Article
One of our favorite pieces from the vault. Dave Carter began the Computer and Video Game Archive at the University of Michigan. But this isn’t your typical archive of gaming’s greatest. It seeks out the forgotten and worst bits of gaming, too—the Philips CD-i, the Atari 7800 controller, the doll tha
Review
What’s within this haunted house? And is it worth exploring with your own two feet? Jon Irwin wonders about the architecture of tedium as he explores Kinect title Haunt.
Interview
We talk to PopCap’s Jeff Green about the end of text adventures, why Bookworm succeeded where other word games failed, and how game journalism needs to evolve.
Essay
In common parlance, tastes change. But this is no mere truism; when technology moves with the times, so does what we find palatable. We look at the history of videogames through the surprisingly familiar lens of food.
Review
Two recent apps bring human beings in close contact. Runaway iOS hit Draw Something has strangers competing for bombs and profit, while Nintendo’s Swapnote has more volume and humanity.
Review
Sonic the Hedgehog creator Yuji Naka continues to defy expectations with Fishing Resort, a Wii game that moves at the pace of nothing. Jon Irwin explains why watching the water poses a deeper challenge than the average game.
Review
Do multiplayer games bring us closer together, or push us farther apart? Now on its seventh lap, the Mario Kart series introduces some bits and pieces of social networking to mix things up. Jon Irwin recalls furiously racing against friends after school in the original Mario Kart, and wonders what i
Profile
What does it mean be a rock star? We sit down with Matt Boch, who tells us about designing controls for Rock Band sequels and other interactive projects as a musician and how a rock song compares to a sandwich.
Review
The return of Rayman turns the simplicity of moving left and right into a platform for ornate, surreal—and very French—beauty. Jon Irwin finds the game cause for celebration.
Review
A new Mario game is an event, but rarely one like 3D Land—which throws Jon Irwin’s experience of Mario in sharp relief and leads him to reexamine the whole thing anew, beginning with the joy of jumping.
Review
We review a novel new match-3 game playable on Facebook, a social network that has arguably revolutionized the way we think about the people and places around us, though where that sits in the larger view of history is up for debate, when you think about it…
Review
Jon Irwin meditates on the pink blob, whose latest game on the Nintendo Wii is an easy, frictionless antidote to the zeitgeist’s interactive murder.