February 25th

Welcome back readers.

It was looking like it was going to be a Monday Mulligan for a little bit there, but I rallied and here we are. Take a load off with these fifteen cool-and-interesting picks while I go stretch my back.

This Week in Videogame Blogging is a roundup highlighting the most important critical writing on games from the past seven days.

Hype Train

This week we’re opening with examinations of industry and cultural trends, touching on live-service games, convergence culture, and more.

• 5 Years Later, BioWare’s Biggest Failure Looks All Too Familiar | Inverse
  Robin Bea frames the current landscape of live-service games through a famously troubled early inflection point.
• Fortnite, Eminem and Kidproofing Media in the Age of Content | Unwinnable
  Holly Boson lays out the mental gymnastics needed to navigate what is permitted and what is not in popular youth culture, via the biggest game in the world.

“Keeping his monstrous, bearded head close to the camera is a thoughtful staging of the tongue-twisting trick syllables that serve as the climax of the piece, but Unreal Engine’s lip-sync distorts Eminem’s otherwise flattering likeness into the visual language of Skibidi Toilet and the outrageous lyrical censorship that turns his best punchlines into an instrumental reminds us why it is that an Eminem show in a kid’s game couldn’t fill up the 7-minute set that Ari got.”

Interviews

We’ve pulled together a bunch of interviews this week with a focus on indie developers and design.

• Into The World of Microgames — Indie Side | Mira Lazine
  Mira Lazine sits down with the developer responsible for that 20-second word game I’ve been playing at work for two three months.
• Pacific Drive’s road to reshaping the survival genre | GamesIndustry.biz
  Sophie McEvoy talks to director Alex Dracott about building a survival game around a station wagon that became its own character.
• Against the Storm and its compelling, continuous rain | GamesHub
  Meghann O’Neill sits down to discuss Against the Storm‘s rain and much more with composer and sound designer Mikolaj Kurpios.
• Tales Of Kenzera: Zau Creator On Afrofuturism And Grief | Kotaku
  Alyssa Mercante chats with designer Abubakar Salim about telling an authentic story about grief, the industry pressure on Black creatives, and more.

“In an industry where these kinds of visual motifs and story beats are so rare, Tales of Kenzera stands out. But Salim is confident that the game’s heart and soul will resonate with everyone. After all, grief is universal. It spans languages and lands.”

Sickos’ Corner

This section’s all about game feel. If you know, you know.

• The joy of Cobalt Core’s screen-wide walls of incoming death attacks | Rock Paper Shotgun
  Ollie Toms articulates what gives turn-based strategy games The Sauce.
• Getting Blown Away in Helldivers 2 | Gamers with Glasses
  Don Everhart shares some initial impressions of long-neglected gem Earth Defense Fo– oh, sorry, not that one.

“Seeing your or your buddies’ bodies flying through the air is de rigueur. It’s like co-starring as one of the many troopers to be overwhelmed or dismembered in Starship Troopers, or, maybe, like being invited up on stage to be devoured by GWAR. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind more scumdogs, hell worms, and thrash metal in Helldivers 2.“

Time Compression

Here we have a series of pieces which alternately harmonize and juxtapose games as we re-encounter them at different stages of our lives.

• Nostalgia in Play: How Video Games Shape a Player’s Coming of Age | First Person Scholar
  Serafina Paladino unpacks the bildungsroman of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door on both sides of the screen.
• 25 Years Later People Are Still Overthinking Final Fantasy VIII | Paste Magazine
  Austin Jones makes the case that Final Fantasy VIII is, in fact, good.
• A Performance Review, Not a Persona Review | Carlito Calzone
  Nicanor Gordon offers a personal history of Persona 3–the PSP one, mostly–as the right game at the right time (content notification for some discussion of suicide).

“At 15, I didn’t have the vocabulary for depression. I played Persona 3 like a man with a runny nose thanking god he doesn’t have the flu. The facsimile of school life drew me in; it progressed when I wanted it to, it had friends who waited for me to talk to them, and it had extracurriculars that had tangible, trackable benefits. At the centre of it was a group of teenagers who had to save the world, it was something only they could do.”

Status Affect

We’re back on game feel again here, but this time the more affective kind–the emotions games stir as we experience them.

• Kazuma Kiryu’s Long Goodbye | Aftermath
  Luke Plunkett sympathizes with Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s reticence to part ways with their signature protagonist.
• Killing Them Crassly — Why Suicide Squad’s Story Is So Hated | Medium
  Elijah Beahm cuts through the discourse to understand what’s actually amiss in Rocksteady’s latest.
• Harukanaru Toki no Naka de: Love—and games—are for everyone | Kimimi The Game-Eating She-Monster
  Kimimi catches up with an isekai romance adventure written with a different, underserved audience in mind.

“HaruToki isn’t just “not bad if you like otome”, it’s a good game. It’s a bold one too, committed to questioning features so deeply embedded in gaming they barely register in our consciousness—RPG battle systems, exactly who could be the target audience for a PlayStation game, what a hero can look and act like—and then twisting them into something new and wonderful. If you can read the text, it is absolutely worth playing. And if you can’t, it’s worth remembering as a game you should hope to play one day, or at least as one that hasn’t received the attention it deserves.”

Critical Chaser

Cool site.

• Final Fantasy VIII is the Best – And If You Don’t Agree I Will Destroy You
  Cool site.

“What the fuck is the deal with Fujin”