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The T H I C C E S T Atelier of them all.

A few improvements aside, Ys VIII was a better game with a better story.

All those years they talked about doing another IP besides Postal, badmouthed modern practices, made fun of unfinished games, unplayable builds in Early Access, as well as Postal 3 brought you... this.

Already -30% sale, so they understood what they did.

Fushigi no Dungeon meets a simplified version of Darkest Dungeon's battle system and aesthetics with Sekaiju no Meikyuu vibes.

Imagine a world where True Detective would collide with Slavoj Žižek, and drinking with Bukowski. This is peak gaming.

Just more of Trine 1 & 2, basically. We don't speak about Trine 3.

You got your Division in my Wildlands.

It's Jet Set Radio developed by Nickelodeon.

Wargroove is the kid in class who cheated and plagiarized every answer and still somehow got everything wrong.

A pale imitation of Valkyrie Profile, chasing hundreds of rabbits at once but catching none.

Random perks, random characters with no story development (no story at all) and random quest that repeats itself.

Anyone rating this more than a 3/5 hasn't beat the game or is a shill.

Not as complex as Bayonetta, but not nearly as simple as Automata, taking risks with new mechanics, just as you'd expect from Platinum.

good dog sim. bullet is such a good boy. for some reason, something is trying to kill me in the forest, pls fix.

Not bad basic game. Be prepared for the fact that there is only one white male character and he is unplayable. At least there are no pajamas and retarded dances.

FarmVille with automated battles.

My sheep can socialize with villager. 5/5

The Dark Souls of bananas.

Pretty visuals and a wistful soundtrack belie an otherwise subpar game.

With each update that came after Alpha the game got closer and closer to a casual approach of World War II.

The game is pretty. But it's pretty far from good.

A truly special experience. Go in as blind as you can, and stick with it until the full star system opens up to you.

This game takes place in one of the darkest, most disturbing dystopian futures imaginable: a world where everyone is British.

Imagine watching only the last season of Game of Thrones.

Awkward-looking visuals and bland music plus fossilised mechanics which, instead of innovating, opted for repeating the tried-and-overstayed-its-welcome-by-two-decades formula: Iga's personal trademark of mediocrity.

Conan Unfinished.

You play as big tiddy waifu roaming around the streets of Icenaire or whatever where fox people, other anime brides, and drawings of faux-masculine dudes wander around.

Not even a GTA clone, it's the GTA clone's stupid little brother.

Their idea of "Normal" difficulty is magically spawn enemies within a level to force you into the objectives, which spawn more enemies (even BOSS enemies) to murder you. That's not normal, that's stupid.

Like RDR2, good scenario, good world, but that's it. Game is boring.

Waifu fighting sim... gud gaem 10/10 animu degeneracy, I guess the combat is pretty good too.

As annoying as you might expect a game-long escort mission to be.

You wait 50 turns in order to declare a single war. Then you win. Then another 50 turns spent waiting. Or hey, you try diplomacy. 50 turns waiting...

I can make paradise for SJW! Great game! 63/63 genders!

When you order tea but get hot water...

Like Mad Max except instead of being Batman when you're not in a vehicle, you're Doomguy.

Does what a Spider-Man game should do!

Best rhythm game 2019.

One step forward and 2.0 steps back.

I'm pretty sure there's a really good game in there hiding under all the loot boxes and drawn out level progression.

Feels like the poor man's Ryse. And if you were thinking that Ryse was already the poor man's Ryse, well, then I've made myself all the clearer.

R.I.P. BioWare, PapEA is taking you for a walk soon...

The cutscenes, voice acting and graphics are truly something everyone should experience. It's not at all like an old 2008 game without any spirit whatsoever.

It's a disappointment: not even close to Trine...

Beautiful but stupidly designed from start to finish.

I wish you could wear the Prince of Saiyans chestplate along with the Hokage and King of Pirates jacket all at the same time so I can show my true weaboo powers and Shonen Jump can make an anime based on me.

A third of the advertised features are blatant lies.

Utter Disney garbage that is infecting and dragging down a company struggling to remain relevant.

Absolute bore.

Empty, boring and lifeless tower defense in space.

Shadow of the Wild: Breath of the Colossus.

Ever wanted to play a superintelligent black lesbian child led by the hand the entire game while being blasted by SJW propaganda? Now you can.

A boringly basic game for chinstrokers who like knowing, self-referential indulgent commentary that's not even funny.

Crap game is crap.

The one game where killing someone, chopping up their corpse, shitting in the mouth of their severed head and pissing on their corpse is socially acceptable.

Good, but limited, and until they add in a LOT more stuff the trailer will remain false advertising.

Must edit XML file to change options. Hey, maybe if you're gonna put your name in the title, you should finish your game first before releasing it. Just a thought.

Increased my soy levels.

Western Ueda-wannabe game copies all the weirdness but none of the heart, or the fun.

A good Smash game but far from the "ultimate" Smash game.

It's clear love went into this game, but sadly not enough game went into it.

YALLAH YALLAH

Frenetic airborne Border Break in a force feedback cabinet.

Cutting Nape Simulator 2018.

Relaxing enough, but too expensive for a casual recipe game with a shallow story and terrible controls.

This game looked Marvelous. Too bad it ended up being so.

Can't these guys create anything else?

As the game itself tells you at the start, do not forget the Golden Rule, that "he who has the gold makes the rules".

As close as we've ever gotten to a proper Baldur's Gate 3.

If I wanted to play Dark Souls, I'd play Dark Souls.

More Jagged Alliance than XCOM, and absolutely gorgeous, but unfinished.

Cyberpunk 1997.

IT'S. JUST. BAD. BALANCE.

Beware that this game is being review bombed by journalists who weren't properly bribed to like this game.

Bethesda has reached a new low.

It's a JRPG in which you fight spiders.

Can kill Sean Bean. Can ride away on a dolphin. Still doesn't make it a great game.

If you ever wanted to be like Dean or Sam from Supernatural, hunting monsters, solving mysteries and so on, then get this game.

Even this review I am knocking out in 15 minutes to tick the game off my review list, because it leaves me cold.

Bloodborne 2 died for this.

The one CRPG saga where you must really gather your party before venturing forth.

My nu-transsensual ZETA-8 genderfluid heteromollusc Timber Wolf did not agree with the stale mechanics, lack of customization and obvious Paradox-tier DLC to come.

If you're into Indiana Jones meets Mummy, plus Call of Duty Zombies done right, then this game's definitely for you.

Started the game by shoving a chicken into a pipe, explored, found a child's room destroyed, suit AI worries the nearby body could be a child, assures me everything is fine after we find it's just a midget on a rocking horse.

You can tell that no one ever really understood Wing Commander by how feeble all attempts at copying it have been.

Saying that this is the best Star Fox game is an insult to Star Fox.

Underwear Model with Oedipus Complex goes around New York slapping minority extras with HD sound.

Very pretty game with an extremely generic open world and bland combat. If you thought cowboys didn't have a whole lot to do, then you were right.

I bought a fighting game and ended up playing dress-up.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

What happens when you take the barebones mechanics of XCOM and slap a Space Hulk aesthetic on them? Like most of the Space Hulk games, it falls just short of being very good.

All other life concerns ceased while I was playing Wing Commander, and the only thing that mattered was my getting to the end.

On sale a month after release. 'nough said.

It's FarmVille, with friends, in cute 3D, without paywalls, and without Facebook. Not bad at all.

Mind blown. Best VR thing yet. It's like Sony worked out how to package pure joy.

Yes, this is the series where there are tanks with stockings.

Gender-role politics injected into Arthurian lore from developers who could use a geography lesson, never mind a political one. Hooray for "indie gaming"!

Somewhat flawed, but with a lot of potential.

Life is Tumblr: Election Edition.

I recommend learning Russian before playing.

UK DLC for Horizon 3.

Overall a lot less crazy than his other games but still very much Swery.

You'd think that after three entries the Empire would stop stacking highly explosive crates next to their tanks, pillboxes and barricades, but here we are.

Enjoy Spartan kick simulator, The Witcher's Creed: Shadow of Sparta. But bring more slaves, because the grind is real.

Better than Mighty No. 9? Hahaha. Scrubs say the funniest things.

Protagonists are Indian so if you prefer turbans to tactics you'll have a blast.

Was playing Sudden Strike 4 and felt disappointment. Bought Sudden Strike 3 and forgot about sleep.

As a game taken on its own merits, it's mediocre at best. As a sequel to the Bard's Tale trilogy, it's trash.

Dracula with all the charm removed. It looks the part but it's unexciting and too easy.

Beta DLC of the original with even more clunkiness and bugs and repetition, and even less story.

You pay full price for the game, you can't choose your own weapon, and a squad lead you have never met gets to control your experience. Fuck this game.

The frames per second are lower than the number of white blood cells in a cancer patient.

Like a mix of Dead Cells and Rogue Legacy but ten times worse.

Music, in other words, should be the dominant consideration only in pure music; and in all the other artforms, where it makes sense to include it at all, it should assume a subservient role...

"Party" games, "social" games, "serious" games, "art" games, "independent" games: these are all lies; Orwellian doublespeak that means precisely the opposite of what it says...

What's worse is that, even when viewed as mere music simulators, these programs still suck.

Less is not more. More is more. Quit streamlining! The crowd that plays Total War games does not want this.

An ambitious mess of completely different genres with a janky UI that runs like trash. And it's absolutely amazing.

Sid Meier's Civilization: 40k... but there is only WAR.

God creates dinosaurs, God destroys dinosaurs. God creates Man, man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs.

I have news for you, buddy: if you aren't "ruining" your life over it, to some extent or another, you are not playing a great game...

I named my spy David Hasselhoff after the famous CIA agent who brought down the Berlin Wall, reunited Germany and started the communist collapse with just his powerful voice and inspirational lyrics.

You know that one kid in high school that always gets picked on by people? Well play as the Hunter and relive the dream.

Just wait for Forza Horizon 4.

Hodor could not hold this door. Even if he was there to hold the door, there's billions. Good luck beating the first level!

Quantic Dream's best game.

Monster Runner Degenerations.

If you've ever yearned for PVP Biohazard 4 or Psycho Break, this is the game for you.

Nosferatu: Ace Attorney.

Recettear for hipsters instead of weebs.

Don't listen to the kids and journalists: the coolest new genre is not Battle Royale, it's the Survival/Crafting genre (or, as I prefer to call it, the Domination genre: mere survival is for losers).

You create a super badass assassin, with crazy high dexterity and acrobatics, and that guy? He can't vault a friggin barrel. And until Seven I thought, "Welp, I guess that's how it has to be".

Two roads diverged in a yellow map. I took one of them and died.

It was so hugely successful and remains so hugely influential in our collective gaming imagination, because it speaks of nothing but eternal truths. Driving is awesome. Ferraris must be red. Girls must be blonde.

The best JRPG exclusive on the Switch, but that's not saying much.

Had a favorite character once. I go visit him at the graveyard from time to time. 10/10 would send him to his doom again.

From the makers of Blazblue: Centralfiction comes Blazblue: Fanfiction, aka Babby's First Fighting Game.

Do yourself a favor and don't waste the time you have on this earth on this game, cause you don't eventually unlock the ability to rewind some of it back.

Exclusively on Patreon.

Got game over in like 15 minutes for telling god "no".

For children who either haven't seen a prison movie or find anything more challenging than counting to three a struggle.

Have you ever wanted to play a Russian novel in all its bleakness and existentialism? Probably not, but here it is anyway.

icycalm reviews StarCraft, exclusively on Patreon.

icycalm reviews Half-Life, exclusively on Patreon.

icycalm reviews Tetris, exclusively on Patreon.

SJWs hate this game/10

Reinstall FTL, you know it's better.

The most realistic Bush administration Katrina simulator on the market.

Looks like another Fuse-level of quality B-game four-player third-person shooter, and we'll happily spend a couple evenings lapping it all up.

Roses are red. Violets are blue. Sawdust is good for you.

In Deus Ex, you hack door. In E.Y.E, door hacks you.

The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever.

$60 DirectX 12 sea simulator FTW.

Those Duck Dynasty guys took it too far this time.

The new God of War tries to open up the franchise's design, but not very successfully.

If we were only allowed to have two videogames for the rest of our lives, it would be this and Mount & Blade.

icycalm reviews Quake, exclusively on Patreon.

How many hoops are you willing to jump through to reach Elysium?

Bipolar Tomb Raider doesn't need Adderall or a $60 pricetag to look, play, and feel more polished than any other game this year.

Can't wait for part two to come out in another ten years!

Buy this game, only if your wallet exceeds 3.5 inches in width, and your credit card's number ends with a four. If not, proceed to section 6e, "Earning a paycheck".

America gets nuked so the president becomes an anime.

It seems one simply does walk through Mordor...

Exclusively on Patreon.

Anime Princess Celestia-Samus and a lame balloon-fairy sidekick save the Great Japanese Deku Tree and his forest.

Downloaded as a meme. Can't believe I ended up actually enjoying it.

Exclusively on Patreon.

Welcome to the jungle, in the world's first true action game.

The lights keep going out and the corpses keep-a-coming in the first graphic adventure ever.

The best Mario review ever written, and by a huge margin.

icycalm reviews Mushihime-sama, exclusively on Patreon.

Takes tactical shootery to the unbelievably great outdoors.

It put the "Dream" in Dreamcast.

Because sharing is for losers.

icycalm reviews Power Stone, exclusively on Patreon.

Part I of icycalm's review of They Are Billions, exclusively on Patreon.

icycalm reviews Master of Orion, exclusively on Patreon.

Exclusively on Patreon.

icycalm reviews Crusader Kings, exclusively on Patreon.

Good news is, it'll take him another seven years to make another turd, so we won't have to deal with his crap again anytime soon.

All killer — no filler.

A lovingly crafted game of gothic horror.

It's about time I wrapped up my coverage of the earliest CRPGs that I started a couple of years ago with The Dungeon (AKA pedit5,1975) and continued with The Game of Dungeons (AKA dnd, 1975) and Oubliette (1978).

Exclusively on Patreon.

Exclusively on Patreon.

The ultimate multiplayer game has arrived, and its first War has been fought.

Exclusively on Patreon.

Because all other sites are casual.

Calling this early access is like saying the Mona Lisa isn't quite finished.

Not hardcore, but fun nevertheless and cute as all hell.

A giant rat killed me about 20 times. 15 hours later I got my revenge.

Exclusively on Patreon.

icycalm reviews Europa Universalis, exclusively on Patreon.

My warriors can't use magic rings but this bear I tamed to join my company is now enchanted with +2 Knowledge of Folklore. 10/10

Asked for refund: Too much playtime. So here's hoping the game gets better, 'cause I'm stuck with it!

3D platforming continues its steady, inevitable decline.

icycalm reviews Overwatch, exclusively on Patreon.

I am the world's greatest videogame theorist and critic. There is no second best: there's only me.

Real-time strategy's premier competitive league.

Real-time strategy's premier competitive event.

Antifa worldview simulator.

This is the Baldur's Gate 2 for a generation that doesn't deserve it.

Assassin's Souls 3: Wild Hunt.

If you like running around aimlessly looking for switches and levers while elevator music plays in the background, then Hob is for you.

Ruiner? I don't even know her!

But what if the haters dab back?

Better than it should be, but nowhere near as good as it could be.

Lovely music, graphics and world, but far too expensive for a mediocre linear puzzle game which didn't take long to complete.

The Birth of the Avatar.

The original first-person ARPG, sans numbers on the screen, just like icycalm ordered — in 1982.

Halo: Gaming Evolved.

Mechanically more Mario than Tony, and aesthetically the coolest game of all time.

An intimidating sequel to a genre-reviving classic.

RTS on steroids.

I didn't choose the vent life. The vent life chose me.

Action perfected.

The online game where you hope no one is online.

Colonizing new planets = 2 hours. Fighting pirate raids = 4 hours. Making allies = 5 hours. Expanding your empire = 8 hours. That moment you realize you've won? Timeless.

Especially recommended if you have friends. Which you probably don't.

Years ahead of its time, and the PlayStation's finest hour.

The beginning of the nightmare...

Bad AI, clunky mechanics, time-based events. Still one of the best games I've ever played.

A classic. Play it, even if you won't finish it.

Sid Meier's Pirates! on land.

The Demon's Souls of FPS.

We are never getting Jet Set Radio 3.

I have a Nerf gun and I can turn into a cup. I never knew I wanted either of those things so much in videogame.

Better than Chivalry, but not by much, and dead-on-arrival to boot.

Like my ex-girlfriend, this game is pretty but shallow. It didn't cheat on me, but it is just as boring.

'Nough said.

I dunno guys, I heard IGN didn't really like it...

Your PC sucks simulator.

Sci-fi Monster Hunter with mechs and faceless soldiers running around in an explosive panic.

I'm watching some of the vids and I am amazed that I finished the game and it's like I only used... 3% of the game's potential.

Rich kid, dead parents simulator.

Found a shotgun before I found food. 10/10 brings out the inner (Nigerian) child in you.

It's like Skyrim but for men.

Threw one Molotov, next thing I know Africa is on fire.

This game really updates my journal.

Not playing this game? You bring shame upon family.

A truly badass level of hardcore.

I hope they release a GOTY version with no crates to push in it.

Shinji Mikami and the art of the zen shooter.

Fly me to the moon, Kamiya-senpai.

In the year 19XX, half of the world was ravaged by a nuclear war and violence ruled the streets in America.

Welcome to the world's first epic game.

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So perhaps the deeper reason that the second image is superior to the first as cover art is precisely because it's false, by the gameworld's own standards.

The deans and chairpeople themselves had no respect for videogames, and therefore they were bound to find themselves at odds with anyone who DID respect videogames...

They failed at literally every single aspect of this platform.

And since the positions must be filled, someone's gonna get hired, even if there are no qualified applicants...

Because, from a player's perspective, i.e. from inside the game, it turns out that there's no fundamental difference between the two types of games...

Because some lies are worth living.

Structure, pacing, variety, length, difficulty: all these secondary but still crucial aspects of game design are fucked beyond belief in the games of small studios today.

For when art gets to the stage of virtual reality... even dogs can take part in and enjoy the artwork lol.

Therefore, NO MOVIE EVER HAS ACTUALLY USED CLASSICAL MUSIC AS ITS SOUNDTRACK, PERIOD. All they've done is butchered off a few seconds here and there and slapped them in their movies.

Interactive art demands interactive music, and good luck composing good music under such demands!

So it's ironic that these inferior artforms are defended on grounds of hatred of technology when the only reason they exist at all is because of some quirks in the history of technology lol.

So now that we know that novel narrative is peak narrative, and it MUST be debased in order to be incorporated into more complex artforms (and the more complex the artform, the more it must be debased...), let's try to understand WHY.

Frank Miller's 300 comic is not simply a novel copy-pasted over paintings. That would have been absurd, and precisely what I mean by "bastardization".

Am I the only one to whom the desire to improve in videogames sounds not merely absurd but straight up batshit insane?

The creativity of the real gamer playing a really complex and really tough game with actual goals and opposition is orders of magnitude greater than that of the bored aspie vomiting sprawling useless monstrosities in autistic isolation.

The deeper you go into the virtual, the more strongly you must stand on your two feet in the real world to avoid losing your perch on it...

So this is why I say that the War of the Stores is over, to the point where we even already have a winner...

"Indie" Syndrome is an artistic disorder typically associated with the preponderance of an effeminate hormonal profile, serious intellectual disability, and characteristic artistic features.

The variety games were simply ahead of their time. Way ahead. 20+ years ahead, as it turned out. And their time is now.

So the "ideas guy" is in fact the only position that matters in the industry. Without it, there's no industry at all.

Let's talk crowdfunding. Lots of words have been written about it, but the essence of it hasn't been grasped, so it's time someone started grasping it.

So, to get back to videogames, precisely because interactivity is the new thing that videogames bring to the table, the best games will be those that maximize interactivity...

Modern Russian game development is near single-handedly saving complexity in games, and in the most complex genres; you read it here first!

Once the console had nothing to offer but its cheaper price, it became a commodity with no mystique and no enthusiasm for the player associated with it at all.

On this criterion then, it's easy to dismiss all abstract-themed games and genres as the lowest of the lot.

I had always wanted Insomnia to be "the complete package": your one-stop website and community for all things gaming...

Finally, there's another reason you see me so gung-ho about adopting all this stuff: Patreon, the podcast, the video reviews and so on—a final reason: I am a nerd, and simply love technology.

You want the awesome insights into the past, and radical prescriptions of the future, but without engaging with the messy business of the present...

And all the above arguments come on top of the simple fact that, even if you wanted to find ONE game into which to sink all of your playing time, it would be impossible to find it.

As long as a game is even remotely playable, bugs are essentially outside the scope of criticism...

With the last podcast we lost one patron; SriK of course, a mere few hours after the update went up. Let's hope everyone else is not as thin-skinned...

It's time to talk about this, and once more, as usual, our analysis must be brutal.

I haven't written a hardware piece in years, but it's only fitting that the best hardware development in years would be the one to bring me back to the subject with a vengeance.

Ultimately, you need to realize that you cannot deduce the meaning of these labels merely by examining the labels themselves, because these labels were never meant to be—nor could they ever be—perfectly descriptive.

On icy's evolving tastes, JRPGs, East vs. West, the state of 2D gaming, SriK's game vs. icy's game, the global studio, and much more.

And the greatest cause in the death of discussion, believe it or not, is me.

So you'll be making a world in which the person who has less of a life wins, essentially rewarding players who are harming themselves! Such a game design is not merely bad, but should be illegal!

As far as our definition is concerned, the problem is that a rigorous application of it would classify everything as a cutscene, since every moment of a game between button presses is, strictly speaking, "non-interactive".

icycalm launches the best videogame-related podcast ever, exclusively on Patreon.

But it is important to realize that to ask for realism from art, when the entire point of it is illusion, is a deeply anti-artistic demand.

What my readers probably don't know is that I am not a fan of REAL retro games either, and what I'll do now is try to explain why.

So it's time to make it official: I have started a dev studio, and we're already working on our first two games (simultaneously, in different genres).

I mean, does anyone honestly think that the people who made Spacewar had Mushihime-sama in mind, instead of science fiction novels and movies?

Understand that there's nothing particularly special about a VR headset compared to a monitor or TV or projector, IT'S JUST A FUCKING DISPLAY YOU STUPID FUCKING MONKEYS.

See how simple the analysis is if you know what you are talking about? I just reviewed all electronic card games ever in a couple of sentences.

icycalm explains, exclusively on Patreon, the correct way to think about gaming backlogs, and how to clear them within days, if not indeed instantaneously.

Have you noticed that, through the entire history of videogames, the best games also tend to have the best graphics? icycalm explains why, among many other things, exclusively on Patreon.

icycalm explains, exclusively on Patreon, why the charge of "toxicity" in games boils down to nothing less than an attack on masculinity itself.

icycalm explains why science fiction is the ultimate videogame theme, and much more, exclusively on Patreon.

icycalm explains, exclusively on Patreon, why there is never any reason to use the word "accessibility" in connection with videogames.

Valve's efforts to improve their curation algorithms are failing, and no one knows why. icycalm explains all, exclusively on Patreon.

After 46 years, the console wars are over, and the winner is not who you think it is. icycalm explains all, exclusively on Patreon.

The readers then (yes most of you who are reading this right now) are just as guilty for the state the games press is in as anybody else.

At the bottom end of aesthetic complexity mechanics dominate quite simply because... we are the bottom end of aesthetic complexity, and there aren't enough aesthetic elements to dominate, duh!

Let's begin with the arcade territory. Let's finish: it's dead.

Desperate to find something, anything, to make themselves feel superior for not playing and enjoying a Call of Duty game, the “enlightened” gaming community at large goes through these games with a fine-toothed comb, until they can finally find something to either laugh at or condemn. Preferably both.

Go ahead, bring Nintendo down. If they wanted to stay in the race they should not have released a machine that's so weak it can be emulated on a toaster 48 hours after release.

It's curious how in the Occident the absurd theory that a videogame system is more important than the very videogames it runs has taken root.

But think of that moment, or virtually any hype moment in the game, and change your perspective from that of a spectator to that of a player. Do you really think having your super parried is hype, when it happens to you?

And then it finally happens, in a game with some nervous kid lashing out just because the start didn't go perfectly well, though we have ample chance to turn it around, I can't take it anymore, and I finally say something that starts with "fuck you idiot cunt".

What, a priori, sounded so promising to some, is turning, as they're leaking graphic material, into a new yankee absurdity.

This, if you ask me, summarizes the conundrum 3D fighters face today: they have played it safe for too long and it has caught up to them in a way that makes them an endangered species.

That Street Fighter abjures itself, its name, is not something that I say. Ono himself wanted to make quite clear — in more than one of those interviews for the North American media — that the saga had reached what — for him — was a dead-end.

The problem, ultimately, with sports games is that the theme is SET IN STONE and cannot under any circumstances be touched or fucked around with, otherwise your game will simply no longer be a sports game.

So shelve your Illuminati conspiracies, the reality is much more mundane and far less sinister than that.

Why you should never play a GTA with the mini-map on again.

Insomnia now has a Twitter feed serving sounds that bite from the world's leading videogame criticism and theory publication.

The highest level of immersion in art can indeed only be achieved when the player is motionless. So motion controls are by definition a dead-end, as it says in the title of the essay you've been reading.

In videogames, then, we want to AMPLIFY movement — that is our goal here. So that if I move my finger, Marcus Fenix cuts a Locust in half. We don't want to do the OPPOSITE, which is cut something in half in real life so that a few pixels on a screen will change color. How can you not see that that would be RETARDED?

As the completion of Alex Kierkegaard's Videogame Culture essays draws near, and the End of Videogame and Art Theory approaches, Insomnia inaugurates a space dedicated to those seeking answers to their remaining questions and clarifications.

What's extremely interesting, however... is that it's easier to believe in the reality of what your TV is showing, than in that of your computer game, even though the latter is, undoubtedly, a far more immersive medium than the former.

Because it's time we understood that emotions triggered by videogames can be so powerful that they become DANGEROUS to the person who's experiencing them.

Life is impoverished, it loses in interest, when the highest stake in the game of living, life itself, may not be risked.

Sony knows you're losers. Microsoft knows. That's why they offer you wine coolers and women dressed like Lara Croft. Because you're fucking dorks.

Insomnia now has a Facebook page connecting the world's leading videogame criticism and theory publication with the world's leading hardcore gamers.

Wherein Planetary Annihilation's premier competitive event is compared with the one Alex Kierkegaard is designing, and some important insights into the nature of videogames and art are arrived at and examined.

In an astonishing turn of irony, Kickstarter has proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS ROUTINELY RISK FAR MORE AND INNOVATE IMMEASURABLY MORE THAN A RAGTAG RABBLE COMPOSED OF SICK, RESENTFUL COMMUNIST CHANDALAS.

Imagine the following: you're playing Hitman, you've got the sniper rifle, and you're heading to snipe the mark before he gets into his limo, when you realise the clocktower doesn't have wheelchair access.

Play games with me if you want, or don't. Either way, I am on a mission here, and I am not willing to jeopardize it in order to protect anyone's fragile feelings.

It all boils down to one reason: democracy.

Changing the aesthetics does not change the "Politically Incorrect" mechanics. It doesn't matter how many niggers you slap in World of Warcraft, it'll never be Utopia.

Because functional autonomy is put before ergonomics; ease of use, before experience; the Machine, before the Game.

Jaffe doesn't get it, and this affliction runs deep for many developers (and devoted fans): reviews aren't objective. The single criterion upon which a game is to be judged is whether or not the judge likes it. End of story.

In short, there is no longer the hardcore game to attract the hardcore gamer; good games are usually popular now, and popular games are usually good.

And that's why Nintendo has become irrelevant today. NOT because they fell out of the hardware race, but because they fell out of the ARTISTIC one...

Once per cycle, internet nerds feel they have enough audience to declare themselves "done" with gaming, or "done" with a company, or some other bold, yet inconsequential, proclamation.

Alex Kierkegaard explains why Roosh's new gaming site will in the long run prove worthless, but why you should support it nevertheless.

And the bottom line of this essay and of our theory of videogames with regards to these categories of games and methods of playing games is that we are interested in neither META- nor MINI-gaming, we are interested in GAMING, and all the rest are for fagets.

Alex Kierkegaard delivers the first and last word you'll ever need to hear on this sorry (non-)issue.

The Wii accumulated the absolute worst library of any major videogame console in history. It demonstrably, empirically has the most wretched, unplayable, unwanted, unsold roster of bargain bin fodder ever to be compiled for a major home game system.

That people are extremely timid.

And in all seriousness, the question must be asked — for it is time we asked it — that if these creatures reject some of mankind's greatest achievements, the hopes and dreams that it is precisely art's purpose to represent and glorify — if they reject mankind's dreams — in what way exactly, can they be said to be human?

Your game criticism is extraordinary and (assuming the videogame industry does not destroy itself) will no doubt go down in history as the only thing worth reading.

The so-called "metagame", as referred to by "competitive" gamers (which is to say by aspies), is merely a form of cheating. It consists of trawling FAQs, message boards and YouTube channels to learn of strategies which you are supposed to be DEVISING ON YOUR OWN BY PLAYING THE ACTUAL GAME.

The issue therefore is not so much that videogames are art, but that ART IS VIDEOGAMES. Hahahaha. Ebert must be turning furiously in his grave right about now. But, thankfully for us, no amount of turning in a grave can change reality.

It's a good thing therefore that the future envisioned by Johnson, wherein every critic has been replaced by "FAQ writers and Let's Players" (p.7) who lack all courage for even the simplest "Yes" or "No", is an impossibility...

And he wants YOU to join him.

Once this is tight, and you also have your head in the "sweetspot" for your screen size and FoV (field-of-view in the game), you can't even call it aiming anymore: you're simply looking at things ... and then shooting.

As of today, all of Insomnia's philosophy-related content and discussion has been moved to orgyofthewill.net, making this new website the world's number 1 philosophy destination — while Insomnia continues to reign supreme in the world of videogames and videogame culture.

The best selection is the cinematic scene, the musical note, the splotch of paint, the game mechanic or the written sentence that, out of all the other theoretically possible scenes, notes, splotches, mechanics or sentences "fits" the best. If that happens to be a still-shot of a character thinking, so be it.

The key difference between realism and internal consistency is this: Realism means "Could this happen in our world?" Internal consistency means "Could this happen in their world?"

The so-called metagame is anathema to videogames, but before you can be brought to understand this you must first understand the metagame's allure and the rationale for its creation. And no one explains it better than Michael Soracoe in this article.

Seven reasons why, when a publisher decides not to localize a game, it's usually a good idea, regardless of what the often irrational and, let's face it, practically braindead fanbase might say.

We ask for games with interesting and meaningful consequences. We ask for games to explore every subject, to leave no taboo uncovered. And yet, despite all the things games can say these days, there are two words few people will let them say.

Urgent notice to regular forum users: Start contributing news now, or lose your Insomnia account forever.

"Only the skilled may live — the rest will die"

As part of preparation for a new year every serious newsoutlet and video game website had best of 2011 lists. It is not only entertaining but IMPORTANT to remember the past. A philosophy major life icycalm should know the value of metal gear solid: rememberincing (haha videogame joke).

... with your videogame.

If games had a finality, the only true player would be the cheater.

Everyone knows Konami, as long as we keep it on the console side. You immediately think of the Belmont clan, Solid Snake, the Snatchers, and tons of other games which are cool and whatnot. But not arcade games.

I'm not a holocaust denier myself. I think it's half-real. The camps are real, it's just a fictional world where there were gas chambers overlaid on top of that. We interact with this fictional world through the real rules relating to holocaust denial. See the writings of Jesper Juul as background reading.

But what is most offensive about all this fucking dribble is not really the IGNORANCE or the IDIOCY, but the SMARMISHNESS, the SELF-CONFIDENCE and the POMPOUSNESS with which the little subhuman prick tries to pass off his randomly stuck together junk-knowledge as profundity.

But while having superior execution often is enough to win, it alone doesn't make an expert on the game any more than winning a fist fight by being physically superior makes someone an expert on boxing. Freddie Roach isn't a reigning world champion, but he is an expert on boxing.

There has long been a need for a place where people can discuss Insomnia's views without fear of shunning/locking/banning, and this need was clearly not being fulfilled by Insomnia's own forums (and with good reason), and certainly not by anyone else's.

The Frat Boy loves podcasts, because they allow him an opportunity to sit around with his like-minded coworkers/frat bros and be obnoxious jerks on the company dime. "I'm not being a drunken idiot! I'm generating dynamic multimedia online content!"

Your profits, business jargon, and pretentious accolades are beneath the artform. They're most certainly beneath this site. Your game prints money? So what. Your game got press in Forbes? Eat a sack of dirt. Your game was recognized by the pitchfork rejects/new games journalists as "art 4 realz?" This is us not giving a shit.

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