There’s more to the Triforce than just a few triangles. It’s a symbol for power, courage, and wisdom — the ultimate source of strength and influence. It’s been in every Zelda game since The Legend of Zelda was released in Japan in 1986 — though in the first game, Link...
Poker Face creators desperately wanted a hero to call bullshit, so they invented one
As far as catchphrases go, “bullshit” is a pretty good one. Maybe it’s not original, but damn if it isn’t satisfying. Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne), the protagonist of Poker Face, Rian Johnson’s throwback murder mystery show gets to say it several times an episode thanks to her unique gift: a...
Roblox wants an older audience, but it’s leaving younger players behind
Roughly a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, Carolyn, a mother of six, finally capitulated to her kids’ begging. Her children wanted to join Roblox, a platform that allows users to create and host online multiplayer games. Roblox became a vital way for kids to connect virtually during the pandemic, and...
How the Pokémon studio’s unlikeliest mashup came about
Pocket Card Jockey, an unlikely mashup of horse racing and solitaire from Pokémon developer Game Freak that became a cult favorite on Nintendo 3DS, is back. The just-released Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On! brings this inexplicably moreish combination to iOS via the Apple Arcade subscription service. I’ve had the game...
No Zelda game is closer to Breath of the Wild than the 1986 original
In the mid-1980s, in Kyoto, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, Takashi Tezuka, and their team were working on two game designs in parallel that were intended to be two sides of the same coin. One would be linear, an obstacle course, a headlong rush toward a goal. The other would be nonlinear,...
Playing Street Fighter made me a better piano teacher
In June of 2014, the week following Ultra Street Fighter 4’s console release, I earned my master’s degree in music education, with a focus on piano pedagogy. Staring down the barrel of what would turn out to be nearly a year of unemployment, I decided to satisfy a long-held curiosity:...
Video games screwed up my hands — and helped rehabilitate them
One day in the claustrophobic summer of 2020, a mere 20 minutes after the servers for battle royale shooter Apex Legends went down, I spiraled into a full-blown panic attack. This should have been indicative of a problem, but at the time, it wasn’t. I had discovered the game that...
The Last of Us creators had to make Pedro Pascal’s Joel softer than in the games
The Last of Us looks a lot like the video game that inspired it, but don’t mistake that for damning it with faint praise. The HBO series’ weathered apocalyptic look is often lifted straight from a game known for looking cinematic and full even at its most ruthless and brutal....
James Cameron’s Avatar team tried to celebrate ‘all indigenous cultures on Earth’
When James Cameron’s original Avatar debuted in 2009, the storyline prompted a wide-ranging backlash against what many saw as white-savior tropes and the repurposing of real Native culture and imagery to reinforce old, tired noble-savage stereotypes. Cameron’s critical comments about the Lakota Sioux people’s legacy only exacerbated the issues. But...
Exercising during cutscenes will improve your focus, according to an OT
We’ve all been there. We stand before the mist, door, ladder, or whatever else initiates the boss fight in a game like, say, God of War Ragnarök, and steel ourselves for the unknown — or at least for the saltwater education we’re about to get. Surging with giddiness and fear,...