I had the pleasure of sitting down with film writer/director James Gunn, who now also steps into the world of videogame writing with his latest work on the hilarious and ridiculous Lollipop Chainsaw.

“Player creativity.” “Author of your own experience.” “Play the way you want.” Buzzwords and phrases like the above are kicked tossed out like candy. Games are hyped into the stratosphere by passing off the illusion of choice through a couple minor variations in approach or gameplay. It’s rare that any game obeys its hype, and even more atypical when choic...[Read More]

Don’t say the folks at Crytek aren’t ones to accept criticism. The original Crysis was lauded for its sandbox approach to first person shooter game design. It was much closer to Far Cry 2 than your typical directed FPS, but the sequel, Crysis 2, ditched that approach for a more linear experience. Plenty of choice still went in to your approach to its combat scenarios, but it was often ...[Read More]

Discovery is an aspect of games that seems to have been focus-grouped into oblivion. On the E3 show floor it’s nearly impossible to find a demo that doesn’t have instructions blasted all over the kiosk or boundless in-game prompts, both of which are fiendishly determined to sabotage any semblance of intuition or exploration. Exposition fits the paradigm for those particular games, but ...[Read More]

Dyad created a tractor beam to my brain. With about an hour before my next meeting, I found myself wandering aimlessly through Sony’s booth just looking to see what caught my eye. Tucked away in a corner with a couple other PlayStation Network games, an infectious onslaught of lights and colors appeared to be either an interactive kaleidoscope or a psychotropic illicit substance simulator &#...[Read More]

Here’s one Wii U game that everyone expected to see more of at the show this year, and it’s shaping up just as you’d expect. It’s pretty, easy to play, and lots of fun with four or five players.

Tank! Tank! Tank! was exactly what I needed. Every E3 I see and play somewhere between ten and three hundred first person shooters, most of which, despite a few individuals flourishes, boil down to Captain Army telling you where to go and who to shoot amidst a sea of grey and brown hues. They’re fun, usually, but they’re also homogenizing into an unrecognizable mélange of the same thin...[Read More]

Sweet.