Wednesday, October 26 2011
Dead Again: Notes on the Impermanence of the Virtual Body
In video games, dying becomes useful, functional, pedagogical. In some games, it is consequential. However, such pain ironically can magnify the pleasure of play.
Wednesday, August 10 2011
Limbo
Limbo expertly fosters a sense of horror and mystery, but it is unclear as to whether there is actually anything to discover.
Thursday, July 21 2011
Death Is Boring: Immortality as Character Development in Video Games
The infinite lives of video game characters present an interesting narrative conundrum: how does a writer create tension when the hero is essentially immortal?
Friday, August 6 2010
Dreaming in ‘Limbo’
Limbo is a nightmare. A dark, ethereal, and dangerous world filled with giant spiders, malicious kids, screaming machinery, and by the end, you’re no closer to understanding any of it than when you began.
Tuesday, August 3 2010
Worlds Without Words: What German Expressionism Can Teach Us About Game Design
A moving picture is worth 24,000 words per second. How about a game?
Tuesday, March 24 2009
Part 2: The Virgin Suicides to The Blair Witch Project (May - August 1999)
In Part Two of our look at the most memorable films of 1999, we experience music, foul-mouthed mayhem, and a late, great auteur's final cinematic statement.
Sunday, January 1 1995
Limbo (1999)
Polar bears. Carved totem poles. Eskimo dolls on souvenir shop shelves. Salmon getting their heads chopped off on an assembly line. These are the images that welcome you to 'America's Last Frontier,' or more precisely, to the Juneau, Alaska of John Sayles's latest film, Limbo. As this opening sequence suggests, the frontier is less wild than it once was; nowadays, it's exploited and compromised, shaped and reshaped daily by routine and thoughtless violence.
