Tag Archives: PC Gamer

Life and Undeath in Chernarus: Why Day Z Is the Worst Best Zombie Game

Posted on May 28, 2012 by Karl Parakenings

Another recent viral phenomenon is the explosion in popularity of Day Z, a mod for the formerly-niche military simulator Arma II: Combined Ops. Only a few months old, Day Z is now so popular that Amazon recently ran out of keys for Arma II and a recent version of the mod added support for more than a million player characters in the central database. It’s officially a Thing.

Even more striking than the scope of the mod’s sudden success, though, is the way in which every game blog of note seems to be covering it. Rock Paper Shotgun and PC Gamer are publishing post after post after journal entry, describing the poster’s experience within the mod. Even the recent interview with the mod’s creator, Dean “Rocket” Hall, is mostly in the form of the interviewer and interviewee comparing notes about their respective experiences with the game.

So the question remains to be asked: why is Day Z so popular? Continue reading →

Posted in Criticism , Features | Tagged , , , , , DayZ Guide , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

What’s Wrong With Game Reviews?

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Joseph Hilgard

What’s wrong with game reviews? I could complain what a useless measure game scores have become, since the current range of 8-10 scores is too restricted to have any meaning. Imagine how difficult it would be to talk about height if everybody’s height was described as a number between eight and ten. Worse, I find that the most interesting games tend to score in about the 85s, so imagine that sometimes people who were 10 feet tall were actually shorter than people who were eight feet tall. Even if the range of scores were better distributed, though, it still seems like the least interesting titles would still rise to the top. Why is that? Continue reading →

Posted in Criticism , Features , Round Table | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments