Author: Hailey Rounsaville

A DC transplant and avid Bethesda apologist, Hailey can usually be found hanging with her two rabbits, bumping into things, and reveling at pictures of sushi.
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Saddle up: Oblivion is now backwards compatible

Microsoft’s been rolling out a lot of new backwards-compatible games this month, the latest of which is 2006’s beloved The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Bethesda tweeted that Oblivion, and all its DLC with the exception of Shivering Isles, was available for download on the Microsoft store. As always, if you still have the original disc, your game will be downloaded free of charge. Oblivion, which has been out for over 10 years, arrives right on the coattails of backwards-compatible versions of Mass Effect 2 (2010) and 3 (2012), which were debuted earlier this month. Bethesda’s banking on the nostalgia Though the…
Rise Up
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Look out for a boardgame about organizing protests

I work, live, and study in Washington, D.C.—undoubtedly one of the world’s most political cities. Here reside the highest stratum of politicians, lobbyists, and corporate cash-mongers. Here, too, live the downtrodden, the marginalized—systematically oppressed people of varying color, socioeconomic status, and gender identity who the government promised to uplift, but, in effect, did quite the opposite. It only takes one stroll through Georgetown to understand how economically and racially segregated this city is. Washington is the world’s welcome mat to the United States: a city that is supposed to encompass all that America loves and strives for. And it does…
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Along Came Humans wants to make colonization great again

What if Spore (2008) hadn’t been a complete and total letdown? What if Sim City took to the stars, with colorful aesthetics a la Kerbal Space Program (2015) and a friendlier, simplified interface? What if a smart, streamlined game could offer you all of that and more? Along Came Humans, created by Tim Aksu of Pelican Punch Studios, is promising that. The goal is simple: colonize a planet. Then colonize another planet to bolster aforementioned planet’s diminishing resources. Streamline. Reorganize. Rinse. Repeat. According to Asku, your colonies will demand a larger variety—as well as a higher quality—of goods as they expand. Your job…
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Battlefield 1’s tiny handgun is here to humiliate you

Picture this: you’re in the Battlefield 1 open beta. Chaos is happening all around you. Buildings are falling, gunshots are whizzing past your ear, narrowly missing. The fear of an airstrike or mustard gas bombing always looms in the background. As the action crescendos, an enemy jumps out of a bush, and kills you with a gun no bigger than a credit card. A fucking Kolibri. The 2mm Kolibri is a very real, very tiny handgun—first manufactured in 1910, it remains the world’s smallest centerfire cartridge. The name Kolibri literally means hummingbird, although I would argue here that the gun’s…
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Welfare State, a game about the anxieties of flirting with poverty

In high school, I played a game called Spent. This poverty simulator was a welcome distraction from an otherwise unbearable personal finance class. Spent begins by chiding you with the question: “You’d never need help, right?” From there, it’s a juggling act of rent, groceries, activities for your kids, and random setbacks in the form of injuries and car repairs. In Spent, once you get the hang of it, you can keep your head above water for quite some time. In Randy O’Connor’s new iOS game Welfare State, however, you’ve already drowned. Welfare State is, in O’Connor’s own words,”a stressful…
IMPRESSIONISTa
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IMPRESSIONISTa lets you wander around one of Monet’s paintings

Plenty of games have toyed with the convention of going inside paintings—Oblivion (2006), Super Mario 64 (1996), and Dark Souls (2011) to name a few. But only a handful of games have been made with the sole purpose of perusing artwork from the inside out. IMPRESSIONISTa, a new exploration game from Gigoia Studios (whose games, in fact, all share this theme), is one of them. perusing artwork from the inside out The game transports you from a sterile gallery straight into Giverny, where most of Monet’s paintings were made. Specifically, IMPRESSIONISTa mimics the style and color palette of “Water Lilies”—arguably Monet’s…
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Girl Scouts can earn videogame design patches now

It’s hard to turn down a Girl Scout, and that’s no accident—I should know, I am one. From the start, we learn valuable business and communication skills through selling cookies (that are, objectively, pretty damn good). Community service often has an emphasis on sustainability and environmental justice, meaning our projects will continue to have an impact long after they’re over. Workshops and field trips allow us to explore new interests in a safe, encouraging environment. We do all this hand-in-hand with our own girl gang. The end result? Girl Scouts are fearless. With the encouragement of STEM programs, they’ll be…
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Things seen in Yakuza 6’s new trailer: crying babies, cat cafés, and lots of sushi

The sixth and final installment in the Yakuza franchise, titled Ryū ga Gotoku 6: Inochi no Uta (Like a Dragon 6: Poetry of Life) is looking to be a bigger, better caricature of itself. Yakuza 6 will bring the legend of Kazuma Kiryu to a close—but not without having a little fun first. Where we last left Kazuma, he had just reconciled with Haruka. He fell in the snow, bleeding—the injuries sustained from the final battle appearing to have mortally wounded him. Kazuma, losing consciousness, said he had to “go back where everyone is waiting for me.” Whether this meant…
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In Calm Down Stalin, great vodka comes with great responsibility

The Cold War was as much a war of personality as it was a war between nations. For more than 60 years, everyday tensions for U.S. and Soviet leaders risked boiling over into nuclear war. It took hordes of advisors on both sides to talk down leaders like Reagan and Gorbachev when faulty intel or empty threats threatened to wipe humanity off the map. In hindsight, it was as much coddling as it was diplomacy. Calm Down, Stalin is a darkly humorous look at just how close humanity can get to offing itself. Quite literally, your only job is to…