Here's the latest installment of my interview with John Romero. I need to decide now whether to dedicate a separate episode to Quake or just finish up with one last segment. Anyway, here's the video:

Hi, all. This week, I return to my extensive Romero footage to bring out the story of one of my favorite first-person shooters, Wolfenstein 3D. Many historians argue that this game was the first "modern" first-person shooter, though there were of course plenty of precedents. Romero points out that it was the first texture-mapped 3D game with a guy holding a gun (earlier ones tended to be tank turrets or flight sim-style games). We also talk here about Silar Warner's Apple II masterpiece Castle Wolfenstein, which inspired Romero and Carmack's game.

Here's the latest Matt Chat, this time with rockstar designer John Romero!

Al Lowe, creator of Leisure Suit Larry (and Freddy Pharkas!), chats with Matt this week about comedy in games, focusing on his fabulous work with Sierra On-Line in the 80s and 90s. Note that it's broken into two parts for your inconvenience.
Part I:

Part II:

Here's this week's Matt Chat featuring Jessica Chiang of Her Interactive. I talk to her about the history of the company, Nancy Drew, and what kind of games appeal to women. Enjoy!

It seems to be a common assumption that males prefer violent games, whereas females prefer games that are more social in nature (Second Life, Wii games)--and particularly ones that emphasize nurturing (The Sims).

Here's the latest Matt Chat episode, this time on the Tandy CoCo classic Dungeons of Daggorath. Enjoy, and let me know if you played this game back in the day. Love to hear more about its critical reception among Tandy CoCo owners.

As I was playing Dungeons of Daggorath again this morning, I was struck by how much clever audio can enhance a game, more than making up for simplistic graphics and the like. I think we have a tendency to strongly underestimate the power of sound for suggesting certain emotions and sensations.

I've often been struck at how central maps are to gaming. I say "gaming" there instead of "videogames," because we all know that maps are also critical in tabletop games such as wargames, role-playing, and of course boardgames like Risk.