sunday supplement
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. 
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.
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.
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.
Sunday Supplement: “while Celestial Apocalypse rampaged around the region”
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.
GameSetWatch: Challenge and Storytelling
The always excellent Emily Short examines the ways in which gameplay challenge can inform the way in which a game’s narrative is told and lending it greater meaning.
Game Career Guide: The Lost Art of Conversation in Games
Oluf Pedersen asks the fascinating question “Do developers of computer games overlook the single most important method of communication in human history?”
Magical Wasteland: Braid: Forever is Composed of Nows
I hope you’re not sick of reading about Braid. And I’m glad Matthew Burns isn’t sick of writing about Braid.
EDGE: The Making of Deus Ex
Years old EDGE retrospective finally makes the journey from print to online. Still just as relevant though, in part because Warren Spector and Harvey Smith offer great insight but mainly because no one has made a game like Deus Ex since.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun: The Five-Year Spree
Epic retelling of Jim Rossignol’s half-decade spent inside EVE Online. Parts two and three are now up, too.
Sunday Supplement: “the sounds of ghost laughter mixed with screams”
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.
BLDGBLOG: Procedural Destruction and the Algorithmic Fiction of the City
Jim Rossignol ponders the art and implication of procedurally generated virtual cityscapes.
Eurogamer: Retrospective: Planescape Torment
Dan Griliopoulos remembers a previous life where he played through the greatest PC RPG of all time.
Experience Points: The Sound of Horror
Jorge Albor digests how games like Dead Space and Silent Hill infect your imagination through their aural atmosphere.
NOWGamer: The Seeds Of Romance
gamesTM feature republished online examines the design challenges of portraying believable and interactive relationships.
The Quixotic Engineer: Mechanics, Dynamics & Aesthetics
Matthew Gallant gets deep in design theory to outline the inverse perspective between player and designer.
Sunday Supplement: “you delve into forgotten spaces between floorboards”
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.
EDGE: The Elegant Dodge
Thief III designer Randy Smith writes eloquently about his new iPhone game where you play a spider.
Experience Points: Missing in Action, part 2: “Seeing the Elephant” in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Linked to part 1 last week, but I can’t recommend this series highly enough. Part 3’s here, too.
GameSetWatch: Design Lesson 101 – Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune
Manveer Heir analyses the way in which Naughty Dog’s action adventure paces its combat encounters.
One More Go: How Galleon may take you on an unexpected voyage
Margaret Robertson celebrates one of the last console gneration’s most unfairly overlooked titles, a pirate adventure from the man who made Lara Croft.
PopMatters: TIE Fighter: A Post 9/11 Parable
LB Jeffries finds contemporary resonance in the commentary on war and empire found in LucasArts’ classic space combat sim.
Sunday Supplement: “where history’s finest jet packs had flown”
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.
Ragdoll Metaphysics: A Love Letter To The Good Old Fashioned Jet Pack
Jim Rossignol hovers above the contribution the humble jet pack has made to the history of games. He mentions Exile, too!
Experience Points: Missing in Action, part 1: Civilians in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
Scott Juster explores the tension between Modern Warfare’s production values and its commentary on war.
GamingDaily: The man with the plan
Craig Lager takes a moment to argue the case for action games that allow you to take stock and plan ahead. He mentions Far Cry 2.
Always Black: Spelunking the Cricket
The mysterious Always Black attempts to play Spelunky while watching Australia v England. Comedy ensues.
Eurogamer: The Making of World of Warcraft
Rob Fahey begins an epic retrospective on Blizzard’s all-conquering MMO.
Sunday Supplement: “crystalline slithers that dance in your peripheral vision”
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: Time Extend: Frequency
EDGE dissects the rhythm-action revolution heralded by Harmonix’s sublime debut.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Having A Good Cry
John Walker has shed tears over two games… and asks is that all?
Malvasia Bianca: Saving, Ethics, and the Slog
David Carlton ponders the question of why we save (and reload) games and why.
1UP: Cutting The Cord
Bob Mackey’s excellent piece on the past, present and future of motion control.
Eurogamer: The Edge of Reason?
Simon Parkin investigates what happens when a game developer seemingly swaps development for litigation.
Sunday Supplement: “an indication that the AI is completely contaminated”
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.
Gaming Daily: Empty shell protagonists
Craig Lager argues that blank slate player-characters allow the real stars of a game – the NPCs – room to shine.
Gamasutra: A Circular Wall? Reformulating the Fourth Wall for Video Games
Stephen Conway exposes how video games manipulate the so-called fourth wall, bringing a whole new aspect of play to the experience.
Hit Self-Destruct: Cadmium
Duncan Fyfe goes back to the very beginning for the last ever Hit Self-Destruct post.
The Brainy Gamer: Early Suda
Michael Abbott discovers something of value when reappraising the earlier work of No More Heroes designer Goichi Suda.
GamesRadar: How indie games took on the world (and won)
Alec Meer celebrates the indie revolution and finds out what 2D Boy, Ed McMillen, Dylan Fitterer and others think “indie” really means.
