New Super Mario Bros. 2 is worth every last coin.
A million reasons why Mario’s latest might just be his greatest yet.
Jon Irwin
Some Fling
The new catapult game Wreckateer for Xbox 360 uses Kinect to let you load and launch rocks into castles. How do you mess this up?
Nintendo’s Power
Nintendo’s new gaming console, the Wii U, has already been dismissed by gaming experts and fans. Is their skepticism warranted, or are they missing the forest for the trees of Hyrule? Jon Irwin thinks the latter.
Cloud of War
If we must tangle with our enemies, can we laugh with them too? Nintendo’s new Kid Icarus: Uprising soars through a cloud of action, wit, and self-reference—all at once.
In Search of Gaming’s Worst
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
Step by Step
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.
Why Grow Up?
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.
The Edible History of Games
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.
A Kind of Gathering Panic
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: Fishing Resort Casts a Deep Spell
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: Mario Kart 7
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: Matt Boch
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: Rayman Origins
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: 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.
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: 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: Urban Champion
A dramatic, first-hand, strangely painful re-encounter with Urban Champion of times long gone.
Review: Kyotokei
If a game was made by the same people who design video surveillance software, does it matter? Jon Irwin investigates.
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.
Neo-Location
Two D.C. musicians take the avatar approach to the National Mall and New York’s Central Park.
Review: Pudding Panic
Why this game might not be as quiveringly awesome as its name (and its conceit) implies.
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.
Everybody’s Doing It
Jon Irwin explores the sensual anxiety of playing Ocarina for the first time.
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
Reset: Excitebike
Jon Irwin renews his love for the simple yet perfect mathematics of Excitebike for 3DS, which, despite new bells and whistles, is still the same old classic at its core.