Sundays are for counting down the days to the new Doom reveal, if it hasn’t already? In that case, wow, brave Hugo Martin to cast himself as a doomslayer, but I like the moxy. Before I jump into the comments uninvited and argue with no one in particular that Doom Eternal’s side-splitting gameplay loop was ultimately a fantastic choice for the long-term health of the series, you bastards, let’s read this week’s best gaming writing. (and game related stuff!)
For the hilarious RPS fanzine PC Gamer, Kerry Brunskill wrote a fantastic piece called “Graph paper charting my journey through 37 years of RPGs reminded me how rarely I give games 100% of my attention and how much more fun I have doing.” It’s part of their Pasokon Retro series views of early Japanese PC games that I just discovered and will now devour.
The intention of these modern tools is to be helpful, flexible, convenient. But all too often, the reality is that I end up mindlessly moving games into smooth, efficient, and samey experiences. I don’t invest in myself as fully as these games deserve. And when that happens, I lose the chance to make my own adventure, work my way through the game, and leave the game with a personal story to tell instead of a tidy checklist of completed tasks like everyone else’s.
Aftermath have released an excerpt from Katherine Cross’ upcoming book Log Off: Why Posting And Politics (Almost) Never Mix. I agree, which is why I only wrote about wanting a remake of Rock n’ Roll Racing – the lack of which I see as the only real failure of democracy.
All of this is important for several reasons. First and foremost, one of the ugliest side effects of the terminal broadcast of COVID that was proliferating among the Extremely Online was a deepening distrust of their fellow man; every time they fell for the bait of outrage about some lunatic being a dick and not wearing a mask, their inevitable response was, “I don’t trust people anymore!” This suits conservatives, whose entire movement is built on the concept of original sin, developed over two centuries of monarchism, fascism, nativism, and lesser varieties of ignorance, which treats strangers essentially as threats. But for anyone to the left of Mussolini, such disdain for your humanity, such reluctance to reach out to your neighbor for fear of being like that Panera Bread bastard I saw on TikTok, is extraordinarily dangerous—and fatal to understanding the ideals we share and which they are necessarily collective.
For ‘ROCKPAPERSHOTGUN’ dot com Sin Vega wrote about how Bellwright is secretly a lesson in good management. Does this break the Sunday Papers rules? Wait, hold on: I make the rules now! And I say that it is beautiful and incredibly good writing that you should read once normally and once again through this link.
What I didn’t appreciate is that it’s all about management. I don’t mean “you’ll be on the menu a lot”. It is about why management exists: not for its own sake, but to serve a purpose. That purpose could be to sell merchandise or to maintain and distribute student records where they are needed. Or to provide countless people with endless entertainment, interesting critiques and thoughtful reflections of a kind that most can hardly emulate, let alone match. Perhaps introducing obscure and backlit games in a brutally tough industry to an audience that will enjoy life a little more for having found them; an audience whose other options are all too often cynical, rote, or simply uninterested in any larger meaning or purpose of the work. Or freeing the earth by killing all the bad guys, sure.
Brian Crecente has cataloged what looks like every handheld gaming device ever made, many of which he owns, for the Pad and Pixel.
This week’s music is Monopoly by Homeboy Sandman. Please let me know if you can name any other rap songs about board games. Not even as a metaphor. It’s literally just Monopoly. Enjoy the weekend!