Editors' Picks


The Archive

The first episode of the game version of the popular comic-turned-telefilm The Walking Dead is an examination of  truth-telling, silence, and testimony, which the game's dialogue forces us to grapple with at every twist 'n' turn.


Tyler Glaiel's Flash hit has blossomed into a much moodier and complicated appraisal of human existence in its PlayStation Network debut. We take a closer look at Closure and how a lot of darkness can bring a lot to light.




What are the roots of free-to-play capitalism? Michael Thomsen argues that in-game commodities and microtransactions are not new ideas so much as the latest ways that videogame companies instrumentalize us.


One of the iPhone's simplest ideas makes a difficult proposition on architecture. Kyle Chayka explains why Rem Koolhaas might love Tiny Tower.


Contemporary architecture is stealing pixels from videogames. Our columnist explores how and why this retro fad has become an unconvincing sign of the future.


The raw materials of New Marais, the setting of Infamous 2 based on New Orleans, tell a story both longer and more pressing than their digital textures suggest. Nora Khan climbs through its multilayered history.


What makes the structure of a game stay intact? We play Assassin's Creed: Revelations and find a lot of hidden walls—some more apparent than others.


Rockstar Games' Red Dead Redemption is the latest videogame to host an urban legend. A house on a hill is said to be haunted—in reality—so we went ghost hunting.


What do Halo and Portal have to do with 1950s universitites? They tell a surprisingly similar story through the hard lines of Brutalist architecture.


Our favorite Trials Evolution user-created levels have some unexpected themes in common.


What's within this haunted house? And is it worth exploring with your own two feet? Jon Irwin wonders about the architecture of tedium as he explores Kinect title Haunt.


Why are playgrounds still so important in the digital age? We talk with some of New York's leading playground architects and designers about their work and the past and future impact of public play on urban space.


Does PETA have a point? We dug through our game library and found moments of animal cruelty both blatant and subtle.


Motorbiking in Trials Evolution isn't about speed, flips, or flails. It's an exercise in meditation on landscapes.


What does Nintendo's new role-playing saga have in common with a sad, dying whale? The list spans the creature's hide.


Land art is an appreciation of earthy materials churned into something new. Videogames—mechanical, artificial and synthetic—can gain something from the principles behind this form of art. Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP leads the way—but there are some foothills along the trek.


In PopCap's tower defense game, lively plants defeat a zombie horde. We asked a horticulture expert how real plants grapple with nature in uncannily similar ways.


Environmental simulation Fate of the World lets you advance the world, only to end up destroying it. Filipe Salgado wonders why futility leads to such persistence.


Installation artists like Yayoi Kusama and Allan Kaprow built interactive worlds decades before Zelda. What can videogames still learn from contemporary technology-based art?


The little-known Russian videogame Pathologic offers a harrowing apology for environmental abuse, and asks some difficult questions about how we relate to the world.



Twisted Metal gets another sibling in its long familial line on Playstation. Through the game's noble attempt to shephard in new players while staying loyal to fans, Lana Polansky wonders if the game needed reinvention at all. 


Gothic shooter The Darkness II is a great exercise in comic-book style and tentacle gore, but it gets tangled up in genre fiction. Rob Zacny explains how.


The transgender community has found an unlikely folk hero in Poison, a sexed-up Street Fighter character. Jason Johnson traces her murky evolution from concept sketch to rallying point.


Why is Phil Fish's new puzzle game so addictive? Because it hides everything in plain sight, and lays bare the rest.



Darshana Jayemanne on why it's time to stop criticizing—and celebrating—videogames for being nonlinear. It turns out the medium's blessing and its curse is neither unique nor especially new.


Brendan Keogh examines the overlap between games and cinema via the Modern Warfare series and asks how much control the player has or even wants.