Maddi Chilton

Unwinnable Exploits — I work at a bookstore: I should know better than to fall into cliché and judge a book by its cover, and yet I do it anyway, writing off books I know nothing about because of the people I see purchas- ing them. Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove stood, to me, next to books like Michener’s Texas or Clavell’s Shogun – archaic paperback epics exclusively purchased by white men my father’s age who otherwise spent their time wearing holes in the floor of the military history section.

Bullet Points Monthly — It takes a solid few hours of grinding in Cyberpunk 2077 to reach the Afterlife, the legendary bar that hosts the greatest fixers, solos, and other pay-to-play mercs in Night City. The name is a macabre echo of the drink menu, an enviable list of options named after the greatest and latest (read: deadest) heroes of the underworld. It’s a place where only the coolest of the cool can go, where mere entry means you’re on the come-up: making your name in the world, rubbing elbows with the reckless living and the restless dead.

Bullet Points Monthly — A few hours into Disco Elysium, the protagonist, a police detective, and his partner Kim Kitsuragi cross a previously-inaccessible water lock and come across a crashed motor carriage, nose-down in an icy marsh and flooded with water. In it, he finds his own badge and coat. The detective asks Kim what happened; Kim gives a noncommittal reply. They sit on an abandoned swingset as the detective mulls over the possibilities, a task which (due to brain damage and general incompetence) takes several hours. After far too long, he puts two and two together: “I DROVE MY CAR INTO THE SEA?!?!?!”

K-pop Comment — After much teasing and delays, WINNER's Mino finally dropped his debut solo album XX on November 26th, and, well. It's very Mino. The album's artsy inclinations and pleasantly adventurous bangers might come as a surprise to some. After all, WINNER have made their name with the simplest and catchiest of pop, and Mino's never gotten that creative within their discography.

K-pop Comment — "Solo," the debut song by BLACKPINK's rapper-vocalist Jennie, starts off sweet and simple. The first gentle melody precedes a snappy drop into the chorus's catchy, whistling beat.

The Eagle Online — "God's Own Country" has been compared quite a lot to "Brokeback Mountain," as they're both meandering tales about finding forbidden love in the countryside. They both cross the entire spectrum of emotion from sweet to tragic and back again, but "God's Own Country" deviates from the picturesque mountains of Wyoming, instead taking place in the gray, cloudy British countryside.

Unwinnable — We're about thirty minutes into Blade Runner when the replicants Leon and Roy confront the scientist - and replicant eye constructor - Chew in his freezing laboratory. The walls are covered with ice, and Chew's buried in a parka twice his size. While Roy monologues, Leon explores, and comes across a frosted beaker filled with liquid.

Medium — Dishonored: Death of the Outsider is an intensely selfish game. It's not that this isn't in line with the history of the series - it's just that I thought we were past that. The Dishonored series as a whole has never quite overcome the fact that, at their core, they are games about people killing to get revenge.

Kill Screen — Glitches and bugs have become the hallmark of Bethesda Softworks' renowned 3D RPGs. Their releases are riddled with them: Fallout 3 (2008) regularly sent robots and Deathclaws flying through the air, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006) had an arrow duplication glitch that led to the greatest YouTube videos in the world, and characters fell through the map in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011), like, all the time.

Kill Screen — An exploration of four spaces.

Kill Screen — No Truce With The Furies, in addition to being an oil painting come to life, is a game with a very high standard for writing. Developer Fortress Occident boasts a published science-fiction author in its writing team, and the game cites as inspirations text-heavy Infinity Engine games like Planescape: Torment (1999) and the original Fallout (1997).

Kill Screen — In anticipation of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided's release later this August, Square Enix and Eidos Montreal have released a series of pictures depicting the current state of major cities around the globe during the events of the game, including London, Berlin, Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro, and Moscow. They are... certainly something.

Kill Screen — "FAIR FIGHTS ARE GOOD, IF YOU ARE IN A MOVIE, OR WOULD LIKE TO BECOME DEAD." This is told to me by a crystal in the middle of a desert, surrounded on all sides by dust and cacti and one single, solitary highway.

Kill Screen — A revolution-wrecked port city. An enthusiastic policeman out of his depth. "Neither fantasy, history, nor any kind of -punk." Helmed by a "chronically success-impaired" science-fiction writer and describing itself as a combination of Planescape: Torment (1999), Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, and Kentucky Route Zero (2013), it's a game about "being a total failure."

Kill Screen — In 2013, the Sri Lankan newspaper The Sunday Times interviewed Avinash Kumar, an experimental VJ (video jockey) from India, about a project he was heading: a short story that became a graphic novel that became an album with his audio-visual collective BLOT!, which then became something else altogether.

Kill Screen — In 1988, Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3 were released. The first Metal Gear was ported to the NES. Square Enix came out with Final Fantasy II, the second Zelda was brought to the US, and Mega Man 2 was published in Japan.

Kill Screen — Though many people might think that board games are a relatively modern phenomenon, the likes of Trouble (1965) and The Game of Life (1960) were actually preceded by years and years of table-based entertainment, flung as far and wide as Egypt, India, and ancient China.

Kill Screen — In 2007, Jo Yardely visited Second Life (2003) for the first time. She looked around, took in the view, and left immediately. "[Second Life] was a place where weird people spent all their time chatting about uninteresting things," she said on her blog, "pretending they were having virtual hanky panky or spending real money on virtual rubbish."