Game Theory by Matt S. Note: To be upfront and fair, there are major spoilers for Death Come True and The Caligula Effect ahead. Don’t read on unless you’re comfortable reading discussion about the endings of these two games. Four years ago, an artist named Matsuda Keiichi produced a wonderful…
Read MoreVideo by Matt S. Video games are art. It’s something that we’ve long accepted and demanded that those outside of the games industry also accept. There’s certainly no denying that games are art, either – whether it’s the philosophical intelligence of Yoko Taro’s NieR: Automata, the aesthetic beauty of a…
Read MoreOpinion by Matt S. I’m going to write a list of names for you. I’m hoping that you’ll spot where this is going immediately, but there will be one name that stands out because they don’t really belong. See if you can spot which one it is: Shakespeare, Wilde, Mishima,…
Read MoreOpinion by Matt S. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” That famous quote from philosopher George Santayana is of particular relevance to the video game industry. As the world’s most popular and widespread form of entertainment, video games have impact and shape how people view…
Read Moreby TsuChanJohnson Editor’s intro: One of the most common discussions that continues to pop up every few months in video games is the way that some Japanese games depict female characters – particularly when they start wearing school uniforms or the anime aesthetic means that they look youthful. Every time…
Read MoreOpinion by Matt S. Let’s start by stating the obvious reaction that many people are going to have on reading that headline: no, I don’t for a second consider that video game violence makes people become violent. That is not the thesis of this piece. I don’t think anyone picks…
Read MoreOpinion by Matt S. With COVID-19 effectively shutting down global sport, the sporting world is running on two tiers right now; there are the sports that are pulling even further ahead, as they have large communities that are growing larger thanks to the presence of high-quality video game adaptations of…
Read MoreOpinion by Matt S. Recently, Epic Games showed off an “in-game” demo of what would be possible with its new Unreal Engine 5, as the engine that will be pushed onto the next generation of console hardware as the next step forward. And you know what? Meh. Nothing about that…
Read MoreOpinion by Matt S. About a week ago now, Nintendo updated the market on its financial position, and there were some startling numbers involved. It was the healthiest year on record for the Nintendo Switch, and Animal Crossing seems to have been the one thing to benefit from COVID-19 –…
Read MoreVideo by Matt S. A recent article on Kotaku had me thinking about the way that video games depict war again, and I realised that I haven’t actually done a video where I consolidate all my thoughts into how war is treated as a subject yet. And so now I’ve…
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