Titanfall is an excellent example of the problem of restricting all modes of a game to online matches. After all, despite injecting into its worn-out genre new mechanics that finally renew and expand the possibilities of an FPS, Titanfall fails to develop them fully, limiting the player experience. The game’s story, which is told in an online campaign mode, is …

Altered Carbon is little concerned with the philosophical implications of its incredible premise, preferring to put all its focus on the political aspects of its fantastical world. Written by Richard Morgan, this cyberpunk novel is not interested in how the characters deal with issues of memory and identity, but in how they manage to resist the constant oppression of a …

The Night of the Rabbit follows the classic formula of the point-and-click adventure genre: it tries to immerse us in a fantastical world, with a strong focus on story and atmosphere, while structuring the action around puzzle-solving. Here, Daedelic Entertainment presents a fairy tale – with talking animals and evil magicians – and is successful at building the narrative’s optimistic …

Affordable Space Adventures is a puzzle-adventure game that manages to make better use of the Wii U gamepad than any of Nintendo’s own titles on the system. Telling a story that confronts the exploitative practices of large corporations while offering innovative mechanics that create unique puzzles, the game only falters when it comes to its difficulty curve, which falls sharply …

Giordano Bruno (friar, philosopher, and the protagonist of Heresy) was persecuted by the Inquisition at the end of the sixteenth century for preaching the infinity of the universe and its heliocentric model, preceding even the famous Galileo. It is said that his last speech, when he was finally captured by the Inquisition in 1600 and sentenced to death for heresy, …

The traits of the classic Greek hero differ substantially from those of a contemporary one. While the latter is tied to the morality of their society, the former is barely concerned with notions of right and wrong: their vocabulary, instead, circles around the concept of glory. Kratos, the protagonist of God of War, is one of these heroes. He massacres …

The Lovecraft Project: Howard Phillips Lovecraft is the father of cosmic horror – the genre constructed around the notion that we humans are just a tiny, insignificant part of the universe, which holds much bigger, ancient, more powerful beings. We are nothing compared to what lies out there, beyond our reach and understanding. The plan is to write a few …

One of the most recurrent problems in fantasy novels concerns exposition, with the intricate world created for the story being described in too much detail, to the detriment of the characters and pacing. But, sometimes, the opposite is true: the world is put aside for too long and so fails to capture our interest. In Gardens of the Moon, one …

Despite being developed in just one year, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask remains the most narratively ambitious game in the franchise. Establishing an oppressive atmosphere from the very first few minutes, Majora’s Mask presents a doomed world that forces people to come to terms with death and loss. The game begins soon after the events of Ocarina of Time, …

Written by Clare Vanderpool, Navigating Early is a touching novel whose narrative is built by parallels and allegories. Its frequent mixing of fantasy and reality, however, doesn’t quite land, relying heavily on bizarre coincidences to work. The story takes place in 1945, following a trip two boys undertake through a forest in Maine. Jackie, the protagonist, is a 13-year-old boy …