Category: Bloodlines

Bloodlines

Suspending the Drop

By David Shimomura • July 6th, 2020

Let the beat build and build forever.

Bloodlines

A Long Time Ago: A Star Wars Story

By David Shimomura • June 29th, 2020

Being a lightsaber duelist isn’t like riding a bike.

Bloodlines

The Long, Slow Process of Animal Crossing

By David Shimomura • June 22nd, 2020

Plodding on and on.

Bloodlines

Plucking at the Web

By David Shimomura • June 15th, 2020

Break out the cork board and red string in A Hand With Many Fingers.

Bloodlines

We’re Not Alone in the Shadows

By David Shimomura • June 8th, 2020

Horror director David Sandberg returns to his short film roots to tap pandemic anxieties.

Bloodlines

Corona Standard Time

By David Shimomura • June 1st, 2020

Time isn’t even a flat circle anymore.

Bloodlines

Evil Genius is a Rotting Colossus

By David Shimomura • May 25th, 2020

Let old things die, kill them if you have to.

Loading the Potato: A Song of Doom, Eternal

By David Shimomura • March 31st, 2020

Certainly, Doom Eternal is bigger, louder, badder and more filled with gore than its predecessor.

Pets Feature

Responsible Petting

By David Shimomura • May 30th, 2019

What could be stressful about running a Twitter account about petting virtual dogs? A lot, apparently.

Two African American women with weapons, between them in the distance is a guy crucified on a dead car.

Far Cry: New Dawn’s Only Compelling Feature is Blowing Things Up with Stu

By David Shimomura • March 6th, 2019

None of Far Cry: New Dawn feels like it’s meant to be experienced with another person. It’s especially not meant to be experienced with someone who is a decidedly chaotic force such as myself.

The Might of Keiki Kobayashi’s Ace Combat 7 Soundtrack

By David Shimomura • February 19th, 2019

Keiki Kobayashi might not be Hans Zimmer but in terms of effect achieved he’s damn close.

The Bleeps and Bloops of Destiny are Necessary Worldbuilding

By David Shimomura • February 12th, 2019

With everything going on in Destiny and its DLC and successors you’d think that the small, repetitive sounds that eventually become background noise as you’re playing would be easily forgotten.

The Stoic Beauty of Matching Three Things

By David Shimomura • January 29th, 2019

Now, it’s Cartoon Network Match Land helping me fill the minutes.

See it from the Couch

By David Shimomura • January 15th, 2019

I think there’s value in public experiences. But I also think we should acknowledge the power of choosing to engage completely on our terms.

A Gift From the Algorithm: Crokinole

By David Shimomura • December 18th, 2018

Trying to understand why any particular video on YouTube gets recommended to any particular person is probably as easy to do as land a spaceship on the moon.

Find Your Sheet Cake

By David Shimomura • December 11th, 2018

Red Dead Redemption 2 asks too much.

The Lost Magic of Disney’s Animation

By David Shimomura • December 4th, 2018

Disney is remaking Aladdin and The Lion King in CGI. It is a terrible mistake.

Lore’d of the Rings: The Horror of Knowledge

By David Shimomura • November 27th, 2018

They say knowledge is power, but sometimes it is just isolating.

Robbing Banks Like We Never Stopped

By David Shimomura • November 19th, 2018

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” -Heroclitus

On “Pooping Themselves with Anger”

By David Shimomura • November 13th, 2018

It isn’t always about you. And that’s OK.

American Vandal Season Two: The Kids Aren’t Alright

By David Shimomura • November 6th, 2018

American Vandal Season Two tackles both turd and teen vulnerability.

Exploits Feature

The Draw of “Live”

By David Shimomura • November 1st, 2018

Despite access to all the content in the world via broadband streaming, live performance will never lose its allure.

Halloween 2018 is an Unwelcome Trip Down Memory Lane

By David Shimomura • October 30th, 2018

We’re stuck with a sequel with a 40-year time gap where mostly the same thing happens, except one of the characters is old and paranoid.

Unwinnable Week 3 Horror Movies!

By David Shimomura • October 20th, 2018

Is it still October? Then Unwinnable still has horror movie recs for y’all.

Nukes Are Bad

By David Shimomura • October 16th, 2018

Nuclear weapons are terrifying. Videogames would do well to remember that.

[Yells in Foreign Language]

By David Shimomura • October 10th, 2018

The Yakuza series doesn’t offer an English dub for its dialogue. That’s a good thing.

The Uncomfortable Thoughtlessness of Spider-Man

By David Shimomura • October 2nd, 2018

Spider-Man works hard to portray Peter as a guy good, but it fails to find nuance in incarcerated populations, foreigners and the ecosystem of New York itself.

in gentle line art there is a tiny grandma standing exuberantly on top of a table her arms upstretched

The Amazing Wholesomeness of Being a Grandma

By David Shimomura • September 25th, 2018

Hungry Hearts Dinner is simply a very, very well-made game that does a fair amount of tugging at even the coldest heart strings.

a mothra with wings out spread in the blue gloom

The New Godzilla Trailer is Awesome and Sublime

By David Shimomura • August 21st, 2018

Together, “awe” and the “sublime” remind us of the feeling of being small before something greater than ourselves.

Maika Monroe, casting a look over her shoulder, while a large glowing diamond hovers above her hand.

Tau is Mindbogglingly Bland

By David Shimomura • August 14th, 2018

Tau is about a woman slowly teach an AI about music, art, and history as she tried to escape from the clutches of an emotionally vacant murderer.

War on Words: Mobile v. Handheld

By David Shimomura • July 17th, 2018

It’s why the recent trend to enforce the artificial barrier between “mobile” and “handheld” is so tenuous and dangerous.

The Finest Show on the Air is the World Cup

By David Shimomura • July 12th, 2018

I love sports. I own jerseys, go to games, and desperately seek attention from the other writers at Unwinnable despite their annoyed yawns and fart noises.

Feature Excerpt

The Mass Effect Issue: At All Costs

By David Shimomura • June 6th, 2018

Humanity never needed Cerberus.

The Meaninglessness of Maturity in God of War

By David Shimomura • May 2nd, 2018

While the game tries to tell us of heroes come and gone who made war by making peace, we can never do this. It’s good to kill a demon, an escapee from the underworld, a monster. They have no agency and thus we can never reason with them. We can only bring reason to them at the edge of axe.