Old new reboots

I was late coming to Tomb Raider (of course) because I had to wait for it to come out on … More

Visual worlds

Among the games that I’ve played while catching up on the last few decades of big-budget productions, Horizon: Zero Dawn … More

Old school concision

Much of the development of videogames passed me by, despite my early and continuing interest, thanks to my long voluntary … More

I waited thirty years for this holiday

I used to play tabletop role-playing games, teen nerd-punk that I was. This was the 1980s, when RPGs enjoyed a … More

Spending time

The experience of playing a narrative-focussed AAA game is getting progressively closer to the experience of watching a movie or … More

Full marks

I hesitate to say too much about Karl Marx or Marxism in response to a book written by someone who … More

Heavy with meaning

You don’t have to like the protagonist of a story to identify with them, or to buy into their charisma. … More

Words and music by Cory Barlog

Having come late to the garden of gaming delights, I’m dropping in on some series at the end of a … More

Los Santos: a city of four ecologies?

The title of this essay is obviously a misnomer. Los Santos, the fictional city in which Grand Theft Auto V … More

A new loop

I’ve been lucky with Star Wars games. I played X-Wing and Tie Fighter in the early 90s. both of which … More

Narrative serving violence

The experience of being the protagonist of a story, rather than simply the player of a game, became a characteristic … More

The cost of survival

Late the year before last, when I bought my first console, and played Red Dead Redemption 2 quite soon after … More

Decide for yourself

There are stories and there are libraries. Libraries are not only repositories of completed stories, but the raw material from … More

A fractured continuum

Photographs, particularly digital or polaroid photographs (remember those?), are both immediate and mediated, both portals and barriers. They are small … More