not entirely related, but: the cool thing about imposter syndrome is that, no matter how much you doubt yourself in every other way, you can at least be good at that

oof

I'm old enough to remember when Twitter clowned on @simonparkin.bsky.social's Untitled Goose Game review, whose lede remains one of my North Stars of crit. the response was elucidating: game critics are, not uniquely but distinctly, at odds with our readers www.newyorker.com/culture/cult...

Astoria makes me feel proud every time I step out of the door

got me googling; sometimes name really do something

finally getting to The Last Guardian. sublime, even at its most pragmatic. a highlight so far: swimming in a pool and telling Trico to jump in so that the upswell gets me onto a ledge

just got to witness somebody Shazam Cher’s Believe. what a privilege

my stance has been from the start, and remains to this day, that there will come a time when people recognize that this stuff is trash, that the rot at the core of it rots everything it touches, and it will crumble. no one I say this to offline believes it, but it's a belief I won't budge on

not enough! "creative assets" in quotes is very dodgy to boot

when Avowed is coming to PS5 and very intriguing but Microsoft is Microsoft

Just found out my wife might be losing her job, so I'm desperately searching for work. Contract, full-time, freelance, whatever. Press, PR, consulting, anything. I have 16 years of editorial experience and have been writing about games for 13. Reviews, news, previews, guides, etc. RTs appreciated.

stellar piece by Lewis, as always, and this is an especially sharp point:

Vagrant Story is so memorable, exceptional, and gorgeous that I use this screenshot all over my online stuff even though it looks, at a glance, like the Windows XP background

yesterday brought this to a head for me. the need to express something fuels the impulse to post something -- and then what? posting becomes sublimation, an insufficient (often poisonous) outlet for appropriate rage. social media, as it exists now, has its uses, but it's a moral and spiritual drain

I know that what everyone wants right now is a 10k word 2025 GotY Awards post. So, I (generous soul that I am) grant your wishes. bloomedwings.com/2026/01/07/m...

Grasshopper sidestepping the question of capitalizing "is" in titles (it should be capitalized) by going both all lowercase and all caps

I will hereby be answering "how tall are you" with "I carry a mythological size"

commission me to review/write about videogames! previous post forgot to mention the perks, so: I am punctual, thoughtful, and only slightly precious (everyone should be a little precious) clips are here: www.nivmsultan.com/work reach out via DM or email -- nivsultan[at]gmail[dot]com

what a wonderful example of unabashedly loving what you love, and lucidly expressing why you love it

very fun list; the backlog ever grows

Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars erasure

only sufjan understands that I want sacred harp *and* joy division *and* medieval pipe songs *and* iron and wine

i think that if you are a member of the games media disgusted by this (and you should be) you have to really, genuinely ask yourself what the difference is between this and saying "Microsoft is on the BDS list but [game] is good in XYZ ways"

when you're getting the good shit from Kristen Stewart

super cool way of thinking about composition

This is why you never give an inch to the bigots. All those centrists dems (Newsom, Mayo Pete) claiming there are concerns around trans kids, you're complicit in this. This doesn't get rid of trans people, it just makes them suffer unbearably. Get your head straight: trans rights are human rights.

fantastic piece -- understatedly fiery, taut, each word an arrow

Gaston movie misunderstands the real villain of Beauty and the Beast (Xaldin, the Whirlwind Lancer, Nobody of Dilan)

Always fascinated by these studios trying the “we’re just using it as an internal tool, don’t worry” as if the problem with AI is visible usage and not a holistic ethical, moral, literal rot that makes anything you do moving forward impossible to trust.

Again I say: how fucking interesting that remote work technology is bad and not worth adopting despite all research pointing to productivity gains, but genAI which offers NOTHING is so important to adopt and force on people who have no use for it despite all the horrible things genAI does

"my game is unburdened by politics" ("politics," noun: when abject creeps feel commensurate shame for their grossness)

The Last Guardian (2016, dir. Fumito Ueda)

forgive me father for I have blogged simulacrum.pika.page/posts/but-th...

sometimes you read something that gives a name, a solid shape, to it all (from Le Guin’s The Dispossessed)

particularly special because Nishiki is, like, one of the greatest living composers

J.R.R. Tolkien, literal Butlerian Jihadist

which one do I play next? thinking Fates, maybe?

this 2016 games post making the rounds might be what gets me to finally play The Last Guardian

Might be my favorite interview of the year, just for quotes like this

if we must have masculinity, we must do it right

bring back Simon Parkin's New Yorker best games lists

lovely work by Joshua. this sentiment, framed this way, feels urgent — clawing back, carving out, room for imagination in a world hostile to it

here's @jmrivera.bsky.social articulating why hd2d games all seem to rule www.theverge.com/entertainmen...

had the pleasure of contributing to Slant's year-end games list. I was far from getting to everything this year, but I loved what I loved. also, downthread, shouting out some undersung favorites that didn’t make the list

thinking, as one does, about Rogue Galaxy

he at least used to be wrong in an interesting way. it now reads like self-parody

I've long appreciated Bogost and his videogame boogeyman thing, but this is...weird

some 15 hours into Dragon's Dogma 2 and came upon @austinwalker.bsky.social's piece on it, and -- what a great encapsulation of what makes this game special remapradio.com/articles/fou...

Here's a fun Friday afternoon article from me! About the chilling effect of censorship in games, the ethical obligations of being a poweful entity in the medium, and how we respond when video games' freedom of expression - from so many directions - is under siege. www.eurogamer.net/however-you-...