This is such a cool idea.

"Anyone who loves racing for any reason other than the sheer pleasure of it is, invariably, a fucking weirdo. Maybe even a pervert. Certainly a villain.""

Anyway, here’s to 18 more years.

Insane luck, tbh.

I saw on her AIM away message that she'd camped out at in library, studying for something due just before the thanksgiving break. Gathered my courage, headed over, asked if she wanted to be more than friends, and when she nodded quietly over the collar of her turtleneck, began the rest of my life.

Stop gamifying games.

Because the truth is when you view games narrowly as some kind of comfort object or a straightforward technical product, like a fridge or KitchenAid, you've stopped being interested in games as art.

A culture that is actually invested in the artistic qualities of games wouldn't be this defensive.

Which I suppose is why I'm always so suspect of the games positivity crowd, the retro games nostalgia crowd - you know, the folks who see an outlier review of a game and say things like

"that's just dishonest, there's no way it's that score."

And games are products. Same as an album, same as a film, same as a book. Under capitalism these things are all produced by industries with contradictory investments.

It's the critic's job to dive past the commoditization of expression. Failing to do so is to risk games being *only* product.

And in today's political moment where it feels like our patience for and interest in art is dwindling along with our attention spans, it seems like we've stopped even hoping for games to be art - because what cache does that bring anymore? So instead we demand our games be talked about as product.

Hoping one of them is Morsels! Been curious about that game for a while.

Perennial bridesmaid, smh.

Clair Obscur
Hades 2
Death Stranding 2
Donkey Kong Bananza
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2

Maybe OW2 turns it around in the last stretch here, but so far it has an equal opportunity approach to thumbing its nose at collectivism, capitalism, and religion that renders the whole thing pretty toothless. More South Park than Disco Elysium.