samred.com | ©2012 Sam Machkovech

Suppose I should hire someone to redesign this site. Until then, a quick update:

Most of my most recent games writing has been hosted by The Daily, a magazine meant to be read on an iPad. Lucky me, those wind up on the web as well, but finding archives is tough; even Google doesn’t cache ‘em. So I’ve taken to marking any of my pieces there as a “favorite” on my Twitter account. I suppose I could launch an RSS feed or a Tumblr or whatever the kids use these days, but this is how I’m rolling for now.

If you want the quickest way to see what I’ve been writing, and you don’t want to bother following me on Twitter, just check this link from time to time: Sam’s favorites!

I’m on a games writing tear as of late.

Last week, in-flight magazine American Way published my take on all of this year’s new motion-control game systems. Next month, they’ll print my piece on Gran Turismo 5.

My column at The Atlantic in Washington, DC, has been filling up with game reviews, as well. Here’s one for the downloadable, lovable Super Meat Boy. Here’s one for Halo: Reach. And here’s a musing on the industry’s reliance on patches and bug-fixes, and how that affects the hobby’s reputation as “art.” I strongly recommend that one, even if its commenters by and large disagree.

More of my Atlantic articles can be found here.

What life awaits after death? Most forms of expression, from books and films to poetry and philosophy, have taken turns pondering on it, and the maturing world of video games is no exception.

LIMBO, in spite of all appearances, isn’t one of those games. The brief, downloadable video game for Xbox 360 appears to dwell in the afterlife—and beautifully so—with a black-and-white aesthetic, lack of conversation, creepy inhabitants, and balance of darkness and light. Yet the Danish title is most compelling because it speaks to the struggles of living with loss, not fading away into death; and it does so not with text, nor with musical cues, nor any concrete storytelling. You simply drop into LIMBO, and it forces you to find your own meaning through exploration, puzzle solving, and inhaling its lonely world along the way.

The game opens with a child’s silhouette waking in a shades-of-grey world, himself all black save his tiny, white eyes. With no story as impetus, players immediately encounter forests, ponds, and caves (and strange foes within each), all rendered in 2D with shimmering particle effects, as if LIMBO’s entirety had been drowned in fresh, falling ash. Other than occasional tones and background effects, the sounds are as simple as the boy’s feet plodding along grass, dirt, and hard metal, and the sound direction turns out far more colorful and organic than the fuzzed-out looks would lead you to believe. Read the rest of this entry »