September 4th
byAfter a week of taco trucks, it’s time to settle down and digest the meaty issues in games criticism. A quick note before we continue: Critical Distance is just $40 away from the Patreon goal that allows us to stay afloat and…
After a week of taco trucks, it’s time to settle down and digest the meaty issues in games criticism. A quick note before we continue: Critical Distance is just $40 away from the Patreon goal that allows us to stay afloat and…
This week’s blogging has me thinking about how developers manage the expectations of others, the roots of protagonists’ personal ethics, and how players’ morality is shaped by the expectations of people around us. Blame, shame and guilt chase each other around the whole of this roundup, as writers…
This week is all about those big, open spaces: the endless expanse of a procedurally-generated universe, the mysterious depths of the ocean, and the reimagined streets of a Pokemon-enriched city. Battlefields We start with escapism and its opposite. How do we cope…
This week, I’m at Doc/Fest Sheffield, watching documentary films, trying out some exciting new VR projects, and listening to people talk about truthful storytelling in screen media. So far I’ve seen software allowing a holocaust survivor to keep answering people’s questions long…
This week as I read games blogging from around the web, I’m thinking about how games criticism reflects the many uses of software as tools and contexts for cultural practices. A game can be like a pair of shoes that you slip on…
It seems that class politics’ time has come in games criticism, with labor issues at the forefront of analyses of both the industry and its products this week. Creators Working conditions and practices have been a major topic of discussion, with a…
One thing that most games share in common is the sense that they are a world apart from the lives that we ordinarily live. This week’s round-up of some of the most provocative writing on games is organised around ideas about separation…
Take your time before rushing ahead: it’s this week in videogame blogging! Superhot The release of Superhot has many reviewers drawing comparisons with action movies, not simply because of its violent content which directly draws on hit films, but because of the…
Sorry for the delay getting this week’s TWIVGB roundup to you. We had to squash some metaphorical and literal bugs in the critical curation machine. Now there’s bug juice everywhere. Simulated wandering We begin with two articles on my favourite topic: ambling around aimlessly in…
The games blogs are coming in two by two this week. With great discussions of friendships, dualities and Street Fighter II, it felt fitting to arrange everything in pairs. We’re going head-to-head on discursive battlefields from psychology to politics. Power We’ll start…