Review
Shelter shows life as lovely, brutish, and short
The developers of Pid take things in a more primal direction.
Filipe Salgado
Review
Papers, Please makes you a cog in the machine
Lucas Pope’s immigration agent sim explains the mechanics of oppression
Profile
The Quizmaster
It takes a lot of smarts to win at pub trivia, but what about the host? Filipe Salgado follows Toronto’s most beloved Quizmaster, and gains insight into how this descendant of television quiz shows is built to be lost gracefully.
Review
Max Payne 3 Makes Us All Ugly Americans
When does Die Hard illuminate the gravity of a bad situation? In Rockstar Studios’ Max Payne 3, the player-protagonist plays the ignorant American in Brazil, with only his brute force to save him.
Review
Prototype 2 Offers a Lot of Deity, Not a Lot of Definition.
What makes a man a “hero”? James Heller, the contortedly violent star of the Prototype 2, asks that question, but the answer leaves our reviewer strangely wanting.
Essay
Too Little, Too Late
Environmental simulation Fate of the World lets you advance the world, only to end up destroying it. Filipe Salgado wonders why futility leads to such persistence.
Reset
No More Fog in Silent Hill
Is it possible to preserve classic videogames? The new rendition of the Silent Hill series shows that technology can undermine the best intentions, and old illusions are easily broken.
News
Devin Shatsky on the Silent Hill franchise and HD remakes in the changing landscape of the Horror genre
When debates flare up again about whether games are art, one title that often gets brought to the table is Silent Hill 2. Like the lovechild of Polanski and Cronenberg, it’s a psychosexual thriller that worms its way into the player’s psyche. The critical and fan responses to subsequent entries have
Essay
Unlevel Design
How does the other half play? Our one-time casino correspondent rides the bus to Niagara Falls and tries to get used to losing, being lost, and loathing games.
Essay
The Unauthorized and Incomplete Story of the IGF Pirate Kart
What happens when you combine more than 100 renegade game developers, 300 off-the-cuff games they made, and a mock failed submission to the Independent Games Festival? Filipe Salgado brings us into the sporadic and rebellious world of the 2012 IGF Pirate Kart to talk with some of the minds behind th
Review
Review: Don’t Play Sports With Justin Smith
Want to feel the sand between your toes and the ocean spray in your face, to hear the crowds ooh and ahh over your pirouettes in the sky? Justin Smith’s Realistic Summer Sports Simulator is not your game.
Review
Review: Homeless, Gaming’s Photo 101
Filipe Salgado on the independent game Homeless, which attempts to express the plight of the homeless with repeated presses of the A button. Questions remain: Why does the homeless man think he deserves to be homeless? And how did he get X-ray vision?