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.
Octopath Traveler 0 isn’t really Octopath Traveler. It’s good. It’s even excellent, frequently and for long stretches of time. But it’s not Octopath Traveler for this very simple reason: Both the original Octopath Traveler and its sequel told the stories of eight (“Octo”) different people, who would eventually come together (“All roads that you travel on, if you will, lead…
I don’t often write about films these days, but I recently saw something at the Japan Film Festival in Australia that was powerful, profound, and haunting enough that it has since occupied all my thinking. Kokuho, directed by one of Japan’s most noteworthy art film directors, Lee Sang-il, is, as…
The SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite is a good headset. This is by…
Disclaimer: I’m making this quick disclaimer so it’s clear and up-front. I…
Writing is such a critical tool for storytelling. That goes without saying, but so often with video games it seems like an afterthought. So in this month’s podcast, we talk about what good writing looks like in games and celebrate some (but not all – we didn’t have hours!) of…
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AI has really taken the world by storm over the last year or so, and now developers are actively using it for everything from script writing, to art, and code generation. The problem is… this is not good at all for the creativity and artfulness of games. At all. That’s…
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It cannot be easy to conceptualise a strategy game based on World War 1 (“The Great War”). The reason we have so many more games based on World War 2 isn’t just because the optics behind that war are easier. Yes, World War 2 had a much clearer line between…
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April’s lineup of games looks pretty healthy! We’ve got everything from the glorious return of Advance Wars to EA’s return to golf, though to a new Star Wars Soulslike and Dead Island. Don’t forget to check out the full podcast. Also, don’t forget to let us know what you’re looking…
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Curse of the Sea Rats is a cute concept that needs to compete in a badly over-saturated genre. I’m now at the point where seeing “Metrodvania” in press materials will make me groan. Not only because the term itself has, like with the roguelike, lost almost all meaning from its…
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This month on the Digitally Uploaded podcast, we grapple with the thorniest of issues currently plaguing video games: The role that AI is increasingly playing in the “creative” side of development. In short, it’s a problem. Potentially, a very big problem. Then, to be more positive, we talk about excellent…
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As a baseball simulator, MLB The Show 23 is barely different to last year’s iteration. Even by the standards of annual sporting franchises, this one comes across as having the lightest of touches to improve the experience. The commentary cut in with the same comments at the same moments that…
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“Oh! Rikku’s wearing a bikini! It’s bright yellow and it’s a THONG!” Looking at Final Fantasy X-2 now, with its PlayStation 2-era fuzzies and jaggies, it’s hard to believe that it was once right up there with the most controversially fanservicey things out there. I remember the discussions that raged…
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“My job is different now since Midjourney v5 came out last week,” an artist at an independent game developer wrote in a recent Reddit post. “I am now able to create, rig, and animate a character that’s spat out from MJ in two or three days. Before it took us…
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I was almost going to skip past this year’s MLB the Show 23. Partly because I’m still playing last year’s edition, and… well, no, that was the only reason. I am still playing last year’s iteration and I don’t see any value in the iterative annual upgrades of sports games…
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