Interview
Designer Matt Parker’s Lumarca is 3D and out of this world.
What’s inside this box?
Jason Johnson
Article
Hello childhood. Darksiders II is action figurines for adults.
Like playing with dolls? Then you’re going to love Vigil Games’ addition to the Darksiders franchise.
Essay
Love to Worry
Games are a collision of study and play, but they lean heavily on the former. Jason Johnson’s trip into the chaotic mines of Spelunky taught him how to love the inhumanity of the machine.
Columns
In Search of Mothra Fairies
What do onigiri treasure, killer doll heads, spreadsheets, and gymnastics have in common? It turns out nothing, but we can recommend them all in the sudden return of Flash Forward.
Columns
The Radioactive Circus
Is this London installation the most dangerous ride in the world? Jason Johnson speaks with artist Ryan Doyle about The Liquidator, a kinetic sculpture he built using radioactive metal collected from the site of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.
Review
Mise-@-Scène
Before email and Twitter, the @ symbol was the faceless character of Rogue and its cult of roguelikes. New from rising developer Michael Brough is Zaga-33, a dungeon crawl that manages to be beautifully abstract and polemical at once. Has Brough found the message in the medium?
Interview
"Humans Can’t Keep on Top of Numbers."
Buddhist metal duo Yamantaka // Sonic Titan recently contributed to Klei Entertainment’s upcoming Mark of the Ninja. We talk to Ruby Attwood and Alaska B about the cosmic in Chun-Li cosplay and creating drum patterns as code.
Review
The Tricky Serve of Mario Tennis Open
Tennis, as a videogame, has never exactly replicated the complex physics of the sport. Instead, tennis videogames give a skin to button-ordering finger memory games. We see how Mario Tennis Open for the 3DS furthers the illusion.
Interview
The Creator of the "Worst Videogame in the World" Sees New Life in BDSM Doc — and as a Therapist
E.T. is known as the game that almost killed the videogame industry in 1983. But its creator Howard Scott Warshaw hasn’t let the failure derail his life. We talk to the man behind the legend about his new life as a therapist for the Digital Age.
Interview
How Ghost Recon Might Teach You How To Shoot a Real Rifle.
They say art imitates life. (Or vice versa.) For the men who craft the weapons in upcoming shooter Tom Clancy: Ghost Recon, creating viable machines meant pulling from the paintball court and the firing range. Jason Johnson dives into the fray.
Review
Sine Mora is Bullet Gulag
If there was a strongman contest for the frenetic “bullet hell” genre, Sine Mora might be it. The Hungarian developer gathers steam and spits fire as Jason Johnson dives into this review.
Essay
Black Undead Damnation
Rockstar Games’ Red Dead Redemption is the latest videogame to host an urban legend. A house on a hill is said to be haunted—in reality—so we went ghost hunting.