Rick Lane (@ricklane) · DIRTY

Rick Lane

@ricklane

Freelance journalist, critic and consultant. Bylines at The Guardian, PC Gamer, NME, Eurogamer and more. FPS sicko. Immersive sim geek. Contact: rick@ricklane.co.uk

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Rick Lane@ricklane· 17d

This point, from Massassi Temple founder Brian E. Lozier about websites and identity, has stuck with me in particular:

An image of text that reads as follows:

"Back then, if you wanted to know about snowboarding, you went to a snowboarding website. If you wanted to go to message boards about a videogame, you searched up the videogame and went to the websites," he says. "Nowadays, the entire internet has transferred to these big corporations. A lot of the Jedi Knight community and snowboarding communities are now on Reddit or Facebook or whatever, so you don't have an individual identity for your Jedi Knight playing versus your snowboarding."

Rick Lane@ricklane· Jun 10

An image of the God of War: Laufey key art, showing Laufey overlooking a panorama of the Afterlife with her cube companion. The title text reads "Mum's Had Enough" in large bold lettering.

Rick Lane@ricklane· Jun 7

Me 10 hours into Exodus:

Rick Lane@ricklane· May 13

It took 15 years and kinda happened by accident, but I wrote my first cover feature for Edge. And it's on the very simple and not-at-all controversial subject of generative AI, exploring how it may (or may not!) define the games industry's future.

An image of Edge Magazine issue 424, with an orange cover and the cover line "AI: Rise of the Machine."

Rick Lane@ricklane· May 11

This is the only time you need to worry about an industry plant.

An image of a British road sign that reads "Heavy Plant Crossing."

Rick Lane@ricklane· May 11

For example, we could have had a live-service Punisher game.

An image of text from a PC Gamer feature on the making of Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza that reads as follows:

But Holtslander had ideas of his own. During our video chat, Holtslander showed me a pitch document for a singleplayer game based on Marvel's The Punisher. "We were hoping that Fox would work out a deal with Marvel," he says. Crucially, this game would have featured subscription-based content, where new missions and experiences would have been added into the game in an exchange for a monthly fee.

"It's like new issues of the comic adventures," he says. "You pay [a] subscription. We continue to bring out content for it. Nobody had been doing that. That was just before EA came out with Majestic, which was a success."

Rick Lane@ricklane· Apr 30

Cosmo had to have his bed washed after being sick in it and he is shunning it SO HARD.

A ridiculous tuxedo cat loafing awkwardly in a papier mache bowl (part of an unfinished crafting project) while his massive, comfy bed is less than two feet away.

Rick Lane@ricklane· Apr 28

Rick Lane@ricklane· Apr 26

Bought Pragmata.

An image of Milhouse from the Simpsons saying "I'm the one with Stigmata" from the episode "Brawl in the Family". The image is edited so that he is holding a PS5 copy of Pragmata and saying "I'm the one with Pragmata".

Rick Lane@ricklane· Apr 19

If you're wondering why I would play this game, the answer is "I'm old and the future sucks."

Rick Lane@ricklane· Mar 25

Mum, the bunny's threatening me again.

A screenshot of an email headline that reads "Easter at home? A choice you might regret".

Rick Lane@ricklane· Mar 18

Also, had to be done.

You and your team are infected by Sludge while running a high-risk delivery mission for a scientist of dubious ethics, and the only way to cure the infection is to kill the Sludge God, the world's largest slop monster outside of OpenAI.

Rick Lane@ricklane· Mar 16

Particularly enjoyed this World of Warcraft-related anecdote, which is peak millennial teenager shenanigans.

Rick Lane@ricklane· Mar 2

Cara also made a Very Good Point about how poorly served writers and narrative designers are by videogame design tools.

A screenshot of text cropped from a PC Gamer webpage that reads as follows:

I write all of my videogame scripts in Scrivener, unless there's an actual tool, which is rare. I wrote all of Void Bastards in Scrivener. I wrote all of Ghost Town in Scrivener. A lot of it is just because it can organise text in a really useful way. It also has screenwriting format, which is easy for actors to read from.

It's mainly because, unfortunately, game engines like Unreal have literally no narrative tools. I think the great shame of videogame engines is that they do not ship with any form of narrative tool. It's a disgrace. Even if you are a sound designer, you can work within Unreal's very basic sound design tools to put sounds in, and most people have a desire to work in Wwise because it's a standardised tool. There is no standardised tool for a narrative designer or a writer in videogames.

Rick Lane@ricklane· Feb 25

One of the most satisfying buttons I've ever clicked.

Rick Lane@ricklane· Feb 11

Irresponsible to do this without releasing the Support, Assault and Recon beavers at the same time.

An image of a BBC headline that reads 'Engineer' beavers released into the wild

Rick Lane@ricklane· Jan 21

An image from an episode of the Simpsons, depicting a malibu stacey doll wearing a hat in a pink box. The text on the box reads "Malibu Stacy: with NEW hat!"

Rick Lane@ricklane· Jan 14

Rick Lane@ricklane· Jan 6

An image of the painting The Elephant Cebes, with a Dark Souls style boss health bar showing the name "Henry, Lord of Dust."

Rick Lane@ricklane· Nov 23

yaaaaaaass Goblin Queen.

A screenshot of a comment on PC Gamer by Goblin Queen, in reference to a story about the schmup game Sektori. It reads "Saw screenshots, saw housemarque dev, immediate purchase."

Rick Lane@ricklane· Nov 14

Rick Lane@ricklane· Oct 30

Rick Lane@ricklane· Oct 17

Dressed for spooky season.

A picture of a daft tuxedo cat sat down wearing a purple bow tie with a pumpkin pattern.

Rick Lane@ricklane· Oct 15

The unreleased sequel to Ice Ice Baby

Part of a horrible, bad, awful, terrible abominable, evil, not very good AI generated image depicting water conservation that reads "Rain Rain Barkels".

Rick Lane@ricklane· Sep 18

Heck of a choice out of the gate in Borderlands 4.

A pair of menu buttons which read "Submit" and "Stay Offline".

Rick Lane@ricklane· Sep 6

Found a book from the future.

An image of an old copy of James and the Giant Peach.

An image of the inside of the Cover of James and the Giant Peach. An inscription reads "From Mr and Mrs Watson, 25th Dec 1978."

An image of the edition notice of James and the Giant Peach, which cites a reprint in 1979.

Rick Lane@ricklane· Sep 1

£0 to pay today. Broken legs tomorrow.

An advertisement for Mafia: The Old country showing box art and screenshot of the game. At the bottom is text that reads £0 to pay today & choose a plan to suit you. Representative 29.9% APR (variable).

Rick Lane@ricklane· Aug 23

Hit the motherlode in the Salvation Army.

An image of the golden balls, telly addicts and are you smarter than a 10 year old Nintendo DS verdict.

Rick Lane@ricklane· Aug 15

I don't even like Braid.

An image of a section of a Steam purchase history page showing the following games: Peggle Deluxe, Audiosurf, The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition, and two purchases of Braid, one a gift copy.

Rick Lane@ricklane· Jul 31

When u plant the bomb too soon in Counter-Strike.