Video games

Lovingly designed, touching and immersive: Neva reviewed

30 November 2024 9:00 am

Grade: A- There’s a very faint echo of Jeff VanderMeer’s unheimlich Southern Reach Series in the new indie side-scroller Neva.…

Much more than just a game: World of Warcraft at 20

9 November 2024 9:00 am

On 23 November, the video game World of Warcraft celebrates its 20th anniversary. That’s no small thing. By most metrics,…

Why is Elon Musk obsessed with Diablo IV?

2 November 2024 9:00 am

Grade: A- I usually try to write about new games, but indulge me in addressing Blizzard’s open-world dungeon crawler Diablo…

Is it up to pop stars to save the planet now?

26 October 2024 9:00 am

‘Walking by the banks of the Chao Praya on a breezy evening after a day of intense heat,’ writes Sunil…

Charming and silly: Sam & Max – The Devil’s Playhouse reviewed

7 September 2024 9:00 am

Grade: B Readers of a certain age (mine, roughly) may have fond memories of 1993’s Sam & Max Hit the…

Can video games be funny?

10 August 2024 9:00 am

Grade: B+ Games can be exciting, puzzling, scary, competitive and – occasionally – moving. Can they be funny? Not often.…

Gorgeous and deeply absorbing: Manor Lords reviewed

18 May 2024 9:00 am

Grade: A ‘God games’, as they used to be called, have a storied history. SimCity, Civilisation and the excellently sadistic…

It’s time to free art from being ‘interactive’ and ‘immersive’

4 May 2024 9:00 am

The American artist and critic Brad Troemel once pointed out that art galleries have all turned into a kind of…

Entirely pointless and extremely pleasant: House Flipper 2 reviewed

20 April 2024 9:00 am

Grade: B+ Most video games challenge the player’s problem-solving skills, reaction time or hand-eye co-ordination. But a handful of them…

War games do something seriously unpleasant to our brains

29 October 2022 9:00 am

Not all video games are war games but those that are do something deeply unpleasant to our brains, says Sam Kriss

Hot topic: How many of us own fans?

3 August 2019 9:00 am

Growing fanbase A photograph of the Queen meeting Boris Johnson revealed that she uses a Dyson electric fan. How many…

Not quite scary or clever enough for legendary status: Resident Evil 2 reviewed

2 February 2019 9:00 am

Grade: B Resident Evil 2 takes the original zombie shooter, which has become a cult classic and, to many, the…

Portrait of a seven-year-old state-run child

21 July 2018 9:00 am

Saturday morning. Quarter to 12. Sit-down fish and chips at the Silver Grill: me, Oscar and Oscar’s cousin Atticus. Atticus…

Games without frontiers: Ian Cheng’s ‘Emissaries Guide – Narrative Agents and Wildlife’ (2017)

The artist who creates digital life forms that bite & self-harm. Sam Leith meets him (and them)

24 March 2018 9:00 am

Digital art is a crowded field. It’s also now older than I am. Yet despite a 50-year courtship, art galleries…

What will I do with a second chance at life? Play more video games

26 March 2016 9:00 am

Does a near-death experience make you a better person? This is something I’ve been thinking about on and off since…

The greatest joy of playing Grand Theft Auto V? It lets you give the finger to the PC brigade

27 September 2014 9:00 am

The last — and only — time I had sex with a whore she was so impressed by my performance…