Reading List May 2020 (Patreon)

Hoo man, it's already time for another one of these. The month blows by fast! Luckily, we've had no shortage of sharp games criticism this month. Enjoy! 

Second Opinions

Whenever I finish a review, I usually end up watching a few other reviews or other related content afterwards. Here’s some of the best stuff other people have had to say about the games I’ve been talking about lately!

Kan Gao: To the Moon and Back by Tristan Donovan: Way back in my To the Moon video, I referenced an interview with the game’s creator, Kan Gao. If you were curious about that interview and didn’t see it in the description, here it is! If you weren’t curious, go read it anyway, because it’s far and away the best To the Moon interview I found when researching for the video.

Changing XCOM for Chimera Squad Was Hard, Even the Legendary Sid Meier Had a Go by Charlie Hall: While the way Chimera Squad handled turns wasn’t the biggest change for me, this article gives some insight into the development of the game and how the team all got behind the idea to change to “interleaved turns.”

‘Through the Darkest of Times’ May Seem Simple, but It’s a Challenge for the Ages by Matt Gardner: Of all the quarterly wrapup games, Through the Darkest of Times is by far the game I’d like to go into more depth about. Alas, there’s so little time and so many video ideas, so here’s another in-depth review that I felt eloquently captured the spirit of the game.

Errant Signal’s Blips 6: Conspiracies! Street Brawls! Spaceships! Old Books?: If you like my quarterly wrapups (and it seems like a lot of you do), then you have to check out Errant Signal’s Blips series. He manages to find games even I’ve never heard of, and investigates a few every month or two in full depth.

RPS’s Signs of the Sojourner Review by Alice Bell: Bell’s review gets to the heart of what I really like about Signs of the Sojourner. I talked about it a lot in mechanical terms, in all the little ways that the system really does emulate conversation, but Bell goes into the other side and talks about the wider narrative metaphors in the game that my review only touched on.

Signs of the Sojourner Review: A Card Game of the Heart by Cody Gravelle: Gravelle, meanwhile, had a solid point in his review about Sojourner’s replayability. Sometimes, luck just doesn’t go your way, and if you’re trying to polish off the last few character plots that you haven’t seen yet, you’re in for frustrating wasted runs (meaning wasted time) as you build an entire deck for the purpose of talking to one person, only to screw up talking to them anyway.

Bonus: Subverting Expectations and Misogyny in Yes, Your Grace by Ruth Cassidy: My review of Yes, Your Grace predates this past month, but this article on the game was too spot-on for me to not include. In my review, I talked about how your family members are entertaining, likable characters that you want to do right by, but Cassidy correctly points out that every last one of them almost entirely exists to be moral currency, chips to coldly trade away for convenient shortcuts, and what that says about the game’s views on women.

Business Concerns

Video games are an industry in flux, and this month brought in a lot of solid reporting and feature pieces on conditions in the industry.

Games Criticism is a Kindness by Heather Alexandra: Alexandra left us with a heck of a parting gift on her way over to Double Fine: a masterclass meditation on the nature of games criticism that is an absolute must read.

One of America’s Largest Unions Gets Serious About Organizing Game Developers by Lauren Kaori Gurley: Unions have rightfully been a hot topic in the industry for a few years now, and Vice did some solid reporting on the latest efforts by workers to improve working conditions.

‘Being Pregnant Changes Everything’: The Game Industry Awkwardly Grapples with Maternity by Stacey Henley: Pregnancy is just one of the many hurdles women working in the industry have to struggle with, but it’s an understandably significant one. And as Henley’s article investigates, it’s a challenge that the industry is still struggling to help workers overcome.

What It’s Like to Get Laid Off in the Games Industry by Xalavier Nelson Jr.:  You’ve probably seen an article with this headline come out every three months, but that doesn’t make the stories within any less unique or noteworthy. An important read.

Indycar’s Virtual Race Crashes Sparked Real-World Controversy Among Drivers by Rob Zacny:  More serious racing simulations have been loosely tied to real world racing leagues for a while now. But with the advent of the coronavirus, professional events have moved online along with everyone else, and in the most fascinating intersection between the two industries yet, it’s leading to some cultural growing pains.

A Tale of Two Reviews

I ended up checking out both of these reviews of Gears Tactics almost back to back, and doing so led to some interesting comparisons. Both reviewers had directly opposing reactions to almost all of the game’s big mechanical decisions, and yet they both walked away overall feeling positive about the game! Even the titles feel like polar opposite expressions of approval. Both reviews are quite good on their own, but breaking down the ways they contrasted with each other and why made for an engrossing afternoon.

‘Gears Tactics' Shows Why Gears Has Always Been Smarter Than It Looks by Rob Zacny 

SkillUp’s Gears Tactics Won’t Surprise You, But It Will Impress You 

Other Work

Ted Woolsey Remembers Final Fantasy 6, Evading Nintendo’s Censorship Rules, and the Early Days of Localization by Nadia Oxford: Oxford recently got to interview one of the main translators behind Final Fantasy 6 for a look back at the game’s production. No game is easy to make, and Final Fantasy 6’s restrictions on its translators were so stringent as to be almost comical.

The Forever War by Yusef Cole: Bullet Points put out a whole series of articles in the past month about DOOM Eternal, but Cole’s took the cake. His article draws comparisons between Doomguy’s eternal war on hell, Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War, and our own forever wars here in reality.

Razbuten’s The Color of Corruption: Video game color theory is pretty well understood at this point. Red is for bad guys, green is for your health bar, and so on. But Razbuten dove into one of the less explored hues of the rainbow and what it means in the greater visual language of video games.

Raycevick’s The Worst Game I Enjoy?: Much like last reading list’s Red Angel video, Raycevick just came out with a video detailing a group of games that are...a little rough at times, and yet he undeniably enjoys. Of special note, did you know there was a Need for Speed game that’s only a few scant hours long? I sure forgot about that one and it sounds right up our alley, so let Rayce sell you on it!

Where Are All the Idyllic Lord of the Rings Games? By Aidan Moher:  Moher takes a look at the themes of the Lord of the RIngs series and how they’re often in conflict with the standard sort of video game that likes to don the universe’s setting. They often don the set dressing convincingly, but where are the games that embrace LotR's soul?

Neo-Midgar and Neoliberalism: The Myth of an Apolitical Game in Final Fantasy VII Remake by Austin Jones: Prior to release, there was a lot of speculation over whether FFVIIR would embrace its predecessor's political messaging. And if you haven't gotten a chance to play it yourself (I'm still working through it), Jones spells out exactly how this game explores and indeed fully embraces that legacy.

'Wastelanders' Makes 'Fallout 76' the Best Fallout Bethesda Has Made by Matthew Gault: Wastelanders has always had a few champions, but it’s starting to sound like the game is falling into the same cycle as every other live service game ever, rising from the ashes of a devastating launch through slow, reiterative improvements to eventually become what fans imagined and wanted all along.

The Controversy over Riot's Vanguard Anti-Cheat Software, Explained by Tyler Wilde: There's been a big hubbub about anti-cheat software lately, not just with Riot's brand new Valorant, but also with Doom Eternal. If you're like me and have been scratching your heads from the sidelines while it feels like yet another internet inferno is blazing right past, here's what's behind all the furor.