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‘Chrono Trigger’ and Coping with Pandemic Trauma through Video Games
Coping with the COVID-19 shutdown via a video game, where I have control over the apocalyptic outcome, was what I needed. Chrono Trigger delivered.
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Found in Translation: A Journey into Adventure Game Heaven’s Vault
In the adventure game Heaven’s Vault, learning an ancient language is akin to discovering and shaping history; you decide how it is written and interpreted.
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Black Sorcerers in the Trenches of David Diop’s ‘At Night All Blood Is Black’
David Diop’s At Night All Blood Is Black is a terrifying fable whose haunting imagery explores the traumas of empire, colonial thought, and masculinity.
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Open Mike Eagle on Capturing Hip-Hop’s Oral History via Podcast
Open Mike Eagle’s podcast What Had Happened Was is an enchanting and illuminating appreciation of hip-hop. This passionate, energetic, and prolific man talks with PopMatters.
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How Moebius’ Psychedelic Fantasy / Surrealist Art Influenced Video Games
French artist Jean Giraud, aka Moebius, inspired his peers and mass media. In video games especially, his psychedelic fantasy/surrealist art may live on forever.
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Nintendo Makes Binge Eating Fun in Kirby’s Dream Buffet
Nintendo's multi-player Kirby’s Dream Buffet is a playful indulgence for those with a big appetite for quick, colorful, and approachable games.
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Glee and Melancholy in Drnaso’s Graphic Fiction ‘Acting Class’
In our age of constant performance, Nick Drnaso’s work of graphic fiction, Acting Class, is not an escape, it's hyperreality.
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Too Powerful to be Merely Entertainment: Video Games and the Work of Nicholas...
Video game designer Nicholas O'Brien creates and curates in a medium starving for critical conversation.
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Cultural Self-Aggrandizement Has Us ‘Playing Oppression’
In Playing Oppression, scholars Mary Flanagan and Mikael Jakobsson lay bare the colonialist origins of board games.
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How Pokémon and Japanese Media Created a Generation of ‘Monster Kids’
In Daniel Dockery’s Monster Kids Pikachus usher the pandemonium of Pokémania into the US, but his account of the phenomenon leaves readers wanting more.
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‘Sink: A Memoir’ Shuns Respectability Politics
Sink is more than an ethnographic memoir. It’s a harrowing glimpse into an omnipresent but often unseen Americana.
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The Fun of “No-Fun” in ‘The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’
The creators of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom have created a video game worthy of Kant’s maxim, "have the courage to use your own intelligence."
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The “Roll” of Life in ‘We Love Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie.’
We Love Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie is as accessible as it is attractive. Its bright art style and jubilant music make the gameplay deliriously uplifting.
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‘Sundial’ Is Noname’s Contribution to the Current Golden Era of Rap
On Sundial, Noname raps like her voice is holding the sky from falling. Love of oneself and one's community is a struggle front and center on the album.
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Prepare to Get Slayed and Played by ‘Vampire Survivors’
Vampire Survivors' time-sucking qualities reveal the insidious aspects of the best video games and what players want from them.
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Nostalgia in Lieu of Substance: ‘A Handheld History’ Plays It Safe
Good looks can’t save the book A Handheld History: A Celebration of Portable Gaming from being a trivial account of video game history.
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The End Is Only the Beginning in Literary Game ‘Saltsea Chronicles’
Die Gute Fabrik’s Saltsea Chronicles is a poetic journey through emotional waters that the literary cognoscenti mustn’t ignore.
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The Best Video Games of 2023
PopMatters' best video games of 2023 are important cultural artifacts. These games also stand out for their artistry, innovation, and accessibility.
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‘Pedro Páramo’ Is a Masterpiece that Resurrects and Welcomes the Dead
In our world, we irrevocably control the dead and their narrative. In Juan Rulfo's masterpiece Pedro Páramo, however, the dead control their narrative.
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‘Bahnsen Knights’ Game Revels in ’80s Pulp Fiction
Bahnsen Knights' story is an intersection between violent fanaticism and German expressionist philosophy. The clue is in the game’s title.
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Five Sci-fi Video Game Soundtracks for the End of the World
PopMatters looks to the sonic canvas of five sci-fi video game soundtracks, because every dystopia, no matter how bleak, deserves good music.
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Video Game History Preservation: It’s Not All Fun and Games
It’s Not All Fun and Games is straightforward in manner and unconcerned with critical introspection. It’s a practical affair about how games are produced.
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‘Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown’ Represents
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, depicts its setting and characters with care and arguably more seriously than any commercial game produced outside of Iran.
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