Search Results for:

zolani%20stewart

November 9th

…Jones compares the feeling of driving at night between Glitchhikers and Euro Truck Simulator 2.

Zolani Stewart explains expressionism paintings and their lessons to understanding worlds like that of Sonic Adventure 2.

Horror Games

At Outside Your Heaven, Matthew Weise feels like he should like Alien Isolation more than The Evil Within, but he finds that the former just retreads too much ground.

On Gamasutra’s member blogs, Sergio Hidalgo has some words on the mental tax on developers making horror games, drawing from his personal experience.

Craftsmanship

A concerning not only with content, but…

November 24th

Hello everyone! Welcome to This Week in Videogame Blogging! Let’s get started.

Profiles

In The New Yorker, Ben McGrath writes a profile of Sasha “Scarlett” Hostyn, professional Starcraft II player and “the most accomplished woman in the young history of electronic sports.”

Some exciting happenings: our own Mark Filipowich is heading a series at Good Games Writing to highlight women writers, scholars, journalists, and critics in gaming. There are already three profiles posted, on Alice Kojiro, Becky Chambers, and Rachel Kowert. Make sure to take a look at their fantastic work!

Ikea Materia

Chris

…

February 1st

…big-name game designers of the 90’s. We don’t have a choice you see, they are the only ones who give us any credibility.

As Cyarron notes, one would be remiss in going this week without mentioning this formidable essay by Austin Howe, our own Zolani Stewart and others over on Haptic Feedback:

When, as a critic or analyst, you invest your time and capital in the definition of proper form, your analytical projects are always, necessarily, about the inclusion and exclusion of both people and ideas within a perceived community. Naming ludocentrist rhetorical analysis as a thing is…

February 15th

…you take on an over-the-shoulder perspective focused on character development and specificity, but on the other hand, there is the bird’s eye view of narrative totality […]

Speaking of Kentucky Route Zero, Magnus Hildebrandt has finished his guide to the cultural and literary references of Episode 3. It’s only available in German right now, but as for the earlier episodes, will be translated soon.

The first episode of Critical Switch is here, so why not listen to our own Zolani Stewart’s smooth voice expound Bernband. Not enough weird games for you? Stephen Beirne reads Kanoguti’s Walking as self-suggestive…

February 22nd

…shares his enthusiasm for the Resident Evil REmake, and in particular analyzes just what makes it so splendid to play.

Critical Switch, a mini-podcast in which Austin Howe and our own Zolani Stewart trade off hosting duties each episode to tackle a particular short subject. In this episode, Howe explores how party size in Japanese role-playing games can take on a symbolic and narrative meaning.

On PopMatters Moving Pixels, Scott Juster wonders why death, such a mainstay of the Game of Thrones television show, is treated so inflexibly in Telltale’s game adaptation. And over on Virtual Narrative, Justin…

April 19th

Welcome to This Week in Videogame Blogging! There’s a lot of writing this week, let’s go through them.

First, Erik Bigras explores the epistemological boundaries around our concept of a “good” videogame, and Andy Astruc writes of their experience playing Skyrim’s “Live Another Life” mod with their own roleplaying rules.

Gita Jackson looks at the tough and practical attire of Resident Evil’s Claire Redfield, and gives tips on how you can emulate her look. Sarah Nixon takes a closer look at the Romance options in Harvest Moon: Story of Seasons. And novelist Moira Katson documents their experience

…

May 10th

…intricacies. I had exhausted every possible conversation option with all of the people that live there. I wandered around for hours solving puzzles without knowing how they would add to the main story. I was a resident like any other (although it’s possible I was the only one with a purpose). Suffice to say, I lived there.

In a similar vein, Miguel Penabella compares the similar cinematic and writing techniques in The Last of Us and the 1956 John Ford western, The Searchers.

Switching from sight to sound, our own Zolani Stewart hosts this week’s episode of…

August 30th

…it also afforded a consistent, party-centric tone that blended play sessions into as a more holistic festival experience rather than pockets of individual gaming instances. […] [T]he festival catered to a variety of gaming interests without having to go the “white cube” route of homogenized presentation.

Further Reading

Interested in more? The latest issue of Arcade Review, brought to you by our own Zolani Stewart and Lana Polansky, is now live for your consumption.

Unwinnable Weekly remains the most compelling weekly periodical in games, and this week’s cover story about a couple’s relationship strained by an…

This Year In Videogame Blogging: 2015

…of the Round Table Mark Filipowich wrote about several videogame cities and the novel Thirteen Cents.

One of our weekend contributors, Riley MacLeod, looked at the different type of masculinity exemplified by stealth game protagonists and how it feels more relatable to him. Fellow weekend contributor Zolani Stewart continues his establishment of Sonic Studies with an essay on the Dreamcast’s Sonic Adventure so comprehensive it was broken into three parts.

And finally, per our usual tradition, our senior curator has chosen one piece written by the moderator of our Critical Distance Confab podcast and these end-of-the-year features, Eric…

May 22nd

…is most important that this world is believable. There need to be interesting decisions which result in real consequences.”

And that’s the end of the roundup! Some final personal plugs and notes:

Cities of Dust and Light | The Towner A piece of mine was published in a magazine about cities and culture this week. I’m very proud of it and I hope that you consider taking a look, even though it wouldn’t be right for me to include it in the roundup proper.
We’ve launched a Kickstarter | The Arcade Review Zolani Stewart has…