Tag: PlayStation

Devil May Cry
Feature

All hail the ultimate videogame devil

“Dull” reads the game’s judgement, punched across the top-right corner of the screen in a disappointed font. Dante throws his shoulder, thrusting his blade into the marionette a second time. “Cool!” Later, once Dante has become a proper daddy’s boy, he’ll impress the game he’s trapped inside to the highest tier of its letter-based rating system. Devil May Cry (2001) is a game in pursuit of being “Stylish!” As a theater of aesthetics, Devil May Cry cares little for anything else. The stage is an ancient castle dressed up to the nines: Gothic arches, cobwebbed corners, eerie portraits, phantom doorways.…
News

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…
Resident Evil Remake
Feature

The desolate mansion of Resident Evil

Resident Evil, released in 1996 for PlayStation 1, is hilarious—it’s so funny. The voice acting is ridiculous, the plot is sensational and the live-action cutscenes look like they’ve come from a porn parody film. In fact, that’s Resident Evil in a nutshell: from the campy character and costume design through the cheap music and sound effects, Resident Evil feels like a high-end fuck film, only without any fucking. Look at Jill. Look at Chris. Look at BARRY. This is a cast of actors straight out of a Brock Landers movie. Resident Evil has become the beloved low watermark of videogame production value, but designers…
Article

Learn to love again with the Alienware Steam Machine controller

This article was written using products provided by Alienware and the The Alienware Steam Machine First Look program. It’s been over a month since Kill Screen’s first piece introducing the Alienware Steam Machine and our blossoming relationship, and you’re probably wondering how we’ve been getting along in our new life together. The answer is, “Very well, thank you.” We’re out of the honeymoon phase, and no longer marveling at how the Steam Machine packs a surprising amount of power into such a tiny and delicate frame. It’s no desktop gaming tower, but it does the things it was designed to…
News

The Ballet game Bound is already sashaying into our hearts

There is a certain ballet to game design. Perhaps not in the visual sense, but in the dedication—the blood, sweat, and tears it takes to pull off even a simple movement. Like a game designer, a ballerina must work night and day, while knowing every aspect of what goes into the beauty of her art, both inside and out. From the high level concepts to the granular, from the emotion of the piece to the soles of the shoes that help her execute it. A ballerina must make a world erupt from the rigid structure of her body, creating by pushing the natural limitations of her canvas. Just…
News

Soft Body’s teaser trailer is a meditative music video in search of a game

How many videogames could just as easily be Bon Iver or Sigur Rós music videos? Ten percent? Fifteen? In the spirit of that question, here is the trailer for Soft Body, which, in addition to being the fashion thinkpiece term of art for yours truly, is apparently “an action-puzzle game set in a meditative, musical world”:  Soft Body is what happens when bits of every arcade game you have ever loved escape the zoo and join forces to form a chilly synth-pop band. Snakes slither around a series of abstract obstacles, no longer constrained by the hard boxes of early…
News

SUPERHYPERCUBE is bringing telekinetic tetris to virtual reality

Very few games are telekinesis-friendly. Sure, you use your mind to move objects, but there is always a visible intermediary. Even the illusion of psychic ability cannot survive in most games.  SUPERHYPERCUBE, which has been in development since 2008, offers the promise of telekinetic Tetris. Since its original version, the game has promised to use 3D-depth to maximize and enliven the challenge of fitting blocks into walls. In earlier iterations, this was to be achieved through more traditional stereoscopy—the blue and red glasses variety. With the rise of virtual reality (VR), the game appears to have plumbed new depths, and…
News

Katamari Damacy’s creator will have us unite friends with a giant funsplosion next

While members of the press struggle to properly label Wattam (is it a puzzle game? A sandbox? A friendship simulator?), the latest trailer only continues to defy all categorization and genre. If you haven’t played on of Keita Takahashi’s games before then you haven’t seen a game quite like Wattam, and that’s only one of its extraordinary qualities. Co-founded by ex-thatgamecompany (Journey) producer Robin Hunickie, and famed Katamri Damacy creator Keita Takahashi, Funomena game studio is creating a playground that unlocks only through friendship, experimentation, and explosions. Hidden beneath Wattam‘s happy-go-lucky exterior lies a story world of unexpected tragedy. “After a series…