Stalingrad was Call of Duty’s Perfect Moment By Matthew Byrd • May 11th, 2017 It’s always strange to praise such things, but the brilliance of Call of Duty’s take on the Battle of Stalingrad is that it felt decidedly unlike a video game.
The Case For Style as Substance By Matthew Byrd • April 13th, 2017 In Persona 5, even doing your laundry is accompanied by unique melodies and outrageous animations not found anywhere else in the game.
The Joy of Justified Nostalgia By Matthew Byrd • April 6th, 2017 “He was suggesting that I only consider Earthbound to be my favorite game because I choose to remember it as such.”
In PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS, Winning is Refreshingly Irrelevant By Matthew Byrd • March 30th, 2017 “BATTLEGROUNDS treats unwinnable scenarios as part of the experience.”
My Three Year Quest to Suffer Through L.A. Noire By Matthew Byrd • March 23rd, 2017 What makes L.A. Noire so frustrating is that it seems to resent the things that make it great and love the things that it simply can not do.
How Organic Shopping Lists Can Save Open World Gaming By Matthew Byrd • March 16th, 2017 “If there’s a griffin to be killed, let me overhear a conversation about it and make my own decisions.”
Let Me Make Mistakes: A Plea to Developers By Matthew Byrd • March 9th, 2017 If the medium is going to mature, we need developers willing to make players feel dumb, allowing them the chance to figure things out via trial and error.
When “I’m Not Good At This Game” Becomes “I Hate This Game” By Matthew Byrd • March 2nd, 2017 “It soon became clear that I lacked whatever part of the human brain that makes someone naturally good at RTS games.”
Nioh Exposes the Lazy Culture of Video Game Genres By Matthew Byrd • February 23rd, 2017 Action RPG sounds like a good classification for Nioh until you realize that label is also applied to titles like Diablo III,Borderlands and Fallout 3.
When Escaping Beats Confronting By Matthew Byrd • February 9th, 2017 “When Resident Evil 7 is at its best, it isn’t asking you to fight. It’s asking you to escape.”
Cheating My Way to the Super Bowl: The Joy of Exploiting Sports Games By Matthew Byrd • February 2nd, 2017 Sports games may present themselves as simulators for super fans, but that’s why breaking them is so much fun.
Resident Evil 7’s Greatest Influence Is a Forgotten Horror Classic By Matthew Byrd • January 26th, 2017 “The only rental left was some game called Condemned: Criminal Origins. Reluctantly, I took it to the checkout counter.”
I Am Tank: A Tribute to Gaming’s Great Bruisers By Matthew Byrd • January 19th, 2017 “I can’t help but feel that it’s hard for video game tanks to get a little love…”
My Abusive Relationship With The Witness By Matthew Byrd • January 12th, 2017 Puzzles in The Witness are designed to break you. They’re similar to a Dark Souls‘ boss fight in that way.
Why Do Simulators Turn Us Into Sociopaths? By Matthew Byrd • January 5th, 2017 “It seems that everyone has at least one story about that time they went a little mad in a simulator game.”
The Best Game Released This Year Is One You Haven’t Played Yet By Matthew Byrd • December 22nd, 2016 “Look within yourself and identify what kind of gamer you really are. What kind of titles do you truly care about?”
A Digital Home For The Holidays By Matthew Byrd • December 15th, 2016 “What I wanted was a place where I could bask in the spirit of the season without feeling like a complete outsider.”
The Cinematography of Horror Games By Matthew Byrd • November 17th, 2016 “The fact that no one clear camera solution exists means that the horror genre serves as a playground for video game cinematography.”
Why the Videogame Western is s One Horse Town By Matthew Byrd • November 3rd, 2016 How the West was won by Red Dead Redemption.
Mafia III and The Difficulty Of The Videogame Mixtape By Matthew Byrd • October 14th, 2016 Effectively using music in videogames is a completely different beast from nailing a music in a film.
Battlerite Isn’t a Ripoff, It’s Revitalization By Matthew Byrd • October 6th, 2016 The line between derivative and iteration is sketched with quality and self awareness.
The Slow Rise Of The Video Game Slasher By Matthew Byrd • September 29th, 2016 You would never guess that it would take a little maturation for the slasher genre to come back.
Rive: A Clash of Intent and Execution By Matthew Byrd • September 23rd, 2016 Rive is a pupil dilating, breathless shooter that delivers the gratification, but suffers from a lack of identity.
The Perfect Star Trek Experience, Gaming’s Final Frontier By Matthew Byrd • September 14th, 2016 All you can do is dream of a uniquely fantastic experience. Something uniquely Star Trek.
A Pen In The Dark: The Case For Text Adventure Horror Games By Matthew Byrd • September 1st, 2016 A lot of horror hounds have maintained that your imagination is scarier than what you see, so let’s jumpstart text adventure horror!
Find Your Own Gaming Zen Garden By Matthew Byrd • August 29th, 2016 There’s more to playing games than winning. Sometimes there’s even more to it than being stimulated. Just relax and be at peace.
The Maturity In Video Game Absurdity By Matthew Byrd • August 22nd, 2016 Games are growing up, and they’re learning it’s okay to poke fun at yourself.
The Blunt Force of Addiction By Matthew Byrd • August 9th, 2016 When you’ re addicted, your life becomes a series of cliches.