gaming
Helen Hawkins
On July 4, 2022, one of the most unusual performances in Hamlet’s lengthy and much travelled CV took place: an in-game stream for players of the blockbuster Grand Theft Auto (GTA).This piece of "videogame theatre" was the brainchild of two out of work British actors, Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen; Pinny Grylls, Sam’s wife, shot and edited it, using the camera functions on her phone. Their account of this process in the documentary Grand Theft Hamlet has been a hit at film festivals and even won an award from The Stage.The project was born of frustration and boredom during the Read more ...
Jon Turney
For a couple of decades, the free video game America’s Army was a powerful recruitment aid for the US military. More than a shoot-em-up, players might find themselves dressing virtual wounds, struggling to co-ordinate tactics with their squad, and facing other supposedly realistic aspects of active service. The realism, of course, had one strict limit. If you died, you could reset the game and play again.The game is one of innumerable examples in Kelly Clancy’s book of how the invented reality of play worlds has an appeal which is functional for some, potentially catastrophic for others. Read more ...
Joseph Walsh
Back in 1999, The Matrix offered something revolutionary. With a heady brew of William Gibson-influenced cyberpunk, Platonic philosophy and Prada, it proved that blockbusters could be both smart and action-packed. Remember those days? Two decades on, The Matrix films have been the subject of doctoral theses, inspired a new era of sci-fi's, video games, and spawned the idea we are all living in a simulation (it’s worth digging out Rodney Ascher’s incredibly enjoyable, A Glitch in the Matrix). Now in The Matrix Resurrections we return to the world created by the Wachowskis. Lana Read more ...
Jill Chuah Masters
Welcome to New Mushroomton: a fantasy land that’s forgotten itself. This is how we’re introduced to Pixar’s Onward, which is set in a Dungeons & Dragons daydream of suburbia. Director Dan Scanlon’s film is a tribute to his late father, but it begins with a separate elegy. “Long ago,” we’re told, “the world was full of wonder.” Until the day that convenience killed magic — electricity was invented, spells cast aside. Today’s mythical creatures have become ordinary: trolls run tollbooths, gnomes are garden-variety.Such is life for Onward’s heroes, the elven Lightfoot family. There’s meek Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
Two years ago Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle dusted off the Robin Williams vehicle from the Nineties with entertaining results, improving on the original with astute casting, a goofy script and special effects that didn’t take themselves too seriously.A sequel was inevitable. And as befitting a film that takes place inside a video game, to make it work the filmmakers had to go onto the ‘next level’ in terms of plotting and spectacle. They’ve achieved that, with a great deal of ingenuity, while perhaps predictably losing some of the freshness of the earlier outing.Jumanji is the literally Read more ...
Alfred Quantrill
Design/Play/Disrupt at the V&A covers a wide variety of games that are spearheading the gaming world at the moment. It takes a closer look at eight of the most innovative and different games that have changed the world of gaming in the last five years. Concept sketches and art show the games developing as they gradually take their final form. The exhibition also looks at how videogames could be more life-like and give a new perspective on the world.Some of the games cover topics never really seen before in games. Mafia 3 is set in 1968 USA, and addresses racism as an integral part of the Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
Seth Kriebel, 45, is a performer, much of whose work involves audience participation. He is bringing the show A House Repeated to the Brighton Festival 2018 between 6th and 11th May. Of American origin, born and raised near Philadelphia, Kriebel moved to the UK in 2001 and, over the last few years, has achieved increasing profile and success with shows such as Beowulf, The Unbuilt Room and We This Way.THOMAS H GREEN: Was your background in the States arts-orientated?SETH KRIEBEL: This is always difficult to try and contextualise for a British audience. Where I’m from is roughly equivalent to Read more ...
Steve O'Rourke
Civilisation is under threat from a bunch of religious rednecks, and it’s your job as the new Deputy Sheriff of fictional Hope County to right the wrongs of a year-long silent coup initiated by Eden’s Gate, a fanatical doomsday cult, intent on purging sinners and imposing their law on the land. There's a Brexit gag in there somewhere.Set in America, a first for the franchise, Far Cry 5 serves up more of the same freedom to explore a massive open world. It’s a beautifully detailed environment filled with pine forests, mountain ranges, shimmering lakes, rickety old towns and winding roads. A Read more ...
Steve O'Rourke
Ratchet & Clank may well be the biggest chart topping videogame double act you’ve never heard of, but all that is set to change. After a dozen games in 14 years, Ratchet, the feline-like character known as a lombax, and diminutive robot Clank, have got a headline-grabbing year ahead of them.Not only are they the stars of the best game they’ve ever graced the cover of, but there’s also a big-budget animated movie set for an imminent release starring the vocal talent of Sylvester Stallone and John Goodman. So essentially you’re playing the game, which is based on the movie, which is based Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Starring Daniel Radcliffe as Sam Houser, who's portrayed as the dominant creative mastermind behind Rockstar Games and its phenomenally successful Grand Theft Auto series, The Gamechangers (**) sought to depict legal battles over GTA's violent and sexually explicit content as landmarks in the history of artistic freedom. Rockstar Games didn't approve the film and, having filed a lawsuit against the BBC for trademark infringement, denounced the finished product as "random, made-up bollocks".They do have a point, since the film visibly staggers under its own contradictions. A skimpy budget Read more ...
Simon Munk
Most first-person games immediately stick a gun in the bottom part of your screen. Developers seem to believe that the only exciting agency a player has in virtual worlds is to destroy them and kill the people populating them. A Story About My Uncle joins a small, but growing band of first-person games that ditch the shooting, for the better.Alongside such titles as Portal and Antichamber, A Story About My Uncle is led by puzzles, by grasping the world with a hand, or traversing through it, rather than shooting at it. Told as a bedtime story (like Princess Read more ...
Simon Munk
On technical grounds, it's pretty hard as a gamer not to simply be amazed by Modern Combat 5 – it is, pretty much, a fully-functioned, first-person shooter to rival Call Of Duty and Battlefield, only on your phone rather than a dedicated home console.That's not just talking in terms of visuals – although they're the most immediately impressive thing about the game. As well as the graphics, there's the amount of single-player missions, the multi-player and the plethora of side-quests, weapons upgrades and loadout options available also.Unfortunately, visual and technical elements are not the Read more ...