Matt S. is the Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of DDNet. He's been writing about games for over 20 years, including a book, but is perhaps best-known for being the high priest of the Church of Hatsune Miku.
Here’s the thing: I find that a lot of gaming-focused mice don’t put ergonomics particularly high on the list of priorities. That’s not to say they can’t be comfortable, but the focus is very clearly on the design and the features that will give the user a competitive edge. And that makes sense, but it’s a lot of money for…
Well, fellow Final Fantasy fans, here’s our chance. For years now we’ve been begging Square Enix for a new 2D, pixel-based Final Fantasy. Final Fantasy Resonance isn’t Final Fantasy XVII, but after the success of the Octopath Traveler series and Dragon Quest remakes, it’s pretty clearly an effort by the…
A persistent issue I have with video game adaptations of stories from…
For some time, Konami has followed the trend with its Castlevania series,…
“It’s time to start taking reality TV more seriously,” a headline in Columbia University’s magazine proclaimed. It’s true, too. As the article goes on to note: “Studies reveal that more people in the US are watching reality TV than not, and nearly half of all TV series are unscripted. Media…
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Every time Starship Troopers pops up as a topic, we get to “enjoy” the most surreal arguments on the Internet as a bunch of people argue that the film is not a satire of fascism, and that the book is not an argument for fascism. These are some of the…
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It feels like it’s been a while since I’ve had the excuse to write about the supreme Goddess, Hatsune Miku. SEGA’s gone quiet on video games, and I’ve just not been able to line up a trip to Japan at the same time as the annual concerts over there. Related…
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Shinto is one of those things that most people who know anything about Japan have some vague concept of, but don’t really know anything about. From experience, they’re also rarely interested and that’s depressing. Tourists in Japan do cheerfully visit Shinto shrines, before mistaking them for Buddhist temples (and vice…
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I’m about to really age myself, but when I was young, the idea of (legitimately) free video games was very different to what it is today. There were no microtransactions, and no Fortnites, Genshin Impacts, or MMOs. If you were playing free, you were either playing shareware demos or very…
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Every time I see “Wuthering Waves” I think to myself “wow, they’ve gone and made a game of Wuthering Heights, my favourite novel of all time.” That is unfortunately not the case, but Wuthering Waves does still look decent, as a free-to-play open-world RPG that has clearly been inspired by…
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An hour isn’t anywhere near enough to get a feel for what any kind of RPG will offer, let alone a Soulslike. Imagine trying to predict what Elden Ring is if you’re only able to reach the limits of that first, lush forest before the demo taps out? You can’t.…
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The best thing about Flintlock is the setting. It’s a hodgepodge of historical influences – the opening sequence focuses on trench warfare and sappers that could be straight out of a World War 1 drama, before the game settles back to a more colonial era affair, set against a horde…
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It’s hard for us in the West to fully appreciate just how core idol companies and groups are in Japan. It’s not just about the music and performance, though that is certainly a big part of it. Idol groups act as talent feeder pools for just about every other part…
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Esports has become a ridiculously big business, sucking up so many dollars that could have gone into interesting, artful games instead. They’re holding an Olympic Esports Games now… and stupidly the IOC chose the authoritarian, puritanical hellnation, Saudi Arabia, for it. Hey, IOC, put Dead or Alive on the competition…
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