I don’t like playing Metal Gear. I love experiencing Metal Gear. I love Solid Snake. Because I love him because there is enough in the game to make me love him, enough character interaction and gameplay opportunity to ask me to love him and exhibit why I might stick around, and because I stick around…
Idle Animations: El Presidente Doesn’t Care
Idle Animations is a recurring series in which I play games without playing them, exploring quiet, still moments, how games fill space and time, and what happens when you let a game play itself.
Otherworlds and Underworlds: Filthy Futures in Roadside Picnic and Neuromancer
More often than not, science fiction depicting the future on Earth conjures up spick-and-span cityscapes: gleaming streets and towers, an ordered and efficient environment, and hidden danger disguised as benign societal mechanisms. What’s seen less often are chaotic, dirty, bucket-of-bolts futures where menace lurks around every corner and people spill out, swearing, from grungy dives….