Review: Words With Friends
If you’ve ever played Scrabble, by taking days in between turns and trying out random combinations of letters to see what fits, then you’ve played Words With Friends.
Review
Review: To the Moon
An interactive story about a dying man’s wish can barely be interacted with. For Richard Clark it’s an intimate reckoning with the past and present of his father’s life.
Review: Swift*Stitch
The videogame that will make you forget how to play videogames has arrived! Filipe Salgado sizes up the twisted Swift*Stitch.
Review: Kirby Mass Attack
In a move fit for the Twitter and app generation, Kirby gets shattered into tiny—but formidable—pieces. Jason Johnson reviews what may be his Nintendo DS swansong.
Review: Serious Sam: The Random Encounter
Going down a self-referential route, Serious Sam: The Random Encounter is not so serious. Lana Polansky on why the 8-bit reimagining of the game series is more fluff than serious weight.
Review: NBA 2K12
Ian Cohen gives us the full sweep on NBA 2K12, another grandiose installment of the 2K series that remains faithful to NBA ups and downs as of late. The game denies easy progress, but is this for the better?
Review: Bullet Audyssey
What is a mute button doing in a game constructed around music? Bullet Audyssey is not so much music as it is just racket. Filipe Salgado explains.
Review: Keyboard Drumset Fucking Werewolf
Brian Howe argues that the works of Cactus fill a much-needed gap in videogames: not mainstream or art-house, but the no-budget zones at the margin expressing “different values.”
Review: English Country Tune
The first commercial game from auteur Stephen Lavelle, English Country Tune turns a cold and logical framework into exactly what it wasn’t supposed to be—a murky narrative.
Review: Super Crossfire
Luke Schneider’s new take on Space Invaders has one twist, and that’s all that it needs. Jason Johnson weighs in on the virtue of simplicity.
Review: King of Dragon Pass
By combining fantasy and strategy, King of Dragon Pass allows you to write your own history. Filipe Salgado on why even the smallest decisions matter.
Review: Scoregasm
A new entry in an overloaded genre, the twin-stick shooter, Scoregasm suggests that when mathematical formulas cease to surprise, only art may differentiate them.
Review: Saints Row: The Third
Volition’s insane answer to Grand Theft Auto is less a reinterpretation than a novelty outfit. Filipe Salgado sees a lot of purple but it’s the same old, same old.
Review: Epoch
A game where robots shoot robots is an unlkely site of humanity. Richard Clark explains why Epoch‘s contradiction is a successful, and soulful, one.
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: Driver: San Francisco
How much is a split-second worth? Drew Millard considers the parallels of our everyday driving and within Driver: San Francisco and how they resonate.
Reset: Radiant Silvergun
The bullet-filled trajectory of videogame shooters, from Spacewar! to Space Invaders to shmups, may have peaked with Radiant Silvergun, a rarity now playable on Xbox Live Arcade. Jason Johnson explores how 3D threw shooters off course.
Review: Meanwhile
Is interactive really the future of comic books? Filipe Salgado explains why the “choose your own adventure” app may not hold up to its book form.
Review: Junk Jack
A pixel-themed take on the world-building classic Minecraft demands an objective review, from the highest reaches to the hidden rewards of its fundamentals. Jason Johnson digs into the game’s material.
Review: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
Nintendo’s new Zelda opus is a paean to learning and wonderment. Michael Thomsen dissects the contradictions at the heart of Skyward Sword, both mechanical and human.
Review: Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon
A chance to kill ants is a chance to cure society of its ills … that’s the promise this latest Earth Defense Force title fails to hold.
Review: Leedmees
This game about leadership uses Kinect to project your body as a giant stick figure onto the screen. According to Richard Clark, in doing so it creates a rift between your power as a player and the value of a tiny blip’s life.
Review: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Bethesda’s new role-playing game is finally free enough to be all things to everyone, even those with a dim and narrow view of humanity. Filipe Salgado looks at the why and how of self-expression in Skyrim.
Review: PataNoir
A new interactive fiction game builds a surreal world out of metaphor. So why does it feel all too real? Jason Johnson interrogates the subject.