![]() Rhodes chimes in that the discussion surrounding Proteus is less to do about the experience of playing it than it does justifying Proteus. Proteus co-creator Ed Key responds to contentions that his game was not a game by asking “ What Are Games?” Meanwhile, Tom Bissell writes a letter to Niko Bellic about Grand Theft Auto V at Grantland. ![]() Leigh Alexander writes for Gamasutra on the untimely tragedy of Grand Theft Auto V and for all the open world bluster, how confining the game ultimately feels.Ĭameron Kunzelman asks why GTA5 is so conservative, saying about the series, “ has always been about selling our own shitty culture back to us and then explaining that we’re transgressive because we buy it.”Īnjin Anhut at How To Not Suck At Game Design deconstructs that satire of GTA5 or lack there of and how it can’t subvert what is already too outrageous. Stephen Beirne looks at The Ladder of Us and how Naughty Dogs seems terrified of its audience.Īt Medium Difficulty, Javy Gwaltney focuses in on Bill, one of the secondary characters, and how his depiction resonates out to the larger world of the work. Tom Chick at Quarter to Three asserts that The Last of Us has real heart, but not much else.Įrrant Signal’s Chris Franklin calls The Last of Us “perhaps the best possible version of a fundamentally flawed design ideology a perfect implementation of an imperfect idea.” Naomi of Dead Pixel looks at the one point in the game where Kaitlin asserts her own will over the player’s to keep her sister’s privacy. Todd Harper looks into the Christian artifacts and what they represent about the different members of the family regarding their faith and the game as a whole. Scott Nichols on his blog Gamerly Musings explains why he spoiled a certain aspect of the narrative in his review of Gone Home and why he felt it wasn’t something people should have held back.Ĭlockworkworlds’ Austin Walker reads between the lines of many of the artifacts of Terrence’s past and finds he may be the victim of child molestation. Almost as a counter Maddy Myers explains how the game doesn’t reflect her experience of high school or the world. Leigh Alexander explores the nostalgia and the reflections of the time, Riot Grrls included, within Gone Home. That shouldn’t be exceptional in and of itself, but it is.” In an emotion reflection by Merritt Kopas, she revealed that she cried a number of times. While Bishock Infinite may have generated the most, Gone Home certainly generated the most variety. Meanwhile, Tevis Thompson takes not only the game to task, but the mainstream reviews and their lack of critical rigor towards it. Matthew Armstrong calls the game out on the difference between subtlety and cowardice, “trying to play dress-up as an intellectual exercise in what video games can accomplish.” Leigh Alexander examines her own reaction to Bioshock Infinite and finds that the same formula is cracking at the seams as time has passed it by. Cameron Kunzelman was kind enough to collect a lot of the early writings of the game soon after its release. Without a doubt the most talked about game of the year is Bioshock Infinite. This is true for games of the present and of the past. Ghosts In The Machine is a short story anthology of 13 pieces by a variety of video game critics edited by Lana Polansky and Brendan Keogh.Įvery year the focus of most of the work is on the games themselves, ranging from a holistic overview, to narrowing in on a single aspect or connecting it to the greater trends and themes of the medium. Too many names to list here – 17 in all – contributed high quality critical work in its pages.Īnother digital magazine, that got its start this year, is Zoya Street’s Memory Insufficient with 7 issues to its credit so far. What used to be collaborative blogs has emerged into specialist publications with a wide variety of voices and names contributing.Īlan Williamson’s first full year of Five Out of Ten magazine put out a load of great work. Originally we called this print, but as the world moves towards digital, the specialist publications have begun to emerge. Critical Distance is proud to present the 2013 edition of This Year in Video Game Blogging. From all of that we did our best to whittle a curatorial list of the most memorable, most important and most representative critical pieces of year. We trudged through the 1265 links we featured in the 2013 entries of TWIVGB and then checked the additional 50 recommendations you, the readers, submitted for consideration. Here we are at the end of 2013, on the cusp of a new year, we at Critical Distance look back at all of the great criticism of the year.
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