Best Games of 2013

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

Enabling the Cause of Accessibility

Mike “Broly” Begum is one of the best competitive fighting game players in Texas. In 2010, he ascended the competitive Super Street Fighter IV circuit to become a major state contender, while simultaneously achieving the distinction of being Texas’s number 5-ranked Super Smash Bros. Melee player. While accomplishing either of these feats is impressive, and accomplishing both simultaneously is even more so, perhaps most impressive is that Begum, at least ostensibly, would appear to be one of the least likely fighting game champions around.

Pick Up Anything of Use

THE ADVENTURE GAME IS NO LONGER RELEVANT, they scream, eyes flecked with the righteousness of the lifelong gamesman. THE CONTROL METHOD IS FRUSTRATING, the INPUTS UNSATISFYING. What are these, PUZZLES?! Oh, DECISIONS?! Where is the smoothness of play? The feeling of control? Why is it that we must combine this and that to make a conversation come to life? Why must I stumble from screen to screen like this? I am the hero. Why is everything so difficult? Everything in it is difficult they say. Everything in it  is difficult.

Pretension +1: Indie Gaming Console Launches to Minimal Fanfare

BROOKLYN, NEW YORK – A loose-knit collection of programmers, anarchists and baristas launched an indie gaming console to little or no fanfare Thursday. The collective chose not to give the gaming device a name, a standard set of specifications or even a price point. “We’re trying to avoid the whole gaming hype train,” said hacker/forestry science major Arturo Gutierrez. “I mean, when I think of a brand, I think of cowboys searing the flesh of innocent cows. This isn’t about cattle capitalism.”