Video games

Winning little narrative adventure: South of Midnight reviewed

26 April 2025 9:00 am

Grade: A– For this winning little narrative adventure we are in the South – all gris-gris gumbo yaya, decaying mansions…

Ridiculously fun: Assassin’s Creed – Shadows reviewed

29 March 2025 9:00 am

Grade: A Sometimes you want to admire the pluck and inventiveness of an indie developer. At other times, you just…

The new Civ is gorgeous and richly rewarding

22 February 2025 9:00 am

Grade: A- It has been nearly ten years since addicts of the empire-building simulator Civilization – or Civ, as players…

The latest Dragon Age game is unbearably right-on

7 December 2024 9:00 am

Like all other forms of culture, video games offer a way to escape from, or reflect on, reality through fiction.…

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…