Want to enjoy more video games? I have a trick! Stop fretting over whether a game is good or bad, and start looking for little, unusual details.
For example, when Mario completes a stage by leaping onto a flagpole, and in the sky, just beside the castle, fireworks begin to bloom. These explosions (which feel random, but are actually determined by the game’s countdown timer) are easy to overlook if you’re hurrying from one level to the next.
But great criticism reminds us to slow down. To notice the details big and small. To ask why there are fireworks. Why sometimes do explosions fill the sky, and other times — in fact, most of the time — the sky remains empty and silent? How does that make us feel?
This is why I like to read and listen to great criticism. But it’s also why I like to think like a critic. A critical mind gives you a better appreciation of games, and also, just as importantly, life.
To help folks better appreciate games, to help y’all to really suck the marrow from their bones, I like to hand the microphone to great critics. Earlier this year, Harper Jay talked about why games criticism is a kindness, explaining how critics and designers influence one another with their work. But today, we’re focusing on how criticism helps us better understand our relationship with games, our friends and family, the world, and even our own unpredictable, always-aging bodies.
This Week on Post Games:
Act 1: A Game Review Is the Possible Impossible
Act 2: Written Reviews Aren’t Dead Just Yet
Act 3: Better Living Through Game Reviews
Patreon Bonus: How to Have Richer Conversations about Games
Guests:
Chris Donlan: critic, essayist, and author
Bonus episodes!
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Act 1: A Game Review Is the Possible Impossible
Edge Magazine (Wiki)
Edge (Retromags)
Guardian wins again at Games Media Awards (The Guardian)
The Games Journalism Prizes winners revealed (GamesIndustry.biz)
Mean Machines. The blueprint for video game magazines in the 90s (Forgotten Worlds)
Super Play: The Magazine That Inspired Millennial Love for the SNES and Everything Japanese (Postcards of Pop Culture)
Super Play magazine (Forgotten Worlds)
Super Player (Retromags)
The Very Best of Jonathan Gold (Eater)
Gen X Soft Club (Aesthetics Wiki)
Pattern Recognition By William Gibson (Penguin Random House)
Miami Vice (PSP) - Full Game Walkthrough (Willzyyy/YouTube)
Climbing games are hitting Peak virality - but this latest from an indie favourite is taking the genre in a thrilling new direction (Eurogamer)
Hooray for games that are hard to talk about (Eurogamer)
The Plausible Impossible (Disney+)
Act 2: Written Reviews Aren’t Dead Just Yet
THE END OF READING IS HERE (The Atlantic)
Rothko Chapel (rothkochapel.org)
Seagram Murals (Tate.org.uk)
Richfield Tower (Wiki)
The alphabet of months: a year of living with multiple sclerosis (The New Statesman)
Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole: A Renowned Neurologist Explains the Mystery and Drama of Brain Disease (Goodreads)
Game Informer Is Now Available At Newsstands In The U.S. And Around The World (Game Informer)
Act 3: Better Living Through Game Reviews
Laura Cumming (Wiki)
Peanuts (Peanuts.com)
Moby Dick (Project Gutenberg)
A Short Hike (AShortHike.com)
Grow Home (Steam)
Games are the most optimistic way I have found of looking at the world (Eurogamer)
Atomega (Steam)
Spelunky review (Polygon)
Spelunky 2 review (Polygon)
My main challenge with To a T was trying to work out what To a T actually is (Eurogamer)
The Archbishop’s Library (The New York Review)
Patreon Bonus: How to Have Richer Conversations about Games
Step 1. ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ are poles on a compass
Step 2. Be mindful of time distortion
Step 3. Be mindful of emotions
Step 4. Don’t forget it’s a game
Step 5. Describe the game only the way you can
This Week in Video Game Links
‘Who’s Deciding The Fate Of This Game?’ The Secretive Process Of Getting A Game With Sexual Content On Steam (Aftermath)
Kingdom Hearts: Normal Person Order (headfallsoff)
Papers, Please and the Reality of Being an American Tranny (Deleted Saves)
From “corny and hot” to “porn-y diversion”: How gamers think about sexually explicit content in modern games (Mothership)
I Tracked Down the Most Remote Gamer in the World (TWIVG)
My Highs And Lows As An Indie Game Reviewer (Pixel Byte)
Fan Translations Still Are Being Done The Hard Way (Aftermath)
Free Game of the Week: Sandcastle demo
From the Steam synopsis: “On a sun-warmed tropical shore, quietly craft a mighty sandcastle. Carve moats, raise towers and walls, then embellish with driftwood, pebbles, shells and seaweed. Gentle tides, soft surf and a calming color palette turn every build into a peaceful, relaxing moment. This is the demo for Sandcastle.” (Steam)
What Else I’m Enjoying
A Perfect Album for a Frustrating Decade (The Atlantic)
Phoebe Bridgers isn’t interested in the truth on her new album (Xtra Magazine)
Phoebe Bridgers’ Lost Weekend Is the Sound of Living Through This (The Last Mixed Tape/YouTube)
How to make a good Star Wars movie for once (Jamelle Bouie/YouTube)
Dead Country: An Ode to Karen Russell’s “Proving Up” (Darker Times)
punk this week podcast: sweeping promises + xray xeroxx (see/saw)