Games We Play: Flappy Bird

I picked a heck of a day to start playing Flappy Bird. Just minutes after my first annoyed time with it, I read of its imminent removal from app stores.

Insert “Floppy Bird” joke here, I suppose.

If you know what a smartphone is, you probably already have heard about Flappy Bird. It’s mobile game in which you play as a bird, whose goal is to fly between sets of large green pipes across over a flat, grass-covered pixelated world. It’s a simple concept, and the game has absolutely exploded in popularity since the beginning of the year, sitting on top of the iOS free app charts.

But here’s the thing about Flappy Bird: It’s kind of a terrible game, almost inarguably so. And not for the rampant visual “inspirations” it takes from other games. No, Flappy Bird’s flaw is the way it approaches it’s difficulty. Not simply that it IS difficult, but how and why it is difficult.

Scenes From Los Santos: Volume 1

Welcome to the first full installment of Scenes From Los Santos, where we explore the artistic side of Rockstar Games’ latest entry of their controversial franchise, Grand Theft Auto V. Today we are going to look at some photos comparing locations in the virtual world of Los Santos to their real-world LA counterparts, somes examples of some of the many in-game brands and advertisements, and finish off with an in-game selfie (yes, a selfie) at a location from one of my favorite Christmas movies. Enjoy!

Scenes From Los Santos — prologue

Few pieces of modern media come with as controversial a reputation as Grand Theft Auto. For over a decade, politicians, parents, and mainstream media have been uttering the three-letter-acronym like a four-letter-word in reference to violence, sex, and the decay of the morality worldwide.

My thoughts on these reactions, to GTA in particular and violent video games in general, is certainly for another time. Right now, I want to introduce another side of Grand Theft Auto, one that is unfortunately almost entirely overshadowed by the the controversy and drama.