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9 months ago
Feature: Big fish tales
The Japanese myths and woodblock art behind Sekiro’s creatures
Fantastic creatures are as important to Sekiro as its samurai and shinobi. For every deftly fought duel against a venerable warrior there’s a slug-fest with a headless ape that hurls toxic poo. It’s a fine balance between the real and the romantic. Whereas Dark Souls had everything to do with “lore”, Sekiro more delicately pulls from folklore. Lordran is almost purely imaginative, but Sekiro’s Ashina…
11 months ago
Feature: Cold front
I like bad weather and I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s the raw, sublime beauty of it. More likely, it’s a form of meteorological Stockholm Syndrome. I’ve lived in Britain long enough to appreciate being constantly rained on (at least until Summer when my face melts off onto the pavement). But the bad weather I’m talking about lies in the Goldilocks zone. I want neither…
1 year ago
Feature: A visit to the shattered wastes of 2b2t
It has become increasingly difficult to play games that aren’t about the end of the world. The apocalypse and its chaotic aftermath has grown into a collective obsession. We seem to have a cultural fascination, desire, perhaps even lust, to see things burn, violently breaking with the past. Even games that weren’t originally about living in the end times, like Minecraft, have been twisted into…
Feature: There's something behind you
The eeriest places in games are the ones where the environment is the monster
Whilst raw forms of horror work through shock and disgust, the eerie is felt more as a threat. Perhaps something seems to hover over or follow you -- there’s a rustling just behind you, or a shimmering in your peripheral vision. Usually eeriness pertains to places rather than people. Places that seem to move, shift or even act when they really should lie still. This…
Feature: Scary as folk
The rural idyll has a strange pull on us. Picture a green and pleasant land: white sheep dot rolling hills like puffs from a steam train. Children with flowers in their hair dance round coloured maypoles. All the while, in a white marquee, where bunting flaps in the breeze, oversized ribbons are being awarded for best sponge cake. Dig deeper however and we discover old…
