By now, you’re probably familiar with Battle Royale or one of its many derivatives: a group of young people are stranded across a massive, inescapable zone littered with weapons, and are charged with killing the rest if they hope to survive. As their numbers are whittled down, friend turns against friend, unexpected romance blooms, and …
In one of the grislier Grand Theft Auto V missions, you infiltrate LifeInvader, a “clever” clone of Facebook where employees air-guitar near their cubicles and admonish folks who can’t sit in beanbag chairs for not fitting the company vision. After tampering with a prototype phone and driving home, you’re treated to fake Mark Zuckerberg blowing …
Out of all the “auteur” game developers that have bounced around over the last few decades, Suda51 (Goichi Suda) felt like he stood out. Sure, his latest work is more focused on titillation than anything else (how else do you explain a repeating minigame dedicated to ogling your character’s companions?), but back when Killer7 and …
If you’ve been tuned into the conversation around No Man’s Sky for the past few weeks, you’ve likely seen disappointment and anger mix with excitement and wonder. Any game selling itself on exploring an endless number of planets was bound to be divisive; that it didn’t quite hit the lofty goals mentioned in interviews or …
This is an article on the second episode of 2016’s episodic Hitman. Our piece on the introduction and first chapter can be found here. One way or another, the second level of Hitman 2016 was always going to be its breaking point. Traipsing around Paris as an impostor fashionista back in March was certainly a blast, but …
When I put time aside for a book or start a new show on Netflix, I tend to make the completion my actual goal. Sure, I’m there to be entertained and experience something special, but whether it happens to be an upcoming class or shift at work, my time has always been limited: why linger …
Few conversations or articles about The Witness, the rare puzzle game that has ignited nearly everyone’s attention, end without mentioning Myst at least once. It doesn’t take a leap of logic to find the connections (not including the comparisons Jonathan Blow himself has made): both throw players on a sizable island dotted with puzzles that …
It’s been a while since Colin and I traipsed through the 90s-tinted world of Clandestine, a co-op stealth game with more than a few rough edges. After a year in Early Access, Logic Artists have cast off their pre-release status and hit publish, adding an overarching plot, dialogue trees and tweaks that make the hacker’s …
I often find myself disgruntled with retro indie games. Though the style’s significant titles revitalize their genre of choice with gorgeous visuals and minutely tuned mechanics, the story often gets left by the wayside. I’m not the kind of person who thinks every single game requires a tantalizing plot, but while I might have an …