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The Politics of Play: Examining Take Us North
There is a difference between watching someone cross a border and being asked to lead them across. When a game hands you control and when progress depends on your choices, that distinction begins to blur. Even if it is only a collection of pixels on a screen, the decision feels personal. You are no longer…
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Video Games and the Psychology of Pain
Unlike other narrative forms, video games allow players to explore deep, unsettling, and confrontational themes interactively, while maintaining the comfort that comes from viewing events through a screen. They let us live in someone else’s shoes without fully surrendering ourselves to their experiences – a crucial distinction when those experiences involve pain, trauma, or mental…
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2025: The Year of Unapologetic Gaming
In 2024, Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke took to the stage and delivered an iconic speech – one that practically called out the entire video game industry for its shortcomings: corner-cutting, creative compromise, and crunch culture. He proclaimed that he would not only be the first person to know who would win Game of the…
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Silent Hill f: Review
Silent Hill f abandons the familiar American backdrop for the 1960s Japanese fictional town of Ebisugaoka. The corrugated iron rooftops and narrow, winding streets form the stage for otherworldly entities intent on tearing you limb from limb. It’s a thematically perfect setting for the Silent Hill premise – a place where post-war cultural changes clash…
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When Games Forget How to End
TLDR: Live-service games promise ever-evolving worlds with endless content. But the longer they go, the harder it becomes to stay invested. Nobody wants a great game to end — but knowing that it will makes the experience all the more meaningful. A Short Hike (Adam Robinson-Yu) is one of my favourite games of recent years.…
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Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo – Review
Playing Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo on the Steam Deck feels like the closest approximation to playing on the Game Boy Advance as a child — albeit with a glossy sheen thanks to the Deck’s OLED display and superior fidelity. Despite its firm early 21st-century inspirations, it manages to feel modern, with a polished combat…
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Edge of Fate: Review
I can still remember my excitement, on the 9th of September 2014, when I queued up to log in to Destiny for the very first time. I sat impatiently, listening to the iconic loading screen music. Looking back now, the state of Destiny 1 at launch was dire, but the prospect of its sci-fi fantasy…
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Doom: The Dark Ages: Review
Amongst the wreckage and labyrinthine halls of a burning medieval city, there is a small metal drop pod housing a powerful weapon: the power gauntlet. A weapon that id Software has designed to display the unbridled power of the Doomslayer. At the click of a button, you can turn demons to nothing but blood and…
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Late to the Party: A Short Hike
The past month has been packed. A heavy workload, train journey after train journey travelling to the farthest reaches of the country, and to top it all off, a frightening abundance of family health crises to attend to. Nothing life threatening (thankfully), but significant enough that my precious time has been spread very thin. Keeping…
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How a Game Changed My Views On Life
Outer Wilds took exactly 22-minutes to change my views on life. If you have not played Outer Wilds, DO NOT READ THIS. SPOILERS AHEAD I am not easily scared. I’ve never feared spiders, snakes, heights, or anything else really. But I have always been deeply terrified of death. I don’t know what happens when we…
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Gaming Acuity 