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Playing with the human side of history Games traditionally present history as monolithic spectacle, but this new breed focuses on the individual experience of simply existing alongside great events.
Vienna on the eve of World War I. The French 1848 Revolution. The Taiwanese White Terror lasting from 1949 to 1987. Like many games, The Lion’s Song, Aviary Attorney and Detention are set against historical backdrops of war, conflict and struggle, but this is where the similarities cease. None of these games puts us on the front lines with a rifle. The Lion’s Song ends as the war begins, we’re not really invited to the revolution in Aviary Attorney, and the upheavals spawned by the oppressive regime in Detention are psychological rather than political. There’s a time-honored tradition of games perpetuating the notion that history is all about spectacle and scale. The…
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Catacombs: the inside story of Square Enix’ canceled shooter It’s always a great shame when a game is cancelled, but much more so when a genuine original is lost.
The untold story of PlayStation Home, Sony’s most successful disaster Plagued by problems from the start, PlayStation Home never officially made it out of beta before it was shut down. But it was also very profitable. This is its story.
The Legend of Zelda was an explicitly Christian game—until Nintendo of America desecrated it Link, a devout Christian warrior? Believe it.
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How 007: Everything or Nothing left other third-person games shaken and stirred "Everybody knows who he is and — like him or not — everyone has an idea of what he should be. Your Bond and my Bond — not the same Bond."
“It was a summer blockbuster,” says Jason VandenBerghe, Everything or Nothing’s lead designer. That is this 2004 title in a nutshell. Like the movies it emulated, this was a game full of explosions, car chases, exotic locales, virtual women and trademark Bond quips. It was a showcase of EA’s deep pockets at the height of the craze surrounding movie-licensed games. But to say it was just a summer blockbuster almost obscures both its creators and the impact it had on the third person shooter genre. Around 20 years ago, VandenBerghe had the opportunity to join an old friend at EA, the current studio head of Sledgehammer Games, Aaron Halon. “I was like ‘sure,…
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The 30 moments that defined the video game industry From consoles to genres, from lawsuits to graphics, these are the 30 big moments that define the video game industry—from 1977 to the early 00s.
‘Adventure Mario’: the making of The Legend of Zelda We’re going back to the mid-80s to look at the creation of one of gaming's longest-running and most-loved series.
The final days of Grainger Games—as told by those who worked there The closure of Grainger Games was a shock for customers — but absolutely devastating for employees.
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The wonderful wobbly world of experimental gaming hardware "Your first communication you have with the game is the hardware, so we think that it’s important to have the right touch."
London Games Festival is an opportunity to see some wacky stuff, and in particular alternate possibilities for controls and hardware that just don’t suit your typical living room. I’ve previously written about the evolution of buttons and how, over many years, controller layouts from dualshock to joy-cons have become standardized under a common ‘language’. This is of course good for most gamers, as well as multi-platform developers, but standardization also comes at the expense of hardware diversity which, in itself, places limits on player expression. Kicking off this year’s London Games Festival was Now Play This, a festival of experimental game design that attracts a general audience who, by and large,…
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When nightmare mode isn’t enough: 5 ways to add difficulty to your game If you haven't sent a controller hurtling through the air straight into the middle of your flat screen TV, you aren't being challenged enough.
The sex is the saddest thing about GTA V (NSFW) Grand Theft Auto V is an incredible, incredible video game. So why is its sex so terrible?
Back on the flight deck: an interview with Wing Commander’s Chris Roberts Why he got into game development, why he left, why he's ready to come back, and much more.
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The final days of Grainger Games—as told by those who worked there The closure of Grainger Games was a shock for customers — but absolutely devastating for employees.
The closure of Grainger Games is likely to have come as a shock to many customers — but it’s been absolutely devastating for its employees. I spoke to three staff members about what it’s been like working for the company, how they reacted to the news of the closure and what they plan to do next. Steph has managed to find a new job, but it’s a demotion with an accompanying pay cut. Stuart has only been able to find part-time work — and his wife has been forced to cut short her maternity leave to help support their four kids. Jane, meanwhile, has no idea what to do next.…
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Why Final Fantasy 7 is (still) unstoppable 25 years since its release, the cultural phenomenon is still generating headlines.
The making of Until Dawn The story behind one of the best horror games of recent times.
Former jewel thief reviews GTA 5’s jewelry heists A former jewel thief has taken Grand Theft Auto 5’s heists to task, and explains how he would have done it instead.
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Does the C64 Mini’s games library do the Commodore 64 justice? The real reason it trumped the Speccy and Amstrad was breadth and quality of software.
It is not the Commodore 64’s longevity, an incredible 13-year run from the first unit sold to the last one produced, that should have finally settled the oddly enduring playground arguments of the ’80s on which was the superior 8-bit machine. Nor is it the model’s popularity, recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the highest-selling home computer of all time (though the exact numbers vary wildly depending on who’s counting). These are mere side discussions, ignoring the real reason why this age-old debate should have been put to rest a long time ago: namely, the breathtaking range of the Commie’s software library. Enormously expansive (spanning across several thousand…
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A Call of Duty youtuber is livestreaming his legs literally rotting away 2020 UPDATE: THEY'RE MELTING!—Diabetic drunkard ONLYUSEmeBLADE refuses to seek treatment for the rapidly expanding sores, which are being cheered on by "leg hole" fans as they gradually consume his discolored limbs in daily livestreamed updates.
15 completely awesome old school video game commercials Blast to the past.
The psychology behind your backlog of unplayed games As games become ever cheaper and ever longer, we must necessarily accrue ever bigger piles of unplayed titles. Feel bad about it? Psychology can explain.
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The bittersweet (and sour) search for Chinese representation in games Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan may be symbols of pride for Chinese people, but you don't quite feel that when passing idiots shout their name at you.
Asia is an enormous continent consisting of numerous cultures but, depending on which side of the Atlantic you’re on, it can have very different and narrow connotations. Whereas in North America ‘Asian’ often refers to people with East Asian origins, Brits more often use the term to refer to South Asians. There are many notable examples of British Asian representation in the arts: Salman Rushdie, Goodness Gracious Me, East Is East and many more spring to mind. But when it comes to British Chinese representation, and apologies for the headline pun by the way, I find myself drawing a blank. British Chinese people are generally considered a ‘silent’ or ‘hidden’ minority: discreet or invisible in public…
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Mint condition Super Mario Bros. 3 cartridge breaks all records—sells for $156k Super Mario Bros is once again the most expensive video game ever sold. It's-a more money than sense!
Media calls for VR safe spaces Everyone will finally be safe in places where nothing can hurt you to begin with.
69 things you need to do in GTA before you die So you think you’re done with Liberty City? Think again.
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These photographs make video game worlds look real The Continuous City is a book that looks at virtual environments through a different lens.
The above image is not an old photo of a street. It’s Grand Theft Auto V. You may well remember Gareth Damian-Martin’s stunning shots of Metroid Prime, originally taken for his digital zine Heterotopias. Beautiful video game screenshots are ten-a-penny, but Damian-Martin’s work is something quite different – not least in the fact they’re taken using an analogue camera – in looking to capture not just a specific image of a game, but the nature of that place. To catch some of that ambiguity around the edges that, in the memory, hazes over beloved places and almost makes them seem like they exist. Following the production of three issues of…
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You can now play 10,000 Amiga games in your browser for free, on archive.org Take a nostalgia trip with some real retro classics.
The 10 most hilarious Destiny exploits From fantastically cheesy ways to kill bosses to painless ways to level up, these are some of the most hilarious exploits Destiny players have discovered.
A Call of Duty youtuber is livestreaming his legs literally rotting away 2020 UPDATE: THEY'RE MELTING!—Diabetic drunkard ONLYUSEmeBLADE refuses to seek treatment for the rapidly expanding sores, which are being cheered on by "leg hole" fans as they gradually consume his discolored limbs in daily livestreamed updates.
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When a Minecraft feud turns into an IRL bomb scare The hoax emails claim a link to VeltPvP, a company which runs Minecraft servers - but the company says it is being framed.
As first reported by Sky News, a rivalry between Minecraft players lies behind 24,000 threatening emails sent to schools and colleges across the UK. The emails claimed that a student with a bomb had been sent into the recipient’s school and that, if a payment is not made, the device will be blown up. The email repeats the English text in Arabic afterwards. The message led to many schools being on alert and some evacuating, with parents having to collect their children and local police assisting. In Hertfordshire, seven schools received threats with one evacuating. The Hull Daily Mail says over 20 schools acrioss Hull and North Lincolnshire were affected. The…
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5 most garbage Ghostbusters tie-in products (of garbage) And yes, you’re a misogynist if you don’t like the tie ins.
How No Man’s Sky generates life The game generates its universe and the many possibilities therein from a relatively small set of assets.
The making of WipEout Forget Lara. There was only one true herald of the Playstation generation. Real 3D, real music, real gaming. The future, after years of waiting, was finally now.
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It’s alive! How the last decade of horror cinema is influencing indie games The cinematic genre's margins are violently expanding and contracting, and videogames are learning from the best examples.
The horror film, like all cinematic genres, has a dual identity. There are the things it wants to do, and then there are the things it must do. The genre history gives it focus and a set of rules: an aim to scare you (whether that’s a sudden gasp at the time or a moment of hesitation before turning off the lights later), and a set of established methods to do so (pace, shot framing, sound). The hopes and troubles of whatever era it comes from provides a less obvious framework, one that consciously or otherwise seeps into the gaps of whatever story is being told. The last decade has seen an especially rich crop of horror cinema,…
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Why you pay what you pay for video games We can often feel short-changed when it comes to buying video games, especially in the UK. So what exactly determines what you pay?
A Call of Duty youtuber is livestreaming his legs literally rotting away 2020 UPDATE: THEY'RE MELTING!—Diabetic drunkard ONLYUSEmeBLADE refuses to seek treatment for the rapidly expanding sores, which are being cheered on by "leg hole" fans as they gradually consume his discolored limbs in daily livestreamed updates.
These are the most controversial games of all time, according to science We’re sitting here with a beautiful big dataset from Metacritic. It's time.
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The lost Call of Duty mode worth saving from extinction 50,000 people used to play here. Now it's a ghost town.
For the follow-up to its genre-defining Modern Warfare trilogy, Infinity Ward needed a ‘wow’ factor. Though the developer was largely responsible for establishing Call of Duty as a blockbuster in the first place, by this point its studio heads and a big chunk of talent had left to form Respawn – so not only was there a certain degree of ‘difficult second album’ syndrome, but it felt like the studio had to prove itself all over again. The next Infinity Ward COD would not only set the tone for the new generation of consoles, PS4 and Xbox One, but it would show whether the developer still had what it takes. Call of Duty: Ghosts was…
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25 years later, how Super Metroid came to define a genre It drastically reimagined how people would think about action games, and still shows up on “best game of all time” lists to this day.
You can now play XCOM in an Excel spreadsheet It’s called EXLCOM, and all you need to run it is a copy of Excel. What a time to be alive.
The ultimate history of fighting games Fighting games have always been around. The first one on this list landed in arcades in 1976!
