Blog Posts by Subject: Videogames

In the process of imaging digital material from the Timothy Leary papers, my eyes have scanned some curious documents, but sometimes the most intriguing files are the ones I can't read. Timothy Leary collaborated with a number of celebrities on projects during his years of freelancing. One of the celebrities that left his mark on the Leary papers is Keith Haring.

It's that time of year again! The 2012-2013 professional and college basketball seasons are in full swing. And, of course, the Bronx Library Center has you covered with plenty of resources to elevate your sports IQ. Come check out a biography of your favorite ball player and learn about the lives of NBA legends like Jerry West, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Shaquille O'Neal or current stars Kobe Bryant, Jeremy Lin (previously on NYPL blogs), Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett. Or, if history is more to your liking, read up on the history of the NBA and NCAA leagues.

As we come to the close of another year, I always look forward to the "best of" lists and discovering interesting games I may have missed. Over the next several weeks, NYPLarcade will be showcasing six video game titles from 2012, which were not covered in our other game series this year: Jenova Chen, Horror Games, and International Games Day (Music Games).

On Saturday, November 3, libraries all over the world will celebrate International Games Day by playing games. This year, at Mid-Manhattan Library, we'll have a variety of board games as well as a special line up of music video games from 2012 in Room 101 from 1-5 p.m.

This week, I'll be delving into FTL: Faster Than Light, which was recently released for the Mac. If you haven't played it, the concept is a roguelike set in space, or "Firefly by way of Spelunky." Each time you play, you can expect permadeath, dangers lurking around every corner, and a new randomized world. So far, it's been a lot of fun successfully fending off space pirates and navigating asteroid fields, only to accidentally sacrifice my last crew member by leaving the airlock open too long. (In my defense, I was trying to get rid of hostiles who had boarded the ship.)

If you haven't heard of Ernest Cline, you may have seen his 2009 movie Fanboys. Fanboys is about four Star Wars-obsessed friends who travel cross-country with their dying friend to sneak into Skywalker Ranch to see the movie Episode I: Phantom Menace before its official release. If you liked that movie you will love this book about '80s pop culture, but even if you haven't (see it! It's cute) you will still love this book.

I'm currently working my way through Borderlands 2 as an assassin who almost exclusively uses Maliwan weapons. It's a lot of fun and (as most reviews have indicated) a nice improvement on the first game. The wacky humor, mindblowing variety of guns, and drop-in, drop-out cooperative play are all back again, but with a tighter story and pacing.

Our first NYPLarcade Game Club explored the works of thatgamecompany's Jenova Chen. In this six week series, we will look at a variety of horror-themed video games, from the terrifying Amnesia to the utterly bizarre Deadly Premonition to the experimental Dear Esther.

This weekend, I'm planning to revisit the strange, haunting world of Dear Esther, which recently added Mac support to its Steam release. So far, the tone reminds me of Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

I'm finally discovering what everyone loves about Minecraft through the recently released Xbox 360 Edition: the whimsical soundtrack, pixelated sunrises and sunsets, and surprisingly fun split-screen multiplayer keep drawing me back in. If you haven't tried it yet, the free, time-limited demo may win you over.

What is a game club? Think of it as a book club, but for video games. Together we'll play, watch, and discuss a selected title (following the schedule listed below) each week at the Mid-Manhattan Library.

The kids in my Teen Advisory Group have been going through a reviewing frenzy recently. Here are some of the books and other “stuff” they’ve been enjoying this spring.

Futuremark's Unstoppable Gorg is a refreshing take on the tower defense genre that swaps fixed turrets for rotating orbits, tweaks the typical resource management mechanic, and borrows its aesthetics straight from a 1950s science fiction B-movie.

Welcome to a new blog series that shows you books that are based from another form of media. This could include the novelization of a movie, movies that were originally books, or in this case, books that are based on video games.

There are more and more books coming out that come from video games. As video games get more intricate plots, players want to know more about the characters. What motivates the villain or hero? What happened before or after the game? Books can answer these questions and are released faster than a game, which usually takes a year or more to develop.

Lately, I’ve noticed some interest in crossover titles for video game players who are looking for good fiction reads. I know I’m not the first person to think of this. Scott Pilgrim vs the World is a good, if somewhat obvious, example. Here’s a list of some other titles that may not immediately spring to mind.

If you're like me, perhaps you started seeing a new word recently—Wifi-- and puzzled over it, then started seeing Wii, and thought somebody must be misspelling something, and what were all these annoying intruders into the lexicon, anyway??? Well, the former is pronounced like hi-fi, is usually hyphenated, and is a type of wireless Internet service. The latter is pronounced like "Wheeeee!," and I'm sure that interjection has escaped from the mouths of many who tried the Nintendo Wii videogaming products in public libraries or elsewhere. The Wii is a video game console that can be used with a wide variety of software products including Wii Sports, with which one can play