REVIEW: The brutality of war in all of its horror is on display in Fire Emblem: Awakening
Intelligent Systems new addition to the two-decades old franchise asks players how we cope with loss in life and in relationships.
Jon Irwin
Food scientists unwittingly diagnose why sometimes we can’t stop playing
This past Sunday’s New York Times Magazine features a remarkable story on the junk food industry and its many secretive struggles for our mouths. Though the author, Michael Moss, kept his focus on obesity and nutrition, I couldn’t help but notice a few startling parallels with the many videogames I
Does Vblank’s ROM City Rampage signal a shift away from Retro as a trendy aesthetic?
When we spoke to Brian Provinciano back in October 2011, he was nearing the end of work on his game Retro City Rampage, a parody of everything Eighties through the lens of a modern sandbox game like Grand Theft Auto (if that game came out for the NES). It was an ambitious project, especially for wha
Kenji Eno’s final game expressed a poignant philosophy of the bizarre
The games community lost a brilliant man far too soon last week when Kenji Eno, 42, died of heart failure. The name likely won’t ring familiar for many, but his contribution to the medium reaches farther than a recognizable face. Known for the horror games D and its follow-up Enemy Zero, his team pu
Sony’s PlayStation 4 and why numbers tell us nothing
Sony’s new Playstation has been outed. There was a lot of counting and pointing to large numbers. But do they mean anything at all?
Beck’s new album is a book of sheet music and the best local multiplayer game ever
Near the end of February, a collective of local musicians will gather together at the Somerville Theatre near Boston, MA, to perform Beck’s new album, Song Reader. They won’t be covering his songs so much as performing them into existence. You can’t listen to Song Reader on your iPod or stereo. The
Rock Band will stop updating their songlist in April. Where do music games go from here?
Last week saw an announcement posted to Rockband.com’s community forum by developer Aaron Trites, revealing that weekly updates of new tracks will finally end on April 2nd. For fans of Rock Band, the music game that introduced plastic drum kits to millions of homes across the globe, this is a bitter
Can games’ stories get out of the way already and let us play?
Masahiro Sakurai knows what he likes. The creator of Super Smash Bros. and the recent Kid Icarus: Uprising has an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink sort of style, packing his games with mechanics, extras, options, and more. So it’s interesting that an element many games revolve around–narrative–doesn’
The secret to smart kids entertainment? Give them a toy, not a game.
Parents everywhere know the quiet pain induced by watching your child tear open the wrapping paper on a new gift, toss the actual game aside, and play with the box instead. A kid’s imagination need not be confined to existing rules or points system; they’ll make those up themselves, thanks very much
Mario adds a new weapon to his arsenal… Science!
With Sony and Microsoft set to reveal and/or release their next big systems into a strange and fragmented landscape, Nintendo knew they had to get creative. So they did what any self-respecting entertainment company must do: They devised a giant metal ball that shoots lightning to the tune of Super
Scorned fans take over Miiverse in protesting Ubisoft’s delay of Rayman Legends
Rayman: Origins was a monumental return to relevance for Ubisoft’s B-list mascot platformer born in the 90s. I loved the colorful, creative worlds and challenging gameplay when I reviewed it last year, though underwhelming sales made a follow-up unlikely. When news of a sequel leaked out with a prom
Will Xbox leave game lovers behind?
With Sony planning their next console’s reveal this week and Nintendo’s hand already played, the console gaming public awaits word from Microsoft on how exactly they plan to transition beyond their high-performing Xbox 360. Two Microsoft executives spoke recently about this very subject, at the Dive
Russian meteor found-footage echoes videogames’ unpredictable innovations
It’s not every day giant space debris hurtles through the atmosphere and crash lands on our soil. But that’s what happened last week, when a meteor the likes of which hasn’t been seen since Michael Bay directed Ben Affleck soared through a Russian sky and blasted the ground near Chelyabinsk with an
Skylanders is a billion-dollar franchise. Is this the beginning or the end?
Skylanders, the evolution of the Spyro the Dragon series that merges action-figure collecting with video games, has proven to be a huge success for Activision Blizzard, a company with a stable of them already. The series’ debut in Christmas 2011 outsold all expectations; few thought a package requir
New Brain Age attempts to cultivate attention in an age of noise
The original Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day! was a surprise hit for the Nintendo DS, which along with its sequel sold over 30 million copies and went a long way to convince those who never owned a gaming system before to pick one up and exercise their aging cortex. It also had a rock-s
Channeling Christopher Nolan, Ether One promises to fix our broken memories
Back in September 2011, two lads out of Manchester founded a small development studio named White Paper Games. The chosen logo was an origami crane, an apt symbol of what kind of games they aspired to make: aesthetically graceful objects, made from familiar material, twisted into thoughtful, complex
Testing the relationship waters this Valentine’s Day? Let Kinect Party supply the bubble bath
Sometimes, committing to a relationship shares much in common with opening your refridgerator after a forty-eight hour power outage. After one quick glimpse, you know if things have gone sour. Other times, our emotional gauges are more obtuse; we stare and stare and never see what we’re looking for.
Why a beautiful Zelda tome is still outselling every book on Amazon.
How Dark Horse Comics and Nintendo collaborated to best Fifty Shades of Grey
DrawQuest is your art-school boyfriend’s latest daily doodle obsession
If anyone knows the secret to building a vibrant and unpredictable community, it must be Christopher Poole. He founded 4chan, a breeding ground for lively discussion, animated GIFS, and political coups that provided a simple, organized way to harness the best and worst of the internet simultaneously
Will playing handheld games ever translate well to the big screen?
Back in the halcyon days of 1991, a game you played on your television was very, very different than the one you played in your hand. The dominant portable platform, Nintendo’s Game Boy, showed green-scale images that blurred when they moved. Their NES counterparts were relatively crisp, bright, and
Fire Emblem delay was a double-edged broadsword for Nintendo and its customers
Fire Emblem: Awakening was greatly anticipated at the Kill Screen offices. In fact, it still was until just a few days ago, nearly a week after its official release. Many physical retailers had not received their copies by last Sunday, February 4th, due to a shipping delay. Numerous parties involved
World’s oldest statue looks familiar
Sega Genesis fans will be delighted to learn one of the system’s premier launch titles goes back long before the arcade original. A carving of a lion with human features that was to be a highlight of the British Museum’s Ice Art show has been found to be much older than initially believed. Analysis
Wii Street U might just be Nintendo’s Trojan Horse
Nintendo launched the Wii Street U service for their new console last week in Japan. Our old editor Joe wrote about the still-unchristened idea last fall. The free app allows you to browse and use Google Maps on your TV, with one very big twist: You can use the GamePad, the system’s controller-with-
"Gamers don’t want to read," says head of video-streaming service Twitch TV
Reading is near and dear to our hearts at Kill Screen. I mean, we started a print magazine at a time when such notions were punchlines to jokes more often than serious business plans. So it pains us to imagine a future where the only way to engage with and consider the games we play is by watching a
Should more games tell us to stop playing and do something else?
The first time I remember seeing a “take a break” message in a game was for Wii Sports. After a set duration of time, a screen popped up between rounds. “Why not take a break?” it said. “You can pause the game by pressing +.” The accompanying image is a stylized freeze-frame of passive aggression: A