Let’s get something clear, right off the bat: Gal*Gun: Double Peace is a lewd, hypersexualised, fanservice-riddled game, and it never pretends to be anything else. At the same time, it has a level of self-awareness and subversiveness that also makes it a rather brilliant satire of such games and of…
Read MoreGame theory by Matt S. Nope. It is actually quite brilliant. That would be a pretty short article if I left it at that, I guess, so I’ll elaborate. Back when it as first released, the strengths of Final Fantasy XIII were largely overlooked (and still are), while its weaknesses…
Read MoreGame theory by Matt S.“One of the advantages of being born in an affluent society is that if one has any intelligence at all, one will realise that having more and more won’t solve the problem, and happiness does not lie in possessions, or even relationship: The answer lies within…
Read MoreGame theory by Matt S. In my last art game canon piece I wrote about Nier, which is the game that I would argue has the most valuable, expressive, successful narrative that has been presented in such a way that only games, as non-linear experiences, could achieve. This time around…
Read MoreGame theory by Matt S. “If anyone, no matter who, were given the opportunity of choosing from amongst all the nations in the world the set of beliefs which he thought best, he would inevitably—after careful considerations of their relative merits—choose that of his own country. Everyone without exception believes his…
Read MoreArticle by Matt S. To date we’ve seen a lot of these ‘walking simulators’ focus in on a narrative experience. From Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture through Layers of Fear, Dear Esther and Gone Home, the primary goal of the developer has typically been to pass a specific story on…
Read MoreArticle by Matt S. So yesterday I published my review of Uncharted 4, a game I enjoyed a great deal, though not without reservations. You can read that review here. Thinking more broadly about Uncharted 4 as a blockbuster, and the relationship that blockbusters have with the game media, I’ve…
Read MoreArticle by Matt S. Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is one of the greatest books in the history of literature. Nabokov’s observations on the American culture that underpin the book, and his subsequent deconstruction of it through darkly transgressive humour, is by turns humorous and shocking, but at all times it’s breathtaking…
Read MoreArticle by Matt S. Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth is a fascinating game. It’s interesting in part because it’s fun, of course – it’s quite hard to ruin a monster collecting game when the critters are this cute. But it’s fascinating for so much more than being a really good Pokemon…
Read MoreHatsune Miku isn’t just a cute anime girl that happens to have the voice of a digital angel, and appear in some of the most entertaining rhythm games ever release. No. Think about Miku a little more deeply and she is of interest to a whole host of sociological and…
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