible to tool around the gaming side of the ‘net without bumping into a news story or blog post about girls and games”. Eighteen months on, the casual gaming shift continues to gain momentum, and coverage on games designed for girls continues to surge. In that post, Michael felt it was better to sample and feature a collection of related essays, posts and press releases than to offer his own “take” into a sea full of opinions. So, why should I add my own take into a cauldron that’s already brimming with discussion on the subject, even more so than when Michael wrote his post? Well, blame Michael for that. His recent post titled “OMG, girls in trouble!” focussed on the promotional video for the Nintendo DS game Drama Queens. Harmless enough, you may think, but it prompted me to further investigate the history of games made specifically for girls (not women), and I think I unearthed an interesting parallel between Drama Queens and an older, arguably more famous video game.
Big Red Potion Episode 12: Death Is Dead May 11, 2009
Posted by shoinan in Big Red Potion.Tags: Big Red Potion, video games
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Playing As The Enemy May 9, 2009
Posted by shoinan in RPG, Xbox 360.Tags: final fantasy, lost odyssey, video games
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I closed my last post with yet another finger waggled in Lost Odyssey’s direction, this time for its problems with pacing. Poor pacing plagues the majority of Japanese role-playing games, a genre unconcerned with keeping the players occupied in long, exclusive sections of gameplay or story. In its favour, Lost Odyssey tries to deal with this issue. Unfortunately it breaks up these exclusive sections with odd switches from play to story and vice-versa. Rather than keeping me engaged in both elements, these switches left me bewildered and detached, as I’ll elaborate on in a couple of examples.
You Have Lost! is a blog about video games written by me, Sinan 'shoinan' Kubba. I'm a staff writer and associate editor at TheGameReviews, and I also host the Big Red Potion podcast. As you can see I'm also a pirate but not one of games (ho ho). E-mail: shoinanblog AT tiscali DOT co DOT uk. Screename: shoinan [PSN, XBLA, Steam & Twitter]. Your comments and feedback are always welcome. Subscribe to my satiating feed by clicking 
