Tidying Up with Chibi Robo Marie Kondo isn’t the first Japanese person to try get us to clean up our lives. Video games have been secretly (or blatantly) teaching us to stay tidy for years, and here’s the evidence. Harvest Moon Let’s begin at the beginning: you’ve just fired up Harvest Moon, hit ‘new game’,… Read More The video games that taught us to tidy up
Think fast. I can’t drive, I don’t own any racing games—with an obvious exception: it takes green dinosaurs and pink mushroom women to get me behind the wheel of a car—and the very concept of driving sections makes me nauseous. But then they had to go and set Forza Horizon 4 in the north… Read More Forza Horizon 4 and the Power of Positivity
Decisions, decisions. Who is Drake and why does whiskey signify his presence? Why in god’s name is summer ‘endless’? And what on earth is an ‘MC’ or an ‘LI’? Entering the ‘playchoices’ hashtag on Tumblr is like stumbling into a new group chat. Everyone is already friends, they speak exclusively using in-jokes, and even though… Read More Being in the Choices book club
Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, LGBT, start. When it comes to representing LGBT+ people, video games have an unusual advantage. In movies and TV, gay people are usually the sidekicks, who are often made sacrifices to the writers’ bloodlust, and whose stories most commonly focus on their coming out—which, though undoubtedly a… Read More In video games, being gay IS a choice (and that’s a good thing)
Her starring role! Update (23/8 21:10): Corrected D.Va’s mechanic’s name to Dae-hyun. This summer has led to a bit of a lore drought in the eyes of some Overwatch fans. Though the summer games brought some great new skins, and new hero Wrecking Ball finally came in like a—never mind—there has been little in the… Read More In D.Va’s new short, we finally meet Hana Song
Tall tails. Ōkami’s Switch debut is almost upon us—soon, we’ll be back in Nippon, surrounded by that wonderful cast of characters which I have previously mentioned (A.K.A. banged on about) in passing (i.e. for way too long). Oh, and Rao will be there. Rao has been something of an elephant—or giant fox demon—in the room… Read More Ōkami vs Reconciling Rao
You’ve got a friend in me. Who can forget the moment they first walked towards the Champion of Pokémon Red and Blue’s Indigo Plateau, and found it to be their childhood friend-turned-rival, Buttface? His ‘official’ name is Blue, but let’s be honest, none of us called him that. From the moment he counter-picked our starter… Read More Pokémon’s Fascination with Friendly Rivals
Who’s a Good Boy? As you may have already seen, I think the female characters in Ōkami are pretty excellent. They’re not on their own in that regard, however. Ōkami’s male characters are also a brilliant bunch—but not for the same reasons as their female peers. Whereas the ladies of Ōkami are praiseworthy for their… Read More Ōkami vs the Male Hero
A Link to the Past? Ruins are a bit of an anomaly in the philosophy of aesthetics. They begin as architecture, a form of art, and are appreciated as such. However, through the intervention of war or nature, they unintentionally become something else. Ruins are not art, nor are they nature. They are their own… Read More Breath of the Wild Perfectly Captures the Beauty of Ruins
Teach a Man to Fish The core pillars of the Animal Crossing experience are fish, bugs and fossils. They don’t sound fun in theory—in fact, all of those three things are a little bit boring to the majority of us—but, in practice, they are a ton of fun. So fun, in fact, that you might… Read More Animal Crossing Makes Learning Science Fun
Don't Blow On Cartridges 