Video Games

Travis, you messed-up sonofabitch. Whatchu doin’ on my road? Given its troubled history, it’s a miracle Silent Hill: Origins turned out as well as it did. The first Silent Hill title…

Everything’s just been falling apart around us, you know, but you just keep moving forward. It’s been three years since I last set foot in Silent Hill. Its streets are…

A dusty, barren lunar surface. Light synths seem to struggle to find a melody as a fat, squat man in a dazzling white tuxedo—complete with top-hat—flips, bounds, and rolls in…

Featuring some outstanding and notable PC games released in 2017: 1) South Park: The Fractured But Whole 2) Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus 3) Night in the Woods 4) Middle-earth:…

Early this year, I started work on a novel. It isn’t my first longer writing project: I have a bad middle-school fantasy epic under my belt, and last year I…

Dear Lara, First of all, you should know you were my first video game girlfriend. Princess Peach? Just a kindergarten crush. Samus Aran? She always frightened me a bit, like…

Session Report is a monthly series that explores the intersection of narrative and broader themes of game design by focusing on a specific tabletop (or tabletop-adjacent) game each month. This…

Irrational Games’ BioShock: Infinite, released in 2013, transitions from the underwater world of Rapture to Columbia, a floating city in the sky that makes parallels with the United States capital,…

“Who is John Galt?” is the opening line of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged, published in 1957. Perhaps as an homage to the famous question, “Who is Atlas?” posters riddle…

Nostalgia is a powerful manipulator. Whether it’s the latest Star Wars or superhero retread or yet another video game sequel, nostalgia is big business. But who exactly wants to go…

The tower seemed manageable as I stood at the base looking up. The moon was out but it was a clear night, allowing me to see the very top and…

Session Report is a monthly series that explores the intersection of narrative and broader themes of game design by focusing on a specific tabletop game each month. This month’s game…

Parry. Putt. Rub the dogs and pineapples. Watch your lover die, over and over and over. Stare bewildered at the cactus, the only life form you’ve seen in the past…

There’s been a lot of interesting experimentation in overlapping the mediums of video games, poetry, and art. Video games by thatgamecompany like Flow, Flower, and Journey allow viewers to appreciate…