Miscellaneous deep-dives into the cultural, artistic and historical background of games.
Musings
*spoilers ahead, ye landlubbers!* I’ve spent many hours (re)playing the whole Life is Strange series over the last couple of months. Even though I liked the original game very much at the time of its release, it’s one of those rare games that I’ve come to
Musings
No major spoilers, but I recommend playing at least halfway through Prey before reading. One point of criticism often levelled at Prey is its story, setting, and characters — what you might call its fiction. On the surface, it’s true that the story has pacing issues, that the setting is
Musings
This article was originally published on Kill Screen, October 2016. Since the site is no longer online, I'm re-publishing the article here. I also wrote a follow-up piece, which you can find here. “They are the lords of in-between. A trickster does not live near the hearth; he
Musings
Animals in video games are usually nothing but robots in skins and furs. They’re utterly predictable and mechanical, even those that are modelled realistically or animated with care: rabbits hop away in straight lines, bears attack on sight and until they drop dead. If we observe them from a
Musings
Video games are made by humans, for humans. As a result, they deal with very human concerns. This is so self-obvious that saying it out loud may seem redundant at best, intellectually insulting at worst. And yet, it’s important to be occasionally reminded of one’s biases, however natural
Musings
I’ve recently written about how stealth games allow us to play with the trickster. Looking over my notes for the piece, I realised there’s some miscellany thoughts that I’d have liked to include, but that somehow didn’t seem to fit. So this article will discuss some
Musings
Picture a sight that catches your eye, captures your imagination. Whatever you were doing, you stopped dead in this specific spot. It’s more than just the place, though. It’s a random confluence of things; a vantage point, a moment in time, a state of mind… If you returned
Musings
Shadow of the Colossus, Dark Souls and Journey are some of the most haunting games ever made. They’re also quite different from each other. SotC is an action-adventure faintly reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda games, but stripped-down to bare essentials. The game is set in a vast, open
Musings
I was taken on a drive around Waltham this morning. It seems a pleasant enough town. I saw no horrors, no drug-testing laboratories, no factory farms, no abattoirs. Yet I am sure they are here. They must be. They simply do not advertise themselves. They are all around us as
Musings
I’m a terrible puzzle game player; not in the sense that I’m rubbish at them (though sometimes that’s true too) but that I simply don’t care enough. When a solution eludes me for more than half an hour or so, I either give up entirely, or