Video games don’t just tell stories, they do so differently. A review of A Mind Forever Voyaging: A History of Storytelling in Video Games.
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Mario music has lifted many a mood after all these years. Andrew Schartmann’s book explores the “why” of the Super Mario Bros. soundtrack.
A granular, gameplay-focused, grab-bag retrospective on the majestic sophomore effort from Fumito Ueda/Team Ico: reviewing Nick Suttner’s Shadow of the Colossus (Boss Fight Books).
When life gives you golden opportunities, make a golden gun. A review of Alyse Knorr’s GoldenEye 007: 00 Agent Edition (Boss Fight Books).
Finding the curious creator behind the unusual development and history of MOTHER and EarthBound Beginnings, 2 names for 1 game.
An author, a controversy, a tale of game design and the creative process, and a new book review by Wesley Schantz!
There is wisdom everywhere but this EarthBound Essay by Bookwarm is all about the pursuit of wisdom and where it can be found.
Like the Zen-est of trees falling in the forest, MOTHER 3 does make a sound, surely, for those with ears to hear and emulators to play it.
The crushes and bullies, besties and loners, all are represented. Only at this camp they use levitation and invisibility and pyrokinesis. Psychonauts.
It may be impossible to separate Deltarune from Undertale, but if we could, would that make the unfinished work any better?
The full release of World’s End Club is here but does it simply get lost rubbing shoulders with so many giants?
Oh you went to summer camp as a kid? Bet it wasn’t a Legend of Zelda summer camp! Camp Zelda insights here!
Heidegger and that stupid laugh (and his shame) take center stage, furnish a discussion on philosophy, humanism, and suddenly Yuffie.
On this Myth & Materia column: dolphins, parades, giant city-sized cannons, and trying to remember your buttons while you improve SHINRA’s PR.
In this FF7 Myth & Materia column: it’s time to talk summon materia, dolphins, and mouth to mouth.
In this Myth & Materia column: the Midgar Zolom and the inversion of icons and myths in the snake skewered on a stick by Sephiroth.
“The epic type here to compare might be Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost. Incomparably brilliant, indomitably proud, wielding weapons no one else can use…”
In this Myth & Materia: Nibelheim, Jenova, Sephiroth, the Reactor experiments, and Cloud’s version of some hazy past events.
“…the paradox of Sephiroth: if we try to maintain our role as the hero beyond a certain point, we shift roles from hero to villain, to tyrant.”
Social hierarchy, inversion of the Beautitudes, Native American themes, Akira, Dante… they all come together in this FFVII Myth & Materia column!
“In FFVII, skill and attention are rewarded with concrete progress. It’s part of what makes a video game compelling by its very form, regardless of the content.”
“And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of…
“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his…
Is it too large of a question or inappropriate to ask, as we might ask of art or education, what the game is for?
Being as kind as possible to people like Jessie and Aeris, knowing they’re inevitably going to die, is a little quixotic for two reasons: (A) they’re not alive…
“In the wake of technological development, cultural memory is lost.”
Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to…
My god, it’s full of stars… -Dave Bowman, 2001: A Space Odyssey Let’s…
The value of the myth is that it takes all the things we know and…
