The below write-up is stolen directly from the Top 40 tracks of 2017 countdown I’m currently doing with my boy Tim Maytom over on our new site, Tim + Alex dot com. I’d encourage you to read the whole list – I promise, most of the write-ups are much snappier than this – but I went a bit renegade on this entry and felt like it probably deserved its own space.
It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, but as the impending wedding and honeymoon means all non-speech writing is basically going on hiatus for a few weeks, it seemed like a good time to share some of my favourite pieces from the last few months.
A funny thing happened to me last year. After a lifelong habit of moving from game to game as soon as I felt I’d sucked the essential nutrients from them… I started finishing games. It helped that it was the year I got a PS4 and that, despite being awful in almost every other conceivable way, 2016 produced a bumper crop of great video games. So I thought I’d write about some of them. Not great sweeping reviews, but just little nuggets of writing that might clue you into whether they’re worth trying, or cause you to disagree violently if you’ve already played them yourself. Starting with…
This might be a farewell to comic conventions, at least for a little while. Let’s write it and find out.
Hey there, stranger! The blog’s a bit quiet these days, simply because I’ve been doing a lot of work for other sites. Work which includes some of the articles I’m most proud of, like, ever.
This weekend, I finished Steamworld Dig. That in and of itself is pretty remarkable. As much as I love games, these days I rarely finish them. Normally, I suck out all of a game’s ideas and mechanics, like the marrow from its bone, or get stuck or just bored, and then move onto the next one.
After a bit of a fallow year for gaming in 2015, when I played a lot of analogue cardboard games and MGS V and basically nothing else, I started this year by buying a PS4. I’m in that glorious post-new-console honeymoon period, where I suddenly have a huge library of games at my disposal. So as I cycle through games, I want to try and write about at least some of them. The plan is short blogs – not too much thinking ahead, not too much editing, just what I can shake loose in a single sitting – picking out one or two things I find interesting about each game. Here’s the first:
Oh gosh. I haven’t posted anything on this blog for the entirety of 2016 to this point. I’ve got a couple of things cooking, but in the meantime it seemed polite to let you know what I’ve been busy doing instead (namely, writing for other sites for actual currency that I can use to feed myself and my very hungry dog).
Tim Maytom’s Person of the Year is a venerable institution around these parts, dating all the way back to 2010. Every year since, Tim has come to me, and the following dialogue has ensued: “Alex, can’t I make you my Person of the Year this year? Please?” “No, Tim, that would look too self-congratulatory.” “But you’re my hero, Alex.” “I know, but…” And then Tim has to go and find a different name to add to our own personal Hall of Fame. In previous years, we’ve inaugurated Donald Glover, Amy Poehler, Pete Holmes, Matt Fraction & Kelly Sue DeConnick and most recently Taylor Swift. Most of the time, Tim isn’t wrong. Will this be the year he finally slips up?
It’s another round-up! I’ve been leaving my wordy droppings around the internet again, but in case you haven’t spent the last quarter tracking my every move, I’ve collected the finest samples from the last few months and brushed them into one neat corner for you to sniff at.