Yeah, when Nick mentioned my new addiction, he wasn’t kidding. I’ve long been a sucker for a particular type of RPG, the vaguely-cartoony, kinda-funny-but-also-tragic, epic, innovative sort. Think Dragon Warrior. Think The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Think Final Fantasy I-IV and IX. And now, Dark Cloud 2 for the PlayStation. This is far and away the best game I’ve played in years.
Its graphics are breathtakingly beautiful, the music is lovely and only minimally annoying, and its gameplay is innovative and a hell of a lot of fun. When was the last time you saw an RPG so seamlessly blend the best city-building parts of SimCity or ActRaiser, a story akin to The Secret of Mana or Final Fantasy, a combat system even better than Zelda, and throw in some all-new innovations like using a camera and an invention system to concoct your own weapons?
I’ve been waiting for an RPG just like this. I know The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is slated to arrive tomorrow. I feel sort of guilty suspecting that even the new Zelda won’t dislodge Dark Cloud 2 from its slot in my games-of-the-year list. I mean, it’s Zelda. But Dark Cloud 2 is the game that the Zelda directly after Link to the Past should have been. I’m with Nick when he says that The Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask sucked. Here’s hoping The Wind Waker gets back to those glory days. I’m in no rush to find out, though. Me, I’ve got some inventing to do.

Storyteller, scholar, consultant. Loving son, husband and father. Kindhearted mischief-maker.
I'm the Director of the Games and Simulation program at Miami University in Ohio, where I am also an Assistant Professor in the College of Creative Arts' Emerging Technology in Business and Design department. I'm also the director of Miami's Worldbuilding and Narrative Design Research Laboratory (WNDRLab). I have a Master's in Comparative Media Studies from MIT and a PhD in Media Arts and Practices from the University of Southern California.
In past lives I've been the lead Narrative Producer for Microsoft Studios and cofounder of its Narrative Design team, working on projects like Hololens, Quantum Break and new IP incubation; in a "future of media" think tank for Microsoft's CXO/CTO and its Chief Software Architect; the Creative Director for the University of Southern California's World Building Media Lab and the Technical Director, Creative Director and a Research Fellow for USC's Annenberg Innovation Lab; a Visiting Assistant Professor at Whittier College and director of its Whittier Other Worlds Laboratory (WOWLab); the Communications Director and a researcher for the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab; a founding member of the Convergence Culture Consortium at MIT (now The Futures of Entertainment); a magazine editor; and a award-winning short film producer. more »
The opinions put forward in this blog are mine alone, and do not reflect the opinions of my employers.


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