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Mark Filipowich writes about video games, television, film and other aspects of art that he finds fascinating. His writing can be found any place that'll take him. He maintains a blog called Bigtallwords. He has been known to Tweet. |
Member Blogs
The Power of Friendship while Being an Asshole, or the Doormat NPC  |
| Posted by Mark Filipowich on Thu, 23 May 2013 09:04:00 EDT in
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| Maybe a game doesn’t have to explore every facet of interpersonal relationships but it should certainly hold the player accountable for being an asshole. There should be more to relating to a game’s NPCs than sitting down and nodding. |
| Read More... | 4 Comments |
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We Are One: JRPGs, the Group Journey, and the Mechanics of Cooperation |
| Posted by Mark Filipowich on Thu, 04 Apr 2013 01:25:00 EDT in
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| One of the core mechanics of JRPGs is party management, which has interesting implications for how the game conveys the journey of a cohesive group over that of an individual. In the JRPG, the player doesn’t control a single character. They’re in control |
| Read More... | 20 Comments |
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Where the Heart Is: The Use of Home in Video Games |
| Posted by Mark Filipowich on Sun, 17 Mar 2013 01:23:00 EDT in
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| Home is where we see characters in a state of normalcy. We get to know what the protagonist does between adventures, seeing who they are at home, away from it all, is a significant experience that more developers should consider investigating. |
| Read More... | 7 Comments |
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The Playstation is Dead, Long Live Playstation: Preservation and the pursuit of New |
| Posted by Mark Filipowich on Tue, 05 Mar 2013 07:34:00 EST in
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| The day that the Playsation 4 was unveiled, Japanese developer Kenji Eno passed away, leaving behind a body of critically lauded work that is now mostly inaccessible. |
| Read More... | 11 Comments |
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Searching for the Other Castle: Women as Objectives |
| Posted by Mark Filipowich on Thu, 21 Feb 2013 03:34:00 EST in
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| No matter how fiercely critics react to poor treatment of women, the portrayal of female characters in AAA games seems actually to be getting worse. Women are almost entirely unrepresented, when they are represented, they exist only as an objective. |
| Read More... | 8 Comments |
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The Situation with Video Game Stories |
| Posted by Mark Filipowich on Sat, 02 Feb 2013 03:10:00 EST in
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| For literature and film, plot is everything. Without moving events that shape (or fail to shape) the characters, there is only setup with no direction. But games, at the core, are all setup. They create a place to wander and figure out for one's self. |
| Read More... | 28 Comments |
[More Mark Filipowich Blogs]
Mark Filipowich's Comments
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Comment In: We Are One: JRPGs, the Group Journey, and the Mechanics of Cooperation [Blog - 04/04/2013 - 01:25]
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Yes, I meant Final Fantasy ... Yes, I meant Final Fantasy 5, not 4. 4 is definitely a case of one main character with a cast of supporting characters where 5 focuses on its primary 5 characters with a microscope. Thanks for catching that. |
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Comment In: The Situation with Video Game Stories [Blog - 02/02/2013 - 03:10]
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Fair enough. I hope that ... Fair enough. I hope that I didn 't come across as if I felt like very story-driven games like Uncharted were better than something like League of Legends. I only wanted to argue that the common thread between them is that they construct a world around the player and that ... |
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Comment In: Displacement in Final Fantasy VII [Blog - 07/08/2012 - 02:35]
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Gregory Kinneman: FF7 is the ... Gregory Kinneman: FF7 is the game I 'm probably too attached to to be unbiased about. I play through it once a year and I have to concede your point: the dialogue is wooden. As much as I 'm against a remake of the game, I do like the idea ... |
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