The first article I ever wrote for the Gutter was about an innovative video game called The Indigo Prophecy (Quantic Dream, 2005). It was described as “a breakthrough in interactive narrative”, which may have been an attempt to dissociate it from the short-lived interactive movie genre of the previous […]
Playing Viva Pinata, Darren Zenko faces the Red Ring of Death, and wins. (thanks, gentleman jim!)
Last year when I heard that Burger King was planning to release a series of video games for the Xbox 360, I thought the game industry was headed for a new low. To me, this went way beyond the shameless hordes of promotional tie-ins to popular movies and […]
Based on the reaction to the November launch of the Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii through sales and media attention, it’s clear that gaming as a cultural phenomenon has cemented itself into the collective consciousness. Local news media observed in awe as the faithful lined up outside their […]
The arcade was a place of refuge for the outcasts of adolescent social circles, where time would be spent dumping quarters into some dumb machine instead of studying or playing ball hockey or parking their ass in front of the TV like every other kid. Communities were built […]
I was a little nervous as I waited for Half-Life 2 (Vivendi, 2004) to start. The original Half-Life (Sierra, 1998) is one of the reasons this column exists — the game brought atmosphere and intelligence to the first-person shooter without skimping on the visceral kickassocity, and brought me […]
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The Cultural Gutter 