I recently had to opportunity to try Gambling on a trip to Vegas. How was the "Fun Factor"? Gambling is a long running live service game that's recently seen a slate of updates in the form of smartphone app integration and alternate reality mechanics. But how
The Backrooms has something to say about capitalism. But what, exactly? Spoilers to follow. I had a good conversation with a friend the other day centered on what Wunderkind director Kane Parson's smash hit The Backrooms (2026) has to say. Well, we agreed, it's about capitalism,
True to Bungie's promise, the end-game map makes the game click. It's taken us a few weeks, but my buddies and I finally earned our way into Marathon's end-game raid map, the Cryo Archive. Our first forays—unspoiled by guides or streamers—
Does it matter when a game says something doesn't matter? This week in my "Video Games and Language" class, we read from Pippin Barr's The Stuff Games are Made Of (available open-access!). It's an excellent book and one of my favorites
I have a habit of setting games down and restarting them. No game have I played less of longer than this. I came of age in what now appears like the nadir of the so-called computer role-playing game (CRPG), between the golden age of Planescape: Torment, Fallout, and
You know what still hits? Rock Band. I turned 30 to find out why. 18 years ago, I woke up on Christmas morning to find Rock Band—like Guitar Hero before it, just a few years prior—under the tree. It was the big box bundle, including a revamped guitar
Inspired by recent discussions on Remap Radio and across the internet, as well as by my own recent time spent playing games, I wanted toss around some thoughts about friendslop. "Friendslop" is a buzzy word describing certain games you play with friends. The best way to recognize friendslop
Salutations from the other side of a not exactly planned hiatus! We now return you to your regularly scheduled program. Today, a dispatch from the far flung season of the witch and the werewolf. October didn't leave me a ton of time to watch my usual slate of
We started a podcast about reading Thomas Pynchon. I also saw One Battle After Another. Thoughts ahead! Pynchon Pals—available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Podbean, and wherever else you can plug in an RSS feed—is "a podcast about finally reading Thomas Pynchon." It'
Playing video games in front of a camera and then writing about it? Why, that's almost as novel as a single-player MMO! I log in to Erenshor with a username and password that don't actually exist. I connect to servers that are located nowhere. And
This past weekend I finally watched Red Rooms (2023) and We're All Going to the World's Fair (2021), two movies about staring into the networked abyss. Spoilers to follow! As Ice Cube's latest reveals, it's hard to make a movie about the
Did you know that metrics show that Tuesdays and Thursdays are the optimal days to release a newsletter? What a fool I was to publish the first one on a Saturday! At least we're all on the same page now. For today's post, I want to
games
According to a famous anecdote about the origins of Super Mario 64—that is, about the origins of 3D platforming—before designing any levels, enemies, or objectives, the game's designers began with movement alone. They wanted to ensure that players would have fun being Mario in the absence