Games
Let’s Play at the Movies
“I feel like a kid running away from his first molestation at Boy Scout camp.” That did it. I cringe back into my theater seat, feeling a patina of filth gather on the back of my throat. It’s done. It’s over. It was a nice try, but Let’s Plays have just lost what good will they could muster with the cinephile crowd. [pullquote]When we commit ourselves to showing this one narrow slice of Let’s Plays made of molestation jokes and volunteer sales pitches […] we’re doing a disservice to a lot of creative people behind many, many screens.[/pullquote] It’s been
Notes on Luftrausers
The following is a reprint from Unwinnable Weekly Issue Two. If you enjoy what you read, please consider purchasing the issue or subscribing for the year. 1. In 2010, game critic and developer Tim Rogers wrote a review of the PlayStation 2 beat-em-up title God Hand. “God Hand is like being a professional chainsaw-wielding glacier demolisher at a party where the penguins are going to need a lot of ice cubes,” Rogers writes in the first paragraph. “Though God Hand is usually like poking holes in a watermelon with a chopstick for the best reasons… [it] is sometimes like using a pizza cutter to
Let’s Talk about Mental Health
There’s been increasing talk about mental health among the gaming community lately. And I’m not talking about people outside the community blaming violent videogames for all the bad things that happen in the world. Rather, I’m referring to actual discussions among gamers about how things like depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses affect their daily lives. As the conversation grows and the topic becomes less of a taboo, more people are revealing that they have experienced mental health issues during at least one point in their lives. All of this is culminating into something I’ve been saying all along: almost
Dinner Gear
“I need to tell you something” says David, pulling me aside as I move to leave the bar. “A way by force.” “What?” I ask. “A way by force,” he repeats, spoken with a hint of the dry bark of the iconic character he voices in one of gaming’s most popular series. “It’s our family motto. We’re probably related, so I want you to know it.” In the dim, boozy light of this comedy club basement, I half-imagine seeing an eye patch-shaped shadow strewn across half his face. He is, after all, David Hayter – the voice of Solid Snake,
Hulk Loves Fabio
During the delirious early morning hours of our second Kickstarter telethon, Stu Horvath, speaking to no one in particular, announced, “The funny thing about Wizards & Warriors II: Iron Sword is that Fabio is on the cover.” Everyone on the stream – Unwinnable editor-at-large Charles Moran, Unwinnable contributor Matt Duhamel and game designers Teddy Diefenbach and Nina Freeman – suddenly had a joke to make. One joke was particularly portentous: someone compared Fabio’s barbarian girdle to a wrestling belt. It was the birth of a Twine game. Teddy quickly created an open design doc and a rough plot followed suit. What
Killing the Worm
It happened beneath a castle. Dozens of miles underground, sheltered from the wintry wastes of the forgotten surface, in the world of Arx Fatalis. Sprinting past humanoid rats stabbing at me with rusted knives, I make my way through dark tunnels encrusted with car-sized Venus flytraps and hanging cocoons pregnant with God-knows-what. I light a torch, checking my paper map to note that I’ve entered a maze of narrow tunnels, pitch with darkness and inebriating in déjà vu. Ahead of me, a shaft narrows and turns from black to red. A slick wallpaper of human organs cakes the entrance, wet
Unwinnable Island
There isn’t always a lighthouse… In a recent Team Unwinnable survey, members were asked to rank, in order of importance, four of our ongoing construction projects: digital distribution pipelines, members only forum, an official store and our fortress on Unwinnable Island. That last one was a joke. We don’t have a plan to build a secret island headquarters. We don’t even own an island (or do we?). Of course, the good people of Team Unwinnable voted overwhelmingly for Unwinnable Island to be our first priority. We hate to disappoint, so Matt Duhamel volunteered to create Unwinnable Island from scratch in
The Year of LEGO
A lack of structure can inspire collapse. In LEGO terms, a lack of structure can simply inspire. Structure has its place, but so does allowing place for organic, unregulated activity. Because without structure, LEGO flourishes – or rather, its manipulators do. It’s better to put off a framework to make such allowances, lest it temper budding imaginings. For in that open state is pure whimsy – you’re free to invent and modify, unhampered by overhead demands and stringent guidelines. As you come to see things in full view, then comes the opportunity to become part of a focused effort. Only
Thank You
I don’t know if you heard, but we’ve been working on this Kickstarter thing and it got funded yesterday afternoon. We are currently celebrating, sleeping and celebrating sleep – something we’ve not had a lot of recently – but we will be back next week with the great stories you’ve come to expect. I formally thanked the Internet on Wednesday when we raised our goal, and I reprinted it yesterday when the campaign closed. That stands as a good representation of how I feel about the Kickstarter and its success, but I wanted to take this opportunity to thank some
Five Life Lessons from Twitch Plays Pokémon
Playing Twitch Plays Pokémon isn’t exactly fun. It’s exasperating. It’s boring. It’s spectacularly repetitive. Participating for a few days – or even a few minutes – is enough to make you want to punch a Caterpie. That’s because in Twitch Plays Pokémon, simple tasks become grueling challenges. You know exactly what to do, but still you go backwards. You walk in circles. You get stuck – sometimes for days. Thousands of people worked in unison to play Twitch Plays Pokémon, which let viewers participate in a game of Pokémon Red – the original role-playing classic for Nintendo’s Game Boy –
Why Garrus is the Real Hero of Mass Effect
Garrus Vakarian is the Mass Effect series. All right, that’s a strong statement, and obviously not literal. So to put it another way: more than any single component of Mass Effect, Garrus embodies the tone, theme and characterization of the series. Garrus is one of two characters who’s a full party member in all three Mass Effect games, alongside Tali. (Unless, of course, you let him die in Mass Effect 2 and import that save into Mass Effect 3. It’s also apparently possible to reject him if you time things right in Mass Effect 1, but I’ve never even seen
Joy of a Toy
I was a clumsy kid. I was such a klutz – a total failure at sports, P.E. and general moving around the place – that my mother sought professional help for me. We lived in North Carolina at the time – it was around ‘82 – so I was 10. I remember driving to an unfamiliar part of Charlotte. A university campus? Or maybe some collection of government buildings? We went into a small medical office where I was subjected to a barrage of physical tests. My mother got a binder full of results. And I got a new after-school
Toys For Kids
Recently I was cleaning my room and I came across a box that I haven’t unpacked since my move last July. In it were random odds and ends and some toys that decorated my last apartment. One of these toys was my ED-209 from 1989, a toy made by Kenner that was based on the cartoon that was based on the original Robocop movie.
The Descent to Silent Hill
The world of Silent Hill 2 is defined by James Sunderland. He’s fixated on sex, so he is attacked by fetish nurses. His search for his dead wife is all he has to live for, so the roads out of town have collapsed, blocking him inside, giving him purpose. The player is party to his subjective vision: He sees what James sees. If James’s character is reluctant to abandon his search and return home, then the player is made to feel that, too.