Games

A Communique from République

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I can’t quite remember when I started following Paul Alexander on Twitter – probably some time during the early development of République, the newly launched stealth game by Camouflaj, the independent studio formed by Metal Gear vet Ryan Payton. I probably pressed follow and forgot, but over the last year or so, I’ve found myself to be somewhat simpatico, for lack of a better word, with the young designer. So when Alexander queried me about an interview (wait, is that how it’s supposed to work?) I didn’t think twice. I knew he’d be somebody I enjoyed talking to about games, art and ambitions. I hope you enjoy reading our chat and are inspired to

Gaming While the Baby isn’t Looking

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Last week, the Los Angeles Times informed me that I am weird. This, I already knew, but it is nice to see the confirmation in print. It turns out that only 1% of married couples with children of a certain age include a stay-at-home dad. Since this March (more or less), I have been one of that particular one percent. I wrote a little bit about what it’s like to be my particular flavor of new parent before. It involved much moaning and wailing about finding time to play videogames. I can report that a couple of months on, things

Best Games of 2013

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How do you compare Grand Theft Auto V with Papers, Please? Or Assassin’s Creed IV with Gone Home? These are the kinds of questions that have defined 2013. In the year after small studio games dominated the conversation, we’ve not entered the Indie Promised Land. Instead, we found ourselves in a strange landscape, of new consoles no one cares about, of endless debates, of thoughtful AAA games and ephemeral indies. We spent several annoying months hearing people ask, “Is this even a game?” This is all good news. The binaries – indie vs AAA, formalist vs zinester, LOL vs Dota