Rachel Helps

Relax all cool with easy mode Sonic

When I can’t bring myself to finish a game, sometimes I watch the ending in a user-made play video. You know the ones… they usually have play commentary that no one wants to hear. But there is an art to realtime videogame commentary. This smooth jazz of Let’s Play of Sonic originally appeared on the

Does nostalgia stifle or encourage creativity in games?

In the last few years, games with a “retro” or “nostalgic” style have become popular. Some of the games riding the childhood wave are excellent. Brendan Keogh found that Retro City Rampage‘s CRT overlay brought to mind fond memories: I could remember what the lounge room of my family’s house was lik

A graphic novel seeks to recover that old Zelda feeling

Tevis Thompson, who wrote about his disillusionment with Zelda, and David Hellman, the artist of Braid, have teamed up to make a graphic novel about a young woman discovering the truth about her civilization, with an emphasis on suggestion rather than telling you exactly what’s happening. A universe

Zynga lays off employees during Apple event; gains evil points

While we were thinking about how post-release developer layoffs may do more harm than good, Zynga was busy laying off most of their Austin-based studio. Ian Miles Cheong at Gameranx has the gorey details: We are told that the employees were given less than two hours to clear out their desks followin

Go on a gaming diet: only play games that respect your time

The Internet contains too much information for any individual to read it all. One approach to this problem is to go on a “raw” information diet of reading actual bills in Congress and original scientific papers. It’s… an interesting idea rooted in the local slow food movement, and strikes me as kind