What gaming has forgotten

Notoriously, big budget games have been pathetically desperate to emulate movies this generation. The problem is that developers try to emulate the movie industry via their cut scenes (and sometimes incidental dialogue); forgetting the fact that the budgets put aside for casting, direction, scripting, and cinematic computer graphics will never allow them to compete with the best that cinema has to offer. Also forgetting, of course, that games are meant to be played rather than watched. Nonetheless, there have been titles that have taken advantage of gaming’s interactivity in interesting ways.

Nier: catchup review

Nier is a strange, flawed, and fascinating game. It’s an action-RPG that could only come from Japan – with strange characters (a talking book and a girl whose bare ass is almost always in sight), some heavy melodrama, and the kind of slow burn that’s becoming ubiquitous with games from Square Enix.