Opinion by Matt S. There’s been a lot said and written about Astral Chain’s use of police as the heroes. From major publications (Polygon and Vice) through to blogs, and then on to social media, the question of why PlatinumGames would lionise the police seems to be a core concern…
Read MoreVideo by Matt S. One of the regular watchers of the DDNet YouTube community asked me to canvas this topic, so here we go! An in-depth look at fan service, exploitation, and art in video games – is exploitation an issue, where to we draw the line, and how do…
Read MoreOpinion by Matt S. I’ve been thinking a great deal about art and transgression recently. As regular readers probably know, it’s a topic that I regularly come back to. In fact if I’d say there’s any one thing about art that appeals to me, it’s the way that art can…
Read MoreOpinion by Matt S. For anyone following the news, it’s been a pretty distressing couple of days. America experienced not one, but two mass shootings within a 24-hour time span, and these were of a scale large enough to make global news. Yes, America is still on track for more…
Read MoreOpinion by Matt S. A week ago the American Justice Department decided that it would be reinstating the federal use of capital punishment (the death penalty). While the majority of American states have never stopped using the death penalty, at a federal level that particular legal punishment had been dormant…
Read MoreOpinion by Matt S. I want to say this upfront: I’m having a great time with this new Fire Emblem that Nintendo’s releasing on Nintendo Switch. I’m looking forward to getting my review out there later on in the month, because there’s a lot to love about it. But there…
Read MoreOpinion by Matt S. Horror games are far too sexless. This isn’t to say they’re bad – I love a good horror game and the intense chases and/or jump scares that it provides as much as the next person. However, the more I compare what has been achieved with horror…
Read MoreVideo by Matt S. Open worlds have become almost the standard for video game development, at least as far as major releases go. Over the last generation, the open world has certainly replaced the shooter as the standard go-to for new and major projects. Yet, open worlds aren’t always the…
Read MoreOpinion by Matt S. I’m only a couple of hours in to the newly-released The Sunken City, which comes to us from Frogwares and is the latest attempt to bring the magnificent horror of H.P. Lovecraft to video games. I’m going to leave the review to another on the team,…
Read MoreNews by Matt S. One of the biggest challenges in writing about Japan – its art, artists, and country – is something you likely don’t think about much. It’s the syntax for the names. Because in Japan, they’re reversed – in other words the format for names is to put…
Read More