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November 24th

Welcome back, readers.

Pokémon: how many ‘mons y’all got so far? I’m sitting around 30 because I’m a slow player with a lot of professional and not-so-professional commitments. A friend of mine is pushing 60, and neither of us has hit the first gym badge yet. The game is, dare I say, fun? But as critics are starting to notice, some of the underlying worldbulding is getting a little, umm, creaky.

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

A Hideo Kojima Gaffe

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May 24th

…Dungeon Highlights How Pokémon Doesn’t Understand Pokémon | Into The Spine Stacey Henley finds Pokémon‘s thematic messaging about friendship and loyalty at odds with its cutthroat mechanical design, but also finds an absence of that tension in spin-off games free from the min-maxing grind.

  • Reading the Lines: Essays on Pathologic 2 – Grace In The Machine Grace presents a series of lyrical vignettes on Pathalogic 2 and the feelings it stirs through its systems.

    • “Pathologic 2 is a performance without rehearsal. The game knows when you die and it marks it, even reprimands you. Deaths are…

    May 16th

    …It Needs to Be, and Exactly What I Didn’t Know I Wanted | Paste Dia Lacina, unbound by nostalgia, turns a seasoned photographer’s eye to New Pokémon Snap.

  • Mirror time – EyeToy: Play – Super Chart Island Iain Mew opens up about the uncanny–and sometimes subversive–act of playing with the EyeToy camera in the Zoom era.
  • Playing New Pokémon Snap with a Pet Photographer | Fanbyte Danielle Riendeau channels the advice and best practices of a pet photographer in approaching New Pokémon Snap.
  • Photos of future ruins — KRITIQAL Nate Kiernan contemplates the role of a chronicler…

    • January 12th

    …illusion that is much more important than any actual outcome in The Walking Dead. Also at Ontological Geek, Bill Coberly looks at the moral choice presented in FTL, in particular the confrontation with non-hostile slavers and the unspoken implications of all your decisions.

    Robert Rath looks at the pirate life on display in Assassin’s Creed IV and how the game fits you into the world through quests and encouraged behavior.

    Daniel Korn comes back to Pokemon with Pokemon X/Y and find everything from the villains to the rivals to the through quest utterly lacking even by Pokemon standards.

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    August 28th

    …best friend, shame. These pieces look at how the opinion of others shapes behaviour in games.

    • The Specter of Multiplayer Hangs Over ‘Door Kickers’ | PopMatters Nick Dinicola finds that experiencing a team scenario without human collaborators allows him to reconsider where agency and blame are placed in multiplayer games.
    • Pokémon Go and Adults Gaming in Public | remeshed.com Sophie Weeks gives some on-point observations about mobile gaming and social shaming.

    “[…] because Pokémon Go takes you out of your house to stalk the neighborhood in search of a wild Rhyhorn, it also

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    This Year In Videogame Blogging: 2016

    …DOOM and how it captures the old DOOM feel by Campster.

  • ‘Virginia’ Masks, Identity and the Horror of Our Own Reflection | PopMatters – G. Christopher Williams A look at the masks Anne wears in Virginia.
  • Pokémon Go is everything wonderful about tourism | Polygon – Evan McIntosh Evan McIntosh notes that Pokémon Go taps into a lot of the same psychosocial motivators as traditional tourism.
  • Who Gets to Be a CIVILIZATION? – Between the Lines | YouTube – Kyle Kallgren More than that, but what does it mean to be civilized in the first place and…

    • August 20th

    …wondered. Watch the video, and you will find out.

    Games and Life

    • Buffers Evolution | Something in the Direction of Exhibition Buffers counteracts a common issue with running games – they are meant to be freeing but are in fact very limiting in how and where players can run. By adding an unusual metanarrative Buffers focuses more on the characters freedom than the freedom of running itself.
    • Real-Life Geography and Culture Brings Liveability to the World of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl | Minus World Read this article if you’re into Japan, Pokemon, or…

    November 25th

    …and in the process reflects on her own relationship to magic and witchcraft over the years.

    “It was 1995 – I didn’t really want to learn world history or geography; I wanted to break curses and hang out with witches. I’m just a sorceress who happens to be a millennial.”

    Just for Fun

    Possibly my favourite writing to come out of the release of Pokémon: Let’s Go!

    • Pokémon Poetry: Nine Haiku About Our Collections | Kotaku The Kotaku editors offer (very) succinct reflections on their pokaymans. Let me show you them.

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    June 23rd

    …What Happens When You Try To Create A 3D Pokémon In 5 Minutes | Kotaku Natalie Degraffinried presents a horror show of half-baked creations to reaffirm a point about the labour that goes into game development.

    “Here is the number of important things I can do in five minutes: zero. There are zero things that will truly matter to me or anyone else that I can do in five minutes. This is probably true for a lot of people, but it hasn’t stopped Pokémon fans from trying.”

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    February 5th

    …The Bleak Future of Pokémon | Paste Madeline Blondeau contrasts the decades-old Pokémon formula against its recent open-world pivot and finds that both reflect a bleak determinism in one another.

    “As it turns out, those rat mazes were important. Without them, being a Pokémon master doesn’t seem so exciting anymore. There’s only flat and desolate terrain pockmarked with unfeeling creatures—diagonals in every direction. It’s just another map to clear. Another virtual ecosystem to colonize and leave behind when I’m done.”

    Contradictions of Industry

    For the final movement, the lens widens to examine contradictions at

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