Author: Jay Castello
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Assassin’s Creed: Origin’s Discovery Tour Mode is Great
I’ve been excited for Assassin’s Creed: Origin’s Discovery Tour mode since it was first announced. Origin’s sprawling map of Ptolemaic Egypt is gorgeous, and exploring it while learning about its real world equivalent is just as good as I expected. Launching Discovery Tour drops you, as Aya, in Alexandria. The tour beings with information about…
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Celeste’s Assist Mode Brings Welcome Accessibility Options
Celeste was designed to be a challenging game. So states part of the game’s “Assist Mode.” It’s clear about developer Matt Makes Games’s intent: “difficulty is essential to the experience. We recommend playing without Assist Mode your first time.” In an interview with ID @ Xbox, the eponymous Matt asked: “What’s the point of climbing…
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Overwatch Finally Sent Me A Notification About an Abuse Report
Overwatch finally sent me a notification telling me that my reports led to some action taken against a player. It’s been 20 months since the game’s release, and one since the notification system was patched in, and finally, finally, I have some sense that the reporting system might actually be doing something. Here’s the message.…
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‘Borders’ Shows the Struggles of Mexican Immigrants
Borders opens with your player character alone in a desert cluttered with equal amounts of hardy plants and human trash. Cacti and bushes might be normal, and even helpful for hiding in, but piles of clothing raise more worrying questions. And then there are the skeletons. There is a spot just a few feet from…
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Self Care Jam 2 Brings Brilliant, Stress Free Creations
Self Care Jam 2 wrapped up this week, bringing in over fifty entries covering everything from phone backgrounds to novellas to poetry. And of course, there were also plenty of games to enjoy. Self Care Jam, which ran for the first time last year, differs from other jams in that it’s supposed to be entirely…
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It’s Time For Gabe Newell to Fix Steam’s Abuse Problem
It’s incredibly easy to use Steam to abuse people. Curation groups with homophobic and racist slurs in their names; antisemitic foundations; or outright white supremacy are left well alone, as Motherboard reports (content warning for all of the above at the link). Valve responded to review bombing with the addition of a graph that is…
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There’s No Escaping Stardew Valley’s Capitalist Hamster Wheel
The premise of Stardew Valley is simple: quit your desk job at the soulless Joja Corp., move to the beautiful coast, take up a simple life as a farmer. Joja Corp. is the closest that Stardew gets to having an antagonist. Not only do they serve as a comparison for the idyllic life that the…
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What Can We Do About Dev Crunch?
Blizzard’s Jeff Kaplan recently made a forum post talking about the dedication of the Overwatch team. Most read it (correctly) as a statement of enthusiasm or a discussion of the entitled mentality of a segment of the fanbase. But Kaplan also mentioned that “Overwatch is a 24/7, 365 day year affair for us…[it] doesn’t stop…
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Overwatch’s Play Nice, Play Fair Update Misses the Point
Recently, Blizzard released a developer update titled Play Nice, Play Fair, which attempted to address Overwatch’s fundamental problems with toxicity. Game developer Jeff Kaplan described the issue as a “rising tide,” and promised future improvements to the reporting system (which was just added to the console versions of the game, more than a full year…
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Mercy’s Rework is a Bad Direction for Overwatch
In a recent developer update, Overwatch’s game director Jeff Kaplan announced a substantial rework of the playstyle of healer Mercy. In between repeatedly telling players not to worry, he outlined a new set of abilities that seemed, well, worrying. Mercy is – or was – one of Overwatch’s most popular heroes. She was also one…
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Tacoma is Hopeful, and That’s Important
Tacoma opens with an empty space station; deserted by its crew in mysterious circumstances. Yet it doesn’t feel isolated. Protagonist Amy rarely speaks, but regularly receives messages from her corporate handlers and AI companion, and is constantly immersed in the colourful imprints of the ship’s previous inhabitants. The game is often tense, and sometimes things…
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“No Skill” Heroes: Ableism With a Side of Misogyny in Overwatch
Overwatch is full of heroes with a variety of abilities, including those who don’t require traditional first person shooter skills like aiming and twitch reflexes in order to be played well. Heroes like Winston and Symmetra have beam attacks that will lock onto nearby enemies; Torbjörn can set up an auto-aiming turret; and Mercy doesn’t even…
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Summer Games Done Quick Champions Accessibility
Summer Games Done Quick is running all of this week; a 24/7 marathon of speedruns raising money for Doctors Without Borders. And this time around, raising awareness of the need for accessibility in gaming, too. The marathon’s first slot is traditionally coveted for its high viewership, and this time around it went to halfcoordinated, who…
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E3 Presentations Featured Just 8 Female-Led Games
You might have noticed during my Gender at E3 series that I wasn’t exactly blown away by any of the press conferences when it came to showing women. And stepping back now that the shows are done, things really come into a sharp focus: this was a terrible E3 for female protagonists. Eight games. Tacoma.…
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The Price of Life is Strange: Before The Storm Devs Crossing SAG-AFTRA Picket Line
When Life is Strange: Before the Storm was announced, many were surprised that fan favourite Ashly Burch wouldn’t be reprising her role as Chloe Price. Later she took to Twitter to explain that it was due to the SAG-AFTRA strike that has been going on since October of 2016. Before the Storm is specifically about…
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Gender at E3: Nintendo
The Nintendo E3 press conference opened with a reel showing a diverse cast playing a bunch of Switch games, from Arms to Rocket League. Unfortunately, while they were happy to show people of all kinds enjoying their games, they weren’t so keen on including them in the games or the presentation themselves. Female characters were…