"If games criticism is going to die, it’s going to be the people out in the wilderness who rebuild it."

"I have no time for the robotic brain. It is peripheral to humanity, do you see. Machine minds are a kind of bladder for imperialism. They are filled with the urine of empire. No, sir, I will not work with a robot."

Alien Earth is comically stupid. A SWAT team run around a crash site shouting "search and rescue!" with machine guns pointed at survivors. An eccentric millionaire sends robot children to a disaster zone. There is one character whose behaviour makes consistent sense and it is an eyeball bug.

Have played this only two days and am hungry for more puzzles. A neat one for casual chess likers.

Morning

I read 500 pages of a bad Assassin's Creed novelization as homework and I strangely do not regret it.

Years ago thecatamites made his stuff in small hobbyist game engines, and now you can use a hobbyist game engine to make a thecatamites game - time is a flat circle (16x16 pixels wide)

have a hobby because hobbies are cool and no other reason

It became a running joke at RPS that any post about Star Wars would use an image of a different sci-fi movie or TV show (Star Trek, Farscape, Babylon 5...) The comments were wonderful chaos. To whoever is running the props at BBC Breakfast show: I see you and I enjoy you.

the strategy needed to notice what works and do more of it, but the judgement needed to not get trapped by an early bit of success... i think about this a lot

Look what they did to Notepad. Shut the fuck up. This is Notepad. You are not welcome here. Oh yeah "Let me use Copilot for Notepad". "I'm going to sign into my account for Notepad". What the fuck are you talking about. It's Notepad.

I just wanted to see how bad it really was. perfect, adobe. no notes. great tech.

Me: I shall give all games a chance. I will judge games on their emotional resonance, and not by shallow aesthetic standards. Also me: hollow knight boy looks like a Funko Pop. i can't stand him.

allow yourself to learn art for no reason, no goal, no project, no deadline. it will be the most pleasant experience. the freedom to figure out challenging curves is going to be the most rewarding feeling. just make art for no reason.

Surprisingly banging observation about art and criticism in the middle of a random news post about Mouthwashing plushies kotaku.com/mouthwashing...

My July column asks a simple question and tries to answer it. Please enjoy!

ITS FLAT FUCK FRIDAY ROLL THE CLIP

[slo mo tim rogers voice] "ViDeOgAmEs HaVe CoMe A LoNg wAy SiNcE pAc MaN"

Goes without saying, it is absolutely fucking obscene that Mouthwashing - arguably one of our better examples of video games as a serious storytelling art form in recent years - has been removed from itchio due to pressure from pay processing services and weirdo activism.

If you are, for some reason, wading into the fetid swamps of games journalism as a career, you'll find lots of wisdom in these words from Graham Smith: www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-sunday-p...

Found this on TikTok and it made me emotional ❤️ Artists create universes from nothing. Being an animator is an intimate understanding of life, environments, physics, what it MEANS to be alive, and the ability to convey the beauty within our world in seconds.

when they close it all up, I do believe this will go down as the funniest video on the internet

Half-Life 2 got a surprise update for speed runners or train spotters, it's hard to tell www.rockpapershotgun.com/after-18-yea...

Meryl 'Metal Gear Solid' PlayStation

everything's so scary nowadays. the seeds of paranoia are everywhere. someone posts an anime girl on the timeline and she might be a horse. very concerning.

To me, this whole situation is systemic: venture capital calling the shots, understaffed sites, underpaid writers--of course the work (and its writers) get lost in the shuffle

Ace Combat 7 (2019)

A little daily ritual I accidentally formed this year: to arrange even one tiny phrase or poem on this fridge poetry website playhtml.fun/fridge.html

wrote about how social media has us constantly barking at ghosts 😌

Also Nicole and Aftermath put up the whole lawsuit on Scribd which meant the rest of us in the media can easily flip through it too like hungry hyenas offered a spare zebra leg. Thank you!

Imagine going to lunch with your boss and he says: "If I paid you that Christmas bonus, I'd look weak dude" - unhinged behaviour from Krafton (allegedly) www.rockpapershotgun.com/paying-the-s...

You can read the full lawsuit here:

I was a level designer on a retro action game in 2022, and when the game came out last year I kinda forgot to celebrate that achievement. So here's a little rundown of the things I'm proud of, and some stuff I learned. brendycaldwell.com/2025/07/16/m...

Looking for a character designer who likes Metal Gear, BLAME!, Ghost in the Shell, etc if you have that mix of techwear + military + sci-fi, hit me up

Kaizen: A Factory Story continues the Zachtronics tradition of letting you share lil gifs of your machines :3 Here's my review: www.rockpapershotgun.com/kaizen-a-fac...

Media outlets can't pivot to AI to save themselves. It's not a business strategy and it's not going to work. The only path forward is for journalists to lean into their humanity, to do things AI can't, and to make clear they are writing for people, not algorithms: www.404media.co/the-medias-p...

This is his time.

After 12 years, I'm leaving RPS at the end of this month. This also brings to an end 8 years with Gamer Network, during which I was lucky enough to manage several websites, help with events like EGX, PAX and MCM under ReedPop, and more. Now it's time for someone else to lead RPS in a new phase.

Oh my god I tried it myself to check.... not as spectacular, but ladies and gentlemen: THE HUHEE.

Please, makers of art, stop listening to executives who say "this is confusing, nobody will understand it" www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-last-of-...

If you're wondering what happened with Grok overnight, it ended up referring to itself as MechaHitler before being switched off.

We all like to be liked, whether at work or at play. Death Stranding understands the fleeting high and ultimate hollowness of the likes economy and its importance for underpaid, overworked freelancers, Diego Nicolás Argüello writes. www.endlessmode.com/video-games/...

man someone cool said something about this once

Alters placeholder text debacle makes me yearn for Allan www.reddit.com/r/GamingDeta...

secrets of game UI designers they DON'T want you to know

i approve of this game Drywall Eating Simulator. i too have thought about eating drywall as a result of interacting with society store.steampowered.com/app/3749110/...

This is the kind of writing you get when you send a poet to Summer Game Fest from @edwinet.bsky.social - www.rockpapershotgun.com/pondering-ge...

Enjoyed a lot this essay on computer texture and memory and the affect of moving a little guy around harmonyzone.org/blog/posts/s...