for the little things you might have missed
Something I've always enjoyed in my time writing critically on media are weird comparisons — taking two pieces of media that otherwise would never be placed alongside each other and seeing how hard I have to smash them together to generate something interesting. In that vein, I recently finished binging Dexter, and made a joke with a friend who also loves Disco Elysium about whether Dexter Morgan had access to Shivers. Then I thought about it a little too long... and this happened.
As we all slowly drift away from the media landscape of the 2010s, I've found myself obsessed with what might be its most unwavering aesthetic pillar. From the Marvel Universe's cinematic sprawl, to our final great shared cultural object in the form of Game of Thrones, to the explosion of reality TV, to a set of Best Picture winners that includes films like Argo, Spotlight, and Birdman — our last decade of popular culture was defined by a specific and enduring strain of cynicism. Film and television, particularly American film and television, particularly American film and television that might be seen by anyone outside of tiny arthouse theaters or tight-packed city centers, had to guard itself against the charge of taking itself too seriously. This was the decade that American film and television became afraid of its own potential, and I think a lot of people never want to leave that comfort zone behind.
Twelve Minutes does not have that excuse. As far as I can tell, it was created by a team of adults. No nepotism magicked it into existence, or gave it a starring role in Annapurna's 2021 lineup of games. It's sheer existence is a mystery — or, at least, a web that wouldn't be worth my (or anyone's) time to delve into. Because, put simply, it's the worst game I've ever played. And here are twelve reasons why.
Superhero comics, as it is, are usually a far more complex medium than their adaptations let on. But as with Spider-Man, comics are typically at their best when their focus narrows and becomes more intimate — when writers focus on characters and their relationships, and on the idea that these are real people behind their costumes and masks. At its best, that's exactly what Spider-Man does; it feels like a comic book not just in its action, movement, and sound design, but in the way it approaches its heroes and villains.
It's just a shame that, in the end, it also insisted on being so unfailingly, unflinchingly, a Video Game.
It all feels like The Get Out Kids intended itself to be a fairy tale. Or at least, it mashes a fairy tale ending onto the skeleton of Pennywise the Dancing Clown, without ever quite checking to make sure the two had fit together. It at once wants to be a grim, spooky horror story, a lonely fable about a pair of outcast kids, and a fairy tale about found family. But—in the same way it never quite commits to a clear point-of-view for its player—it never quite ends up being any of those things either.
Perhaps that title is a bit paradoxical, since this is, by definition, no longer a list of the best games of 2018. But I'm of the opinion that recency bias has a bit too much leverage in our blink-and-you'll-miss-it world, so let's start 2019 right by rolling that back juuuust a bit.
It's as if the player is walking over an anthill, unaware that this complex and convoluted warren exists beneath their shoes. And over the course of the game, this conceit will be used again and again and again, sometimes with added flourishes or small tweaks to its simple formula. Every level is circular, just as the game itself is, with the end of each circle adding a final revelation.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom has, at its core, two very different movies fighting for dominance. One is the modern mediocre action movie, with its clichéd, easy-to-predict one-liners and bland, slightly-stubbled leading man and elaborately choreographed yet snore-inducing hand-to-hand combat sequences. The other is a genuinely deep and compelling iteration on the series it carries on—a series that has rarely managed to capture any of the magic of Spielberg's original masterpiece, but here comes the closest it ever has to understanding what made that first movie so good.
About an hour into Night in the Woods, a modern adventure game from a small team called Infinite Fall, Mae Borowski reuintes with her high school bandmates for practice. Since she'd left for college, their drummer—Casey—had disappeared, and their guitarist and singer, Gregg and Angus, had recruited another old classmate named Bea to take both … Continue reading You Might Have Missed: Night in the Woods
My favorite moment in Hollow Knight came about a quarter of the way through my forty hour playthrough, when I descended through the Fungal Wastes and found myself in a giant pit at the center of a hidden village. Three mantises—for Hollow Knight's kingdom of Hallownest is a land of insects and bugs—sat on tall wooden … Continue reading You Might Have Missed: Hollow Knight
Sunset Over Ithaca 