Frontmatter
##!########################## ? For best results, view this file with the Better Comments extension of VSCode
# ? https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=aaron-bond.better-comments
# * '*' (#98C379, l-green) Headings, List items, etc
# ? '?' (#3498DB, l-blue) informational, blue
# ! '!' (#FF2D00, red) warnings, red
# TODO: (#FF7C00, orange) Todo
# // '//' Deprecated, strikethrough
##!#########################
Note: This is a living document. Just, very slowly, like a plant.
I'll start:
Table of Contents:
- Computers
- Library/Information Science and Search
- For The Sake of Posting
- Games
- Science
There's way more in the comments -- If you reply to this with a share, please repost as a comment so it sticks with the thread, even if it's just a link to your post! People can't navigate chains backwards.
click this read more, it exists so the other horizontal rules are actually horizontal rules instead of saying 'read more'
this is going to be my tim rogers post i guess. if you know of tim, it's probably from his youtube channel, where he makes docuseries-length reviews of video games. you might also know that he used to work as a video producer for kotaku dot com, making similar content.
prior to this, however, he wrote a bunch of other stuff, some of which i consider some of the best writing available anywhere on the internet.
there is a litany of immensely great stuff in the action button dot net archive. my personal favorite is the novella-length review of final fantasy vi:
(content warning for abrasive ableist and homophobic language from the mouths of teenage boys in the early 90s)
also worth a read is the substantially shorter and even more enigmatic review of shadows of the damned:
and the very first thing i ever read from tim, his review of bioshock infinite, a review that imposed upon me at the age of 15 the important lesson that a video game can be highly anticipated and critically acclaimed and still be pretty bad:
even less read than tim's old action button reviews are the handful of long personal essays he has posted to his medium page. the first one of these i read was "what we might mean when we say a clock is wrong":
my favorite, i think, is "when life was cold and love was weird":
a warning about these: they present a substantially different authorial voice from tim's youtube videos, and may substantially change how you view him as a person in ways that you might not like. viewer discretion is advised.
there's even more if you're willing to dig, like this very well-known article he wrote about metal gear solid 2, which i actually think is among his worst writing, but people would mention it for sure if i did not he also has some articles up on large prime numbers dot com, some of which are the same as on his medium page, some of which are not, like "should you see blood on the last day of travel".
uh here's a few things by other people i like so i don't come off as too much of a freak:
this is a great review of thimbleweed park that i think about constantly, not just with regards to the general failure of adventure games made by genre veterans (broken age, etc) compared to the success of adventure games made by genre newcomers (kentucky route zero, etc), but with regards to a frequent recurring pattern of video games that give you "everything you thought you wanted."
this article about terrible photos of nba players makes me cry laughing every time i read it.
everyting kimimi the game eating she-monster posts is a delight, but this recent series on the seven-part dreamcast rpg eldorado gate is magnificent. eldorado gate was released in seven parts over the course of a year, predating the 2010s experiments in episodic video game storytelling by over a decade. unfortunately, they're only available in japanese, so they remain woefully unknown in the west. kimimi covers a lot of games like this, and her writing is a vital resource for anyone interested in video game history.
duncan fyfe is a magnificent writer who now mostly writes good long reads about games for vice, but he also used to run a fantastic blog called hit self destruct. the benjamin franklin house has been a long running joke in the community around the podcast idle thumbs (rip), and duncan fyfe wrote what is undoubtedly the definitive chronicle of the experience.
