This dynamite column from John Brindle at Nightmare Mode compares the years of socialziation and knowledge-accumulation necessary to become a serious modern gamer to the tiny subset of people who make it through the most prestigious colleges at Oxford, and analyzes the ingroup-outgroup dynamics that
From Mech Warrior to Xenogears, from Zone of the Enders to Armored Core, gaming has always been a safe space for giant pilotable robots, so often stigmatized elsewhere as “dorky” or “big-boned” (sigh, sizeism). What gamers have known all along is that giant pilotable robots are typically fun-loving
The people have voted, and Double Fine is now developing the four games chosen during the Amnesia Fortnight Festival (sadly, the office fart sim Silent But Deadly was not chosen). The bros and broettes at Tim Schaefer’s studio have set up a live stream around their office to cover the development of
IGF entrants are trickling out over the web; you can start the hype machine ‘a-rolling. (Hype machines have wheels btw.) Anyway, Apparatus is a new platformer tjat pulls from the high art of Scandinavian attic design. You’re a jumble of cubes that falls apart and reassembles at your command. Accordi
Did you see Moon? It was a little sci-fi thriller directed by Duncan Jones (David Bowie’s kid!) and it starred Sam Rockwell as a guy on a mine on the moon in the near future and Kevin Spacey as his robot frenemy. It paid tender tribute to the greats of heady 70s and 80s scifi, but was very much its
Beating Dark Souls took me a month and a half. The opportunity cost was… high. The personal cost was… high. The emotional cost was… high. Speed Demos Archive has released a video of some person, nay, some champion, defeating From Software’s magnum opus in less time than it takes me to commute to wo
The sword has a special allure. Who hasn’t imagined being an expert duelist or grabbed a friend and sparred with a couple of sticks? Videogames are often the manifestations of our fantasies, an attempt to fulfill our dreams in a virtual version of a reality we wished we were capable of. They allow
So what do you do if you’re Capcom and somebody makes a Mega Man–Street Fighter homage? You could: A) Do what other big companies do and leverage lawsuits to squash the release and dissemination of the game. or B) Release the game for the creator. Generate a ton of buzz (positive instead of the neg