(Part 2) Top products from r/truegaming

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We found 32 product mentions on r/truegaming. We ranked the 366 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 21-40. You can also go back to the previous section.

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Top comments that mention products on r/truegaming:

u/binocular_gems · 1 pointr/truegaming

This question really piqued my curiosity, because it reminded me not to take the things I know for granted. Being born in the early 80s, and having been introduced to videogames by older siblings and my parents in that decade, and then being involved with videogames either in the industry or as an avid enthusiast, the obscure (and most times useless) history of the medium is something I've taken for granted.

Recently, as older millennials and younger Gen X'ers have reached maturity (or middle age), there have been a surge in books, documentaries, and other materials about videogames... As they're seminal in many of our lives and so now we're looking back and writing these nostalgic retrospectives. Many are trash, even some of the best are still trash, but I'd recommend a few of them... The following are either entertaining, informative, or some balance of both:

  • Blake Harris' Console Wars Amazon, a book released in 2014 that details the rise and fall of Sega of America. I think the writing is rough, at least, it tries to Aaron Sorkinize too much of the history and comes off insufferably cheesy at times, enough so that I just had to put the book down and shake my head with douche shivers, but because Harris' has one on one interviews and access to Kalinske, the head of SoA at the time, you get a lot of first hand details that just aren't available anywhere else.
  • David Kushner's Masters of Doom Amazon, written in 2004 was one of the first contemporary books to get into the details of the videogame industry. This was mostly an untapped medium when Kushner was writing the book, as writing about a videogame company was just not in fashion in 2002 or 2003. Like Console Wars, the conversations are fictionalized but most match up to the actual events detailed in the book. It follows the origins and rise of id software, one of the most influential western developers who more or less invented the first-person shooter (even if they weren't truly the first, they certainly popularized the genre and most of what we take for granted in the first-person genre, id pioneered and introduced). id's fingerprints are on thousands of modern games, and the two founders of the company -- John Carmack and John Romero -- are often considered father's of modern action games, they also have a tumultuous relationship with one another, at the time often likened to John Lenon and Paul McCartney, and so the story of id software is also the story of their personal relationship.
  • Gaming Historian YouTube Channel (google it, it should come up). Many of these videos are dry and some border on clickbait, but the majority are well researched and provide a good nugget of history into videogames.
  • The King of Kong Documentary. It's not completely factual and it takes artistic license to make a better story, but it's probably the best videogame-focused movie ever made, even despite those inaccuracies. Why you should watch it? It's a great introduction into competitive gaming in the 1980s and how videogames worked. There are other materials that have informed this movie and you can start with the movie and just google questions, and because the movie was so popular there's a lot of interesting research that goes into the mechanics of it.
  • NoClip, a Youtube Channel. NoClip has only been around for a year or a little more, but they're well funded and produced videogame documentaries... Most focus on some new aspect of gaming, but still walk back into the influences of the developers, which aren't cheesy... they're well informed and well made. Particularly, the interview with the developers of CD Projekt and how being under the heel of communism influenced how they built games and ultimately what makes a game like The Witcher so compelling.
  • SuperBunnyHop YouTube Channel. Guy who does breakdowns of videogames and his informative retrospectives are some of my favorites. He introduced the concept of, "But what do they eat?" to me, which goes into a wider theory about creating realistic or believable game worlds. If you're in any game world, walking around, and there are creatures living there, if the game subtly answers the simple question "But what do they eat?" it makes the game world so much more believable because it's an indication that the developers/designers have really put more thought into the believability of their world. Most great games answer this central question or punt on it in a convincing way.
  • Joseph Anderson YouTube Channel. His video breakdowns of games are just so good. He's probably most recently gotten notoriety by being critical of Super Mario Odyssey, at least, critical enough to say "the game isn't perfect..." And after playing Odyssey and feeling kinda meh on it after a while, I watched his video and it just felt so apt for me. He also does great analysis of mostly recent games, but most of those are informed by previous games, and goes into the mechanics of balance, pacing, mechanics, and the simple systems that inform most good game.
  • RetroGame Mechanics Explained YouTubeChannel. These are typically technical breakdowns of how concepts in retrogaming worked, and are usually pretty involved. Not always light watching but informative.
  • Mark Brown's Game Maker's Toolkit YouTube Channel. Breakdowns of videogame theories/concepts, largely.

    This is by no way supposed to be an exhaustive list, just a list of stuff that I enjoyed and others might too... Part of these videos/movies/books is video game theory, part is history, part is just sheer entertainment value, but I think anybody who is into videogames enough to talk on 'True Gaming,' would probably enjoy most of those.
u/cooolfoool · 1 pointr/truegaming

Ah! Looks like I saw this post a little late but I'll throw in some additional suggestions as I am year into a PhD on a games related subject area (social dynamics of online games are of particular importance to my work).

I would start off by suggesting Johan Huzinga's Homo Ludens and Roger Cailois' Man, Play and Games which often underpin so much of the game studies field. Although many of the assertions made here are often extremely dated in new technological contexts they do provide an excellent reference point to more pure notions of play (as problematic as the concept may be).

Keeping it specific to your interest of social games and mention of T.L. Taylors Play Between Worlds I would recommend Mark Chen’s Leet Noobs; Celia Pearce’s Communities of Play: Emergent Cultures in Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds; the recent Routledge compilation Online Gaming in Context: The Social and Cultural Significance of Online Games and also Mia Consalvo’s Cheating: Gaining Advantages in Videogames. All of these books approach the topic of sociality in and around games in different ways but I would highly recommend them all.

I would also recommend T.L. Taylor’s latest book Raising the Stakes: E-sports and the Professionalization of Computer Gaming for an important study into the burgeoning cultural practices surrounding e-sports in the West. This is a subject matter that is really close to my own personal interests and current work so I might be a little biased, but much the same as Play Between Worlds, it’s a fantastically informed and important book to the field.

I could go on for a while though.. If you would like any more suggestions or have any similar material to share yourself please don’t hesitate to drop a message!

u/domarp · 5 pointsr/truegaming

Narratives that derive from game mechanics, in my opinion, exemplify what makes games great. There is nothing better than creating your own story within a game's playground.

Games like Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor, where you develop a grudge with that one random Orc that keeps killing you and eventually becomes a warlord. Or games like EVE, which has it's own book on the wars purely created by the playerbase, not by game plot. Or games like Darkest Dungeon where the game creates stories for your heroes, and XCOM: Enemy Unknown where you create stories for your heroes. Even loot games like Diablo or Borderlands, where you can talk about how you got that one epic sword or gun. The plot of these games doesn't make them great - the gameplay narrative does.

Don't get me wrong - some amazing story-driven adventures have come out of video games. We have The Last of Us, Bioshock, Mass Effect, The Witcher, Spec Ops: The Line, Baldur's Gate, KOTOR, and more. They definitely have their place in gaming. But when I'm capable of creating my own story that I can tell my friends about, that was derived from game mechanics and not game writers? That's satisfying. That's what makes games great. And those are the games I can play over and over again.

u/TheVioletBarry · 3 pointsr/truegaming

For me it's not the inherent graphics (assuming you meant graphics to mean technically impressive renderings) themselves, but rather the general "look" of the game that matters. Part of that is the obvious response, "I like things that look good over things that don't," but I think there's another factor here that often gets overlooked, one which I find to be very important: gamefeel (there's a book about it that uses that term)

The virtual sensation of playing a game, I think, matters a lot more than it's given credit for, and the way a game "feels" to play is—as far as I know—entirely based on the sensory feedback the game provides, a large portion of which are its visuals. There's a reason action games use all those particle effects when you land a hit: the visual feedback changes the sensation of the hit. In other words, the aesthetics strongly affect the gameplay.

The Errant Signal episode "Kinaesthetics" articulates the concept of gamefeel (which he likes to term "kinaesthetics") very well. You should consider checking it out.

u/tblaich · 3 pointsr/truegaming

Finally home and having a chance to reply. I pulled five books off of my shelf that I would recommend, but there are doubtless more that you should read.

Raph Koster's Theory of Fun for Game Design

Janet H. Murray's Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace

Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan's First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game

Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan's Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media

They wrote a Third Person as well, I just haven't gotten the chance to read it yet. You might be able to find PDF copies online somewhere, but if you have the money, you should try to support the writer's by buying. Show them that people are interested in critical discourse about games.

Next week I think I'm going to order a few new texts (after payday), and I'd be happy to let you know what I think once i have them in hand.

u/martiantenor · 5 pointsr/truegaming

> in books, it is just imagination and suggestion.

Don't discount imagination so quickly! There's a great bit in Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics where he explains that, in comic strips at least, a lot of what makes them engaging is the space between the panels, where your imagination fills in the gaps. Books can harness this too, because they can very sharply define what you are and are not told directly.

A lot of consumer-driven media, though, focuses on telling a single story, which is definitely not exploring. You can find less linear games, movies, and books, all of which give you more of that exploration sense. Creating new things (doesn't matter what; art, music, code, LEGOs) can also feel more like exploring, because there's no story aside from what you're trying to tell, much like going on a hike in the woods.

u/Invisig0th · 6 pointsr/truegaming

This question is covered extensively and IMHO accurately in the first half of Jane McGonigal's book "Reality is Broken". In short, games are not simply a 'better' version of books and movies. They are a 'better' version of real life. Comparing games to books/films/music is comparing apples to oranges.

Games are engineered to provide reliable and reasonable reward for the player's effort in ways that real life does not provide, and in ways other mediums do not even attempt to provide. Succeeding at a goal in a game and getting the corresponding reward has absolutely no corollary in books or film (no agency). In real life, we often work hard for no payoff, and that is a negative feedback loop. Games are (pretty much by definition) constructed as as a positive feedback loop where smart choices and hard work lead to success. They feed that deep-seated need in us as human beings. Books and movies can entertain (passively, statically), but they are a completely different animal than games, which respond to the (active, dynamic) hard work of the player and reward them (actively, dynamically) when they have accomplished their goal.

[Edit: Competing in a sport is a game exactly as much as a video game or a game of chess. They are all artificial scenarios where you are presented with challenges and the agency to overcome those challenges.]

u/boopaboopa · 1 pointr/truegaming

There is an HD collection available to you which includes 2, 3, and Peace Walker.

As for MGS1 and 4... those are different stories. 4 is exclusive to PS3 although you don't absolutely have to play it unless you want complete closure.. which some people weren't happy with. I was, I enjoy the absurdity. But MGS1 should be fairly easy to emulate. Alternatively you can play MGS1 if you have a PS2/PS1 or Gamecube (GCN has a remake entitled Twin Snakes).

u/jarkyttaa · 11 pointsr/truegaming

Besides the obvious standards, there's quite a bit out there. Reality is Broken is quickly becoming my go-to book for introducing people to talking about video games. If you're less focused specifically on video games, then Hamlet on the Holodeck is basically required reading for any discussions about interactive narrative and Pervasive Games: Theory and Design gives a great introduction to pervasive games, which are definitely different from video games, but there's a fair amount of overlap in good design principles there.

u/behindtimes · 31 pointsr/truegaming

It was the Genesis which allowed that though. If you exclude the Japanese market, where Sega was downright abysmal in the 16-bit generation, the sales numbers of the Genesis vs the SNES were actually fairly competitive. And up until the mid 1990s, Sega even overtook Nintendo in terms of sales figures at certain points.

But one thing to take into consideration is that compared to either Sony or Microsoft of the PS3/360 era, Sega was at a massive disadvantage starting out. During the mid 1980s through early 1990s, it was Nintendo or nothing. Nobody owned a Master System or even Genesis when it was released. Nintendo was becoming synonymous with video games. At one point, according to the book Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation, Nintendo accounted for 10% of Walmart's profits. Think about that for a second. That a company had such power, that they could impose their will on Walmart of where to place their items, and how much to sell their items for.

For Sega to come back and be even nearly as competitive as they were was nothing short of amazing. And they solved it the exact way as you stated the PS3 & 360 of doing, of creating demographics. Nintendo, or even video games in general, were for kids. Sure, arcades in the 70s and early 80s had teenagers in them, but you played your video games, and you moved on with your life. Sega targeted those children becoming teenagers, who grew up with video games, but now kept with video games. I'm part of that generation. I don't know many people, even just half a decade older than me, who play video games, but I know tons of people younger than me who do. That's not to say none do, rather, it's just far more uncommon.

And when I was in high school, more people I knew owned Genesis's than SNES's. It's sort of like the PSX vs N64. In terms of sales figures, the N64 was a massive disappointment and could be considered a failure. If you look at reddit threads though, the N64 is talked about with great reverence though while the PSX has moved into obscurity. In my opinion, a huge part is because things like the Genesis and PSX targeted the older generations who already grew up with video games. It wasn't their first love, thus didn't create many lasting memories or leave a huge impression on people. So, we forget about the true impact it actually did have.

u/browngray · 7 pointsr/truegaming

These are leaning towards the design and development side, but I would recommend The Art of Game Design and Designing Virtual Worlds. The former is a reference of patterns and questions for game design (including board and tabletop games), while the latter is focused on the design of MMOs and MUDs but the concepts can apply to other things like your typical shooter multiplayer.

u/Aspirant_Blacksmith · 1 pointr/truegaming

This book has some pretty great insights into the topic. I would recommend reading it to anyone, regardless of how the view gaming.

u/rAxxt · 1 pointr/truegaming

I had a little luck on this wiki page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_balance

Namely, there is a reference in this article to this book, which sounds interesting:
http://www.amazon.com/Designing-Virtual-Worlds-Richard-Bartle/dp/0131018167

I suggest you take a look through that book and check it's list of references for more publications like what you want. To study this stuff seriously, though, you are going to want to be up on your calculus and statistics.

u/iugameprof · 4 pointsr/truegaming

> he has an idea / concept in mind that he feels can be only incompletely expressed with words.

Well a bunch of us have tried (see the talks and videos in his description on youtube, which includes one of my talks), and continue to try.

It's a difficult topic for sure, but one that seems to me to be at the heart of game design as the area matures.

u/Invo_RT · 1 pointr/truegaming

I certainly agree that at present, Sony has more perks through PS+ and it sounds like a really good deal as long as you keep the subscription up!

I just would like to point out that PS+ is $5 and will only be optional for the current gen. $5 per month is $60 a year which is the same price as XBL currently. It does look like you can get a year of PS+ for $49.99 which sounds more economical, but you can get XBL cheaper if you shop around a bit.

http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-LIVE-Month-Gold-Membership-360/dp/B0029LJIFG

u/ZapActions-dower · 1 pointr/truegaming

The official Microsoft one. That's what I have an I've never had a problem with it. I'm not sure that you can still get it separate from the controller. As I said above, mine came bundled with this: http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Xbox-Wireless-Controller-Windows/dp/B004QRKWKQ

Though, I believe I paid $60 and picked it up at a Best Buy. I'd definitely get it on the internet if I were to do it again.

u/Mattrickhoffman · 2 pointsr/truegaming

Wrote a similar thesis and found this book to be really valuable to me: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/081667647X/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=

The author, Ian Bogost, is probably the most recognized academic doing work in the area of games, so it's probably worth your time to find some other stuff by him as well

u/TopRamen713 · 2 pointsr/truegaming

Jingo is such a fun word to use. I learned it from Terry Pratchett. It's like patriotic, but with negative and militant connotations. Actually pretty useful these days.

u/[deleted] · 2 pointsr/truegaming

Unfortunately I have not read many books relating to the gaming industry/community. I mostly stick to books on game design. I can however recommend one book, How to Do Things with Videogames. It's a collection of 20 essays relating to video games and how their growing as a medium. It's a really good read.

u/elerner · 1 pointr/truegaming

If /truegaming were a seminar, Johan Huizinga's Homo Ludens and Roger Callois' Man, Play and Games would be the first two books on the syllabus, though they well predate modern video games.

u/ShiftedClock · 3 pointsr/truegaming

There is a book called Game Feel (which I thought your post title was referring to). It's well regarded in the game design community. It goes into elaborate detail on all the points you brought up. Just if you're curious about going down this rabbit hole a bit further.

u/bubbameister33 · 1 pointr/truegaming

Don't use your credit card to purchase Live but look on sites like Amazon and Newegg that have the 12 month gold cards cheaper.

u/pennyroyal · 1 pointr/truegaming

By 'dongle' I am referring to a wireless dongle that you can plug into your PC so that it can detect a wireless 360 controller.


Like so; http://www.amazon.com/EastVita-Wireless-Pc-Receiver-xbox360-xbox360/dp/B0076HD2W8/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&qid=1410653674&sr=8-14&keywords=360+wireless+controller


There are also official Microsoft versions that include both the dongle and a wireless controller.

u/mafaraxas · 2 pointsr/truegaming

You're right that everyone was gung-ho to go to war, but that doesn't change the fact that people will confuse or combine WW1/WW2, and/or associate the Germans to evil regardless (since the story is told by the victor, or however the phrase goes).

I remember reading a book in 5th grade (I Was There) that was a real eye-opener (as much as can be said for being in 5th grade). During a war, there are really very few people who can truly be considered evil/at fault.

u/coldnever · 3 pointsr/truegaming

Violence long predates videogames, not only that, gamers are weary of the whole topic for good reasons. Videogames are a scapegoat for more fundamental problems with the world and society at large. It's deflection from real criticism of the political economic order, if you want insight into the world's problems go pickup "War is a racket".

http://www.amazon.com/War-Racket-Antiwar-Americas-Decorated/dp/0922915865/

u/beancan332 · 3 pointsr/truegaming

>Am I missing something

You are, in the 90's, pc games you had entire control of the game software and files, you could mod things for free and people could make levels and share stuff for free. Ever since mmo's and steam, the corporate world has been doing a full court press against software ownership.

Pre mass high speed internet penetration they had to give you the entire game to run on your PC. Ever since they discovered the average gamer is tech illiterate and not very bright, they've been doing horrible stuff to the game files like encrypting stuff and making them difficult to mod.

Paid mods is further erosion of control of game software so they can remove your rights completely to own anything you are paying for. They are basically theives at this point and it would take a long discussion of intellectual property law and the mass corruption of capitalist society to fully flesh out.

Your post speaks to your political and historical ignorance of how corrupt the world really is, you don't really understand how evil the companies around you really are.

IP law is corrupt and is never going to be non corrupt, capitalism is not compatable with rule of law. You do not live in a democracy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYFxtNgOeiI

Book:

http://trilateral.org/download/doc/crisis_of_democracy.pdf

Before I begin your brain does not reason nor see reality as it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYmi0DLzBdQ

Protectionism for the rich and big business by state intervention, radical market interference.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHj2GaPuEhY#t=349

Manufacturing consent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwU56Rv0OXM

https://vimeo.com/39566117

Testing theories of representative government

https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf

US distribution of wealth

https://imgur.com/a/FShfb

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

What goes down in the US goes down in all capitalist western states, they all follow the same model of "politics as show" where the public has no input if you look at the research.

From war is a racket:

"I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil intersts in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested."[p. 10]

"War is a racket. ...It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." [p. 23]

"The general public shoulders the bill [for war]. This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations." [p. 24]

General Butler is especially trenchant when he looks at post-war casualties. He writes with great emotion about the thousands of traumatised soldiers, many of who lose their minds and are penned like animals until they die, and he notes that in his time, returning veterans are three times more likely to die prematurely than those who stayed home.

http://www.amazon.com/War-Racket-Antiwar-Americas-Decorated/dp/0922915865