journalism
Sunday Supplement: “a game about nothing, signifying nothing”
9:00AM David Wildgoose | Welcome to your Sunday reservoir of interesting writing about video games. Grab your reading jacket, a cup of coffee and get ready to exercise the brain.
EDGE: Brütal Legend: A Love Story
Chris Dahlen examines Double Fine’s deft characterisation of Ophelia as the emotional fulcrum of Brütal Legend.
Fidgit: Tim Schafer on the finer points of nudity, heavy metal, and Brütal Legend
Tom Chick chats in-depth with Tim Schafer. ‘Nuff said.
Flash of Steel: Decade Feature: 2000 – Sacrifice
Troy Goodfellow revisits the strange and uncomfortable strategy of Shiny’s excellent Sacrifice.
GameCritics: Sans ethics and damn fun? Sega’s Madworld and House of the Dead Overkill
Matthew Kaplan debates whether the “stupefying satisfaction” of a dumb action game can be as valuable as one that is worthy and enlightens.
Vorpal Bunny Ranch: Raydians: Persons of Color
Denis Farr reveals a parable of race relations at the heart of bright and breezy de Blob.
Game Informer Magazine Launches Aussie Edition
10:00AM David Wildgoose | Game Informer is the world’s most read games magazine, with over three million subscribers in the US. Now it’s getting an Australian version. More »
Sunday Supplement: “a kind of domestic reverie”
9:00AM David Wildgoose | Welcome to your Sunday reservoir of interesting writing about video games. Grab your reading jacket, a cup of coffee and get ready to exercise the brain.
Above 49: Instancing Emotion
Nels Anderson acknowleges the emotional pull that fosters camaraderie in Left 4 Dead and ensures its co-operative play works.
Gamasutra: Kill Polygon, Kill: Violence, Psychology, and Video Games
Michael Thomsen examines why we enjoy video game violence and the abstraction of war.
Groping The Elephant: The fallacy of choice
Justin Keverne asserts that the lack of player choice in Uncharted 2 is one of its chief strengths.
Magical Wasteland: The Way to a Man’s Heart
Matthew Burns chews upon the many ways in which food appears in games, as mechanic, metaphor and collectible.
RedKingsDream: IKEA, and the logic of videogame design
Daniel Golding discovers the link between furniture showroom layout and level design flow.
Famitsu Awards Bayonetta A Perfect Score
7:00PM Brian Ashcraft | Japanese game magazine Famitsu has four separate critics score games on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the best score. The four scores are then tallied, and 40 is perfecto. More »
Sunday Supplement: “all-brawling and all-stealthing”
12:00PM David Wildgoose | Welcome to your Sunday reservoir of interesting writing about video games. Grab your reading jacket, a cup of coffee and get ready to exercise the brain.
Critical Distance: Critical Compilation: Grand Theft Auto IV
Michael Clarkson finds the common threads running through the wealth of – yes – critical writing about Rockstar’s return to Liberty City.
Experience Points: Dead Ends
Jorge Albor reasons why we ought to pay attention when a game permanently kills off a playable character. Part two of the series can be found here.
Gamer Limit: In Defence of Grand Theft Auto IV
James O’Connor examines the way Niko makes you feel guilt in this very personal response to GTA IV.
PopMatters: Asserting Femininity in Super Metroid
LB Jeffries highlights how Super Metroid resonates with maternal metaphors and banishes any idea of Samus’ androgyny.
Red Kings Dream: Arkham Asylum and the space of traumatic memory
Daniel Golding suggests there’s a moment in Arkham Asylum where Batman’s trauma becomes our own.
Newspaper Predicts Bad Things From Modern Warfare 2 Goggle Users
11:40AM Stephen Totilo | Sourcing Internet forums, the UK’s Daily Star informed the world Sunday that the game you may be buying next month has been dubbed “Modern Warfare 2: Peeping Tom Edition”. More »
What Did Gabe Newell Think Of Aussie Modder’s Left 4 Dead Campaign?
9:00AM David Wildgoose | Valve’s Gabe Newell lost a bet with a 19-year-old Australian modder recently. As a result, Gabe jumped on a plane from Seattle to Sydney to check out Joe W-A’s Left 4 Dead campaign. More »
It’s Bad When The New Yorker Trolls You Over A Game
10:30AM Owen Good | This actually ran a month ago, but, forgive me, my subscription lapsed, for a lack of houseguests to impress with my reading material. (I also canceled my subscription to “Large Penis-Havers’ Quarterly” since I haven’t gone on a date lately.) More »
Sunday Supplement: “a dark, bloodcurdling core to it”
9:00AM David Wildgoose | Welcome to your Sunday reservoir of interesting writing about video games. Grab your reading jacket, a cup of coffee and get ready to exercise the brain.
Battle Klaxon: The People Power Of Valkyria Chronicles
Quintin Smith celebrates the humanity at the heart of SEGA’s wonderful game of tactical combat.
Big Apple, 3AM: Introducing a Little Anarchy
Michel McBride-Charpentier raises a great point about the stealth in Batman in terms of improvisation and intentionality.
Discount Thoughts: Touch the void
Michael Clarkson scales the heights of Cursed Mountain in this terrific critical reading of the Wii-exclusive survival horror.
EDGE: Death Of The Author
Clint Hocking, Chet Faliszek and Ragnar Tørnquist get together to chat about the future of narrative and story-telling in games.
Eurogamer: Off the Map
Quintin Smith (again!) tours some of gaming’s finest anti-levels, each designed to be as confusing, confronting and confounding as possible.