Unwinnable

A screenshot from the World Tour mode of Street Fighter 6 featuring a pier stage with two sailors in uniform fighting being cheered on by other sailors and villains with a backdrop of balloons and boats and skyscrapers

All The World’s A (Fighting) Stage

By Alex J. Tunney • August 30th, 2024

What is novel to me is how these concepts help to add additional context to the stages and how it provides a new way to interact with the world of Street Fighter.

Run It Back

A still from Top of the Heap shows a man standing in front of an American flag stitched with a small jolly roger on the front.

1972

By Oluwatayo Adewole • August 30th, 2024

“Filth is my politics” isn’t just a catchy slogan. It’s a recognition that there is no version of us that will be accepted by a moralist fascist society.

Noise Complaint

Inter Arma, most members long-haired and scruffy, lean against a concrete wall looking like a bunch of cool guys.

Exploring New Heaven with Inter Arma

By Ben Sailer • August 29th, 2024

Richmond-based metal five-piece Inter Arma have long charted their own path between metal sub-genres. On their sixth record New Heaven, they may have transcended simple categorization altogether, and are much more interesting as a result.

a screenshot from Hi Fi Rush featuring a vista of a colorful futuristic city with a frozen peak and two V towers, while a young man in a yellow jacket and red scarf flies above it all

Performing Through Failure to Hit that Hi-Fi Rush

By Fred Banks • August 28th, 2024

There is a performance to games, from reaching an in-game objective, or literally a developer-created achievement as an extra bonus for a particular feat or choice in a game.

a screenshot from the trailer of Cuckoo with a woman in a blue jacket reflected in a window where someone in a red dress, a guy with a fancy watch and stubble, and a cowboy dad with a fist in the air look on

The Cuckoo’s Egg: Chimeras and Changelings in Cuckoo (2024) and Longlegs (2024)

By Orrin Grey • August 26th, 2024

Perhaps there’s something going on here; a thematic resonance, a moment in the zeitgeist, that will be teased out with the passage of time, subsequent viewings, and the work of other scholars.