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.”