NGai Croal's Recent Blog Entries

• Don’t Know Much About History

  Just how much do music games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero owe to history, asks N'Gai Croal.

  One of my favourite things about Out Of The Game, the biweekly podcast that I record with three other former journalists and one current journo, is when a seemingly ordinary discussion of a recently released game veers into topics that are more provocative. Take the September releases of The Beatles: Rock Band and Guitar Hero 5 along with the August release of the movie Inglorious Basterds, for instance.

  November 4, 2009
• The Interface Wars

  N'Gai Croal wonders whether the real battle of the current console generation wars is in interfaces, not silicon.

  When 31st century archeologists dig through the fossilised remains of the typical 21st century home, what will they find as evidence of how we once amused ourselves? Will 2005-2009 be seen as an explosion in interface diversity, from gestural remotes to plastic guitars, drums, wheels, microphones and balance boards? Or will this too be seen as prelude to the Age of the Camera – complete with a built-in microphone – and our glorious future of controller-free gaming?

  October 8, 2009
• Off-Label Gaming

  N'Gai Croal asks whether allowing players to set their own Achievements could take gaming into a new dimension.

  When Microsoft released the Xbox 360 in the autumn of 2005, with Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii already announced but still a year away from store shelves, journalists like myself were focused on system specs, launch titles and initial shipment volumes. Few of us were thinking about Achievements and what they could mean for games.

  September 9, 2009