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Earlier this year what is billed as the “first patriotic video game” was released. Heimat Defender: Rebellion was developed by Kvltgames, part of an Austria-based patriotic art collective called Kvltgang. Sometimes politics and art do not mix well, with some of the most politically aware lacking artistic skills and some of the most (more…)
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Yomawari: Night Alone is a survival horror videogame from Nippon Ichi Software, released in fall 2015 in Japan before being rapidly localized into English in 2016. It has enjoyed commercial success across multiple platforms (PC, Nintendo Switch, and PS Vita) and spawned a sequel, Midnight Shadows. The player character is a little girl with a red bow drawn in simple anime style; a sort of Minnie Mouse from a more mature world. (more…)
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“In the Grim Darkness of the Far Future, there is only WAR . . .” tells us the strap line of the world’s most popular miniature wargame. In the 41st Millennium, mankind has collapsed after a Dark Age of Technology and an Age of Strife, and is set upon by nefarious, merciless alien races. Humanity is struggling against a primordial force of the universe — Chaos — that corrupts and deforms men into inhuman monsters.
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Life is Strange 2 is arguably the most topical video game to deal with Trump’s presidency, though his name is not even mentioned. Naturally it’s staunchly anti-American and anti-white in its messaging, starring Mexican-Americans fleeing racist white police officers and citizens, complete with references to “the wall” and ICE. Bizarrely, this propaganda piece – a dumbed-down point-and-click adventure game – (more…)
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Having earned thirty-nine Game of the Year awards when it was released in November 2004, Valve’s Half-Life 2 is one of the most celebrated video games of all time. As of February 2011 it had sold twelve million copies worldwide. It’s a first-person shooter game set in a dystopian future where a technologically advanced alien empire known as “the Combine” has conquered Earth. With its Eastern European setting ruled by a tyrannical alien police state, it’s notable for its anti-Communist and anti-imperialist themes and imagery.
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Telltale may have gone bankrupt, but like a zombie rising from the grave, its The Walking Dead video game series is soon to be released on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in a new collection. It contains all four “seasons” of the game (some twenty “episodes” in all), the extra chapter 400 Days, and the abysmal miniseries based on Michonne (which they probably couldn’t give away if they tried). (more…)
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Shadow of the Colossus is an artistic and technical triumph that looms large on lists of top video games, with an average score of ninety-one percent on review aggregator Metacritic. It is rightly considered a masterpiece. Originally released in 2005 for the PlayStation 2, it was reissued in high definition on Playstation 3, and got a full makeover on Playstation 4 last year. Several games have paid homage to its designs, and it has been optioned for a film adaptation.[1]
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Long before Ellen Page embarrassed herself on Stephen Colbert, she’d already done so in spectacular fashion by starring in Quantic Dream’s Beyond: Two Souls, an “interactive narrative.” (more…)
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Famously based on zombie horror films, the Resident Evil video games have sold millions of copies each over the past two decades, and spawned a (terrible) film franchise to boot. As such, they’re an important cultural touchstone to a large segment of the gaming public, many of whom are young white men. The Japanese title Biohazard better communicates its central premise: A virus engineered by a multinational pharmaceutical company causes a pandemic resulting in the zombie apocalypse.
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Last summer, Transolar Games released Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption, a role-playing adventure game which the creators characterized as the “spiritual successor to our Quest for Glory series.” The title stands as an interesting study of how far video game developers are now under the spell of social justice in terms of issues such as race and gender, and to what degree they can still express independent thoughts.
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Telltale’s The Walking Dead is an episodic video game series boasting an original, interactive story that takes place in the same universe as the show and comic. There are four seasons of five episodes each, emphasizing narrative over game play. (more…)
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Detroit: Become Human is one of the most brazen examples of anti-white Communist propaganda that the video game industry has ever vomited onto an unsuspecting public. It’s the work of the ostensibly French David Cage (whose real name is David De Gruttola), the physical embodiment of the frustrated filmmaker turned game director. (more…)
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“This pain, this sadness! This desperation! You know nothing about it!”
(Major story spoilers ahead.)
NieR: Automata is a critically acclaimed 2017 JRPG from renowned director Yoko Taro, and is an indirect sequel to his previous NieR and Drakenguard games. The game is a niche action-adventure gem, balancing engrossing narrative with tense, challenging combat. (more…)
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Last month marked the much-anticipated release of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, an open-world action role-playing game (RPG) set in fifteenth-century Bohemia. The game sold five hundred thousand copies across all platforms (PC, PS4, and Xbox One) within two days of its release and surpassed the one million mark after two weeks, an impressive feat for a crowd-funded game developed by an indie studio. (more…)
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Last Friday at the convention known across gaming fandom as Blizzcon, the full trailer was released for the upcoming film Warcraft, which will be based of course on the Warcraft and World of Warcraft video game series. As an ardent fan of the games, I was filled with enthusiasm and impatience upon watching it. I rarely go to the movies anymore, but for a film that cinematizes one of my favorite games, I would surely be there on opening day. It will be out in June and will star Travis Fimmel, who plays Ragnar Lothbrok in the Vikings TV series. (more…)
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In the popular video game Half-Life 2 and its sequels, the players fight against the Combine Empire. This empire may be fictional, but it has many aspects that are all too real. The universe of Half-Life 2 has been created with patience and a lot of work, as one can guess from the number of tryouts for designing one of the game’s most important buildings. The result is a very well-thought, sometimes subtle universe that goes often unseen because players are more concerned with solving a particular riddle or fighting a particular battle. (more…)
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On November 11th, 2011, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
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Nathaniel Drake, the hero of "Uncharted" II: "Among Thieves"
On October 13, 2009, Sony Computer Entertainment released Uncharted 2: Among Thieves for the Playstation 3 video gaming console. It was received warmly by nearly every video game critic in the US, having won numerous awards including “Best PS3 Action Game” and given a nearly perfect rating across the board. Adam Sessler of G4 (a video gaming news channel) even claimed it is the “best single-player game I have ever played” in a recent review. (more…)
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In today’s world, cell phones, pagers, iPods, computers, video games, and the like are as common a part of life as food and sleep. For the most part, these things are a distraction, and in case of video games, an outright form of escapism comparable to drug addiction. (more…)