Another retro feature at GameSetWatch, this time looking at cult classic Abuse and its place in PC gaming history.

In the September issue, Kristen Salvatore writes about the adventure game adaptation of the film:

I confess that I’m something of a literature snob, so it isn’t easy for me to admit I enjoyed a mainstream book like The Da Vinci Code – I love that it’s rooted in factual historical mysteries unlocked with factual historical information.

Except that it isn’t. I guess it was wrong to assume that Brown’s detractors had actively slagged both the book and the film enough over the past three months to get people to start thinking clearly, pointing out that the basis for most of his novel was either entirely fiction or a pseudo-historical text that had been written simply to support some religious crackpot theory. But factual? Come on, a literature snob would have at least done a little casual research before making a statement like that.

Spike Lee’s Inside Man got a bit of attention in the gaming community earlier this year for a scene that showed a computer generated sequence made to look like a violent video game. I just saw the DVD on the weekend, and I have to admit I’m a bit suprised at the clumsily inserted social commentary. I could understand using the wounds of the World Trade Centre as a point of reflection in 25th Hour, but Inside Man’s approach to criticizing violent video games simply felt gratuitous, from multiple viewpoints. It seems that the bigger Lee’s budget, the lesser his tact.

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“When you read a book, you’re totally lost in your own private world, and society says that’s a good and wonderful thing. But if you play a game by yourself, it’s this weird, fucked-up, socially damaging activity. What sort of narrow-minded moron propagates this lie? When your grandfather plays solitaire, is he isolating himself? Get a grip, people.” – Douglas Coupland, JPod

My first warning should have been the tagline inside the dust jacket: “Douglas Coupland updates Microserfs for the Google generation.” Is there even a Google generation? I assume that the search engine is so ubiquitous that it makes capturing a particular demographic irrelevant. More accurately, JPod reads like Coupland was using Google to surf for every meme to circulate the Internet in the years since writing Microserfs, and tried to transcribe it to paper. Where Microserfs was comfortable to tell a story at the beginning of the “new economy” wave, JPod desperately tries to catch up with it.

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Today my first column for “Keyboard Bashing” went live, which is a new regular feature at GameSetWatch. I decided to add to their existing collection of retro features by examining my favorite game of all time.

From this point forward I’ll be contributing there every two weeks or so, covering topics related to PC games both old and new.