Review
Review: Super Mario 3D Land
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.
Jon Irwin
Review
Review: Triple Town
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
Review: Kirby’s Return to Dream Land
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.
Reset
Reset: Urban Champion
A dramatic, first-hand, strangely painful re-encounter with Urban Champion of times long gone.
Review
Review: Kyotokei
If a game was made by the same people who design video surveillance software, does it matter? Jon Irwin investigates.
Reset
Reset: Xevious
With its 3D Classics series, Nintendo is bringing its classics into the third dimension. In our second Reset article, Jon Irwin reexamines vertical shooter Xevious and the importance of clouds.
Mux Mool
Mux Mool
The Ghostly International producer on playing Minecraft with his fans, staying sober, and making music with no specific purpose.
Article
Neo-Location
Two D.C. musicians take the avatar approach to the National Mall and New York’s Central Park.
Review
Review: Pudding Panic
Why this game might not be as quiveringly awesome as its name (and its conceit) implies.
Review
Review: Toy Soldiers: Cold War
Jon Irwin strikes an uncomfortable balance between childhood fantasy and the gruesomeness of real life in Toy Soldiers: Cold War.
Article
Everybody’s Doing It
Jon Irwin explores the sensual anxiety of playing Ocarina for the first time.
Article
Looking Alive!
Jon Irwin experiences the tactile, analog joy of Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum’s many oddities and anachronisms. Leave modern day gizmos at the door and discover what it’s like to be roasted by an animatronic alien, to test your mettle with the “Three Trials of Terror, and why Marvin Yagoda’s