Column: 'The Esoteric Beat: Rogue Behavior'

In this week's 'The Esoteric Beat,' a look at the latest goings-on in esoteric game topics, regular columnist Jim Rossignol takes a look at the history of Rogue-likes, as well as the common enemy of many gamers, the non-skippable cutscene. In this extract, Rossignol first cites and then responds to a Buzzscope article complaining about in-game cinematics: "'It’s like a minefield out there. I can’t swing a cat in this game without hitting one of these things. In fact...I can’t EVEN swing a cat. I can’t swing a fist. I can’t swing any goddamned thing at all. Apparently, I didn’t buy a game about playing a game. I bought a game about walking from one contrived cinematic to another. You know, I can buy a really good movie for like twenty bucks. That twenty bucks even gets me extra discs, with director and actor commentary, and maybe even a good plot. Instead, I just gave these asses FIFTY dollars to watch a really bad movie!' He’s got a point, you know. Here’s an exercise: think about how many times, and for how long, you are pulled out of a first-person free-looking perspective in the Half-Life games. Thinking about that? Now: think about the kind of marks given to those games by websites and magazine. Is there some kind of correlation? Could be...that’s all I’m saying." You can now read the full Gamasutra column on the subject, including a look at how to make children behave using only a PlayStation and some clever language (no registration required, please feel free to link to the article from external websites).