Kindgom Hearts, much like the colourful denizens of the 100 hundred Acre Wood that are part of the series, seems to exist in a time bubble untouched by broader technical developments in video gaming
Stripped away of most of the commercial considerations that are a vital and complicated component of modern sports, Madden 96 let you act out getting onto a field for a bout of kicking, tossing, catching and making some VERY big tackles. In a way, sport at its purist, well…. apart from the exercise.
In Smash Brothers Ultimate, Pokemon are not just rivals fighters, but something unknowable, untouchable and even god-like with their terrifying ability to weaponise the sun or literally turn a world on its head, regardless of one’s skill.
Squareblind looks over an entire year of videogaming through the prism of social media. This is a year that saw legitimate questions about the human toll of an intense game development schedule in order to generate a commercially successful digital world that promises the lifelike spectacle of a realistic horse’s backside. Everything has a cost.
The original dozen characters in the first Smash Brothers game were a revelation in just how many played almost exactly as if they were an actual standalone Kirby, Yoshi or 2D Legend of Zelda game.
If a player acts abominably in a fictional digital world where citizens are ultimately just a piece of code, does it really matter? The open world of Red Dead Redemption 2 throws up some pertinent questions around expression and responsibility in games.
Overcooked 2, much like its predecessor, is a kitchen chaos simulator, yet the game is only tangentially about food. Its universal appeal is arguably more based on throwing a group of friends or strangers together and seeing the sparks fly as they fail to get the dishes done.
