Destructoid

Gamer Week here on Blogographer, which featured the blog That VideoGame Blog last update, continues on with today's feature: Destructoid. Looking at the page header, I see the blog's somewhat cliché tagline, which reads, "For Gamers. By Gamers." Being a gamer myself, I say that I'll be the judge of that.

My first impression isn't one of being... well, impressed. My sight is immediately barraged by adverts from all angles, whether it be the background or the foreground. It takes a few moments for my eyes to adjust to determining between what is actually part of the blog and what is Best Buy's attempts at grabbing my attention. Not a great start.

The distracting layout of the entire page confuses me for a moment, so I decide to try jumping into the blog through any point I can, in hopes that I can orient myself in the clutter. Seeing the marquee scroll to featured post #2 on the main page, titled, "How I learned to stop worrying and die," I click the oddly irrelevant picture of Bill Murray having his bottom lip tugged on and I am rushed to the article.


So far, so good. The clutter seems to be less intrusive on the article page itself, though I do have to scroll down a little to get to the writing itself. There, I read through the thick paragraphs and wonder why exactly Bambi's father is one of the pictures in this post. As I reach the end, I would have to say that I am generally impressed -- both for the writing skill of the author, and for the ingenuity of the article's topic.

Here's a sample from the article displaying its interesting premise:

"But while death remains the grand finale of life - until our eventual absorption into the robot overnet - things are all messed up in the gaming world. Death happens in the middle, an inconvenient obstacle or minor setback on the road to greater things. There is a very good chance you will die in most videogames, and usually more than once. And so death becomes a powerful tool in the developer arsenal, allowing gamers to experience something generally reserved for people unable to report back. It’s a tool often misused and overlooked, however. Most games currently use death as a measure of skill, as in: you died because you suck, try harder."

The writer, Andy Astruc, goes on to explain how video games have both succeeded and failed in their journeys to make death not only a powerful factor of the videogaming experience, but an intriguing one as well. After reading his article, I would have to say that I agree with his points. Astruc delivers quite well, and hopefully many more writers on the site can match it.