Most video games are content just to string the player along through dungeons, towns, or corridors full of machine gun cover while dishing out character arcs and weapon upgrades. Only a few try to reflect on the nature of reality and human existence. Star Ocean: Till the End of Time tried to do both.
In a vat of liquid nitrogen on storage platform 17, the youngest person ever to be put into cryogenic storage has been waiting for the future for one year and eight months.
SOMA is quite a head-spinner. Much like the Bioshocks and the Deus Exs, it confronts a number of powerful topics that extend far beyond the bounds of the game itself. Taking cues from the best science-fiction, SOMA explores what it really means to be human, and what calamities we open ourselves up to by placing our…
We’re so used to the idea of games prompting us and helping us out that the concept of some 1s and 0s giving us advice just seems...weirdly natural.
According to the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum physics, we live in an infinite web of alternate timelines. It's a serious claim that carries some rather serious scientific, philosophical, and existential baggage. And here are the nine weirdest possible implications.
I've not come across a finer means of illustrating the origins of our Western work ethic than this video featuring a recycled Japanese game. Why did't we have 8-Bit Philosophy back when I was in college?
“This cart is now a coffin”, posted UK games writer Richard Stanton, adding “RIP Hamlet the best Labrador in the world :’(“. I can’t help but wonder what’s happened to Hamlet, trapped inside that little plastic bit.
Thug Notes' 8-Bit Philosophy might be the best way to learn about Nietzsche's Critique of Scientific Positivism. See? You're already falling asleep, but add a little Mega Man action, and you'll perk right up.
Despite the chaos of having thousands of people try to control a single Pokémon game, one thing was was certain about the end of the first run of 'Twitch Plays Pokémon'—it was damned inspirational and thought-provoking. Lots of folks were skeptical that finishing the game was even possible.
Trinley Dorje (pictured) is a pretty hip guy. Like many 24-year-olds, he's into popular music and video games. He's also the Karmapa Lama - the only senior Buddhist leader recognized by the governments of China, India and Tibet.
The three works of Dante's Divine Comedy are ripe with possibility. Each of the books paint compelling pictures of the afterlife, describing heaven, hell and purgatory in vivid poetry.
In the trailer, the Diesel-powered Riddick ponders the nature of desperation, or does the best that he can considering the limited resources he is working with . "Where there's desperation, there's opportunity", is certainly a true statement. Not so sure about the whole, "I'm hell's messenger" bit though. I mean, if…
This is a strangely mesmerizing and legitimately deep video from The Resigned Gamer - whose pessimism about life and games is well known, but always an informed perspective.
I was chatting with a fellow Chinese historian this weekend when he confessed that his interest in Chinese history could be traced back to receiving a copy of Romance of the Three Kingdoms for SNES. I thought of that while reading Duncan Fyfe's essay on the potential 'educational' uses of regular, AAA titles — which…
