The Game Awards for 2016 were announced earlier today, so it’s time to take a look at the winners in a few of the categories I’m particularly interested in. I’m going to just focus on those specific ones, but you can check out the full list here. The big one, Game of the Year, went to…

(Contains spoilers) The Uncharted series came to a close earlier this year with the release of the fourth title in the series, A Thief’s End. Developer Naughty Dog stated that this is the definitive conclusion to the story of smarmy pretty boy treasure hunter/Indiana Jones Academy of Archaeology graduate, Nathan Drake, and his band of recurring allies. After 9…

It was recently announced that after just over a year of release, SOMA has sold 450,000 copies. Originally released in September 2015 by Frictional Games, SOMA attempts to grapple with an ancient yet timeless slice of unsettling metaphysics, via the viewpoint of a layman encountering it for perhaps the first time. The central conceit confronts…

In our podcast about “Star Trek Beyond,” I argued that Michael Giacchino’s score could be considered a supporting character. He teases the main theme throughout the movie, using its buildup [0:00-0:42–theme starts 0:43] and variations to support the progression of the story, as well as character locations, emotions and actions.

In the latest batch of ‘casts, we covered three topics in games that are broadly related–the ethics of betrayals, morality choices, and empathy-inducing characters/moments. We discussed the effectiveness, or lack thereof, of many instances of each, and why we thought some worked while others fell flat. Each of us had a number of examples that were, if not impactful,…

What exactly “counts” as an apocalypse? This is what we attempted to define in this week’s podcast. While the answers and viewpoints varied, this I believe is tied to the general aura surrounding the concept itself. A point brought up in the discussion that I would like to expand on further here is the idea of…

In lieu of the apocalypse, we humans have created an absurd number of golden calves to the idea. A concept so repugnant that our stories find it nearly impossible to follow to its realistic and logical conclusion, the world’s end has been a fascinating study of the human capacity for denial since the invention of…

In one of my more banal existences, I made sandwiches at a local delicatessen for a modest wage.  While not as soul-crushing as other professions I would later occupy, the job offered enough idleness to foster angst-ridden, pseudo-philosophy worthy of Updike’s A&P cashier.  One of my tasks was to dispose of unwanted sandwich meats at…

The Order: 1886 was the catalyst for our first podcast, but it certainly wasn’t the first time I’ve heard the argument. Does the length of a game impact its value? Or is it what is packed in – the gameplay, the narrative, the art, the soundtrack — that ultimately defines what that game is worth? Of course,…

“I paid 60 bucks for this game, and it’s only 6 hours long–what the fuck?!”