Category Archives: Art Reviews and Articles

[Game: Half-Life, Valve, 1998]
Half-Lively:

Half-Life, Black Mesa, and the Work of Art in the Age of Post-release Modification

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Introduction:

In an unassuming former monastery building adjacent to the church of Santa Maria Delle Grazie in Milan, Italy, there is a wall decorated with the remnants of a mural painted by Leonardo da Vinci. In English, the mural in question is known as The Last Supper, and—due to a combination of the oil-painting-like techniques employed by da Vinci (which differed considerably from Fresco techniques, and thus were very unconventional for mural work) together with aspects of the construction and later history of the building—the work is badly damaged.

Meanwhile, about 20 minutes away, in a space on an upper floor of the Galleria Vittorio Emannuelle II shopping complex (next to the Milan Cathedral), at the time of writing this there is an exhibit known as Leonardo3 which includes, among other features, a computer-aided reconstruction of what The Last Supper would have looked like at the time of its original completion by da Vinci in 1498. The question I now pose to you, dear readers, is a simple one: if these were the only two options in existence, which one would you say is what is meant by the phrase, ‘The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci?’

I’ll give you my own answer to this quandary in due time, and (regardless of your own response) it’s almost guaranteed to be an answer you don’t expect. But I can’t provide it just yet, as first I need to take some time to introduce and discuss the main topic of this article: Half-Life. And I need to do that in order to adjudicate a similar superficially straightforward dilemma. The Half-Life remake Black Mesa is a terrific game, is an incredible labor of love, and is the single greatest fan-led project of its kind ever completed. But on top of all of that, does Black Mesa also count as being Half-Life itself?

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[Game: Half-Life, Valve, 1998]
Half-Lively:

Half-Life, Black Mesa, and the Work of Art in the Age of Post-release Modification

 was last modified: December 18th, 2024 by Daniel Podgorski

[Game: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, FromSoftware, 2019]
Immortal Severance:

The Pros and Cons of FromSoft’s Action-stealth Hybrid Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

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Introduction:

By almost any metric, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a terrific game. FromSoft risked a big departure from the settings, systems, and nearly stealthless, nearly jumpless, stamina-defined gameplay that had made their name across the preceding decade. And the risk paid off! They turned out an exceptional game that really doesn’t slack in any of the conventional categories by which games are judged: it plays well; it looks good; it sounds good; it tells an engaging story. It’s fun! So . . . if that’s all that needs to be said about From’s action-stealth hybrid, then why don’t I love it? I do like it a great deal. But why do I have this nagging feeling that Sekiro, despite its incredibly high quality, will never be listed among my absolute favorite games?

For starters, you can rest assured that the answer to those questions has nothing to do with the game’s difficulty. If you’re here for the next chapter in the ongoing saga of people opining about challenging games, you’ve come to the wrong article. But if not that, then what? Well, perhaps a promising way to go about this is to do what I’ve done in the past when there is an arguable flaw or set of flaws that I think is worth discussing within an otherwise excellent game: draw a clear line between what I like about the game and what I don’t like, in the simple layout of a pro and con list.

Now, when this discussion gets to the cons—to what I consider to be the flaws of Sekiro—they will not be flaws that most people care about. Even calling them flaws will be contentious. But you have to remember that, not very long ago, there was a stretch lasting over half a decade (beginning with the release of Demon’s Souls) during which the majority of the games FromSoftware released were among the greatest games of all time. This article is about gauging how well Sekiro measures up to that very high bar FromSoft set for themselves.

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[Game: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, FromSoftware, 2019]
Immortal Severance:

The Pros and Cons of FromSoft’s Action-stealth Hybrid Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

 was last modified: February 16th, 2022 by Daniel Podgorski

[Game: Flywrench, Messhof, 2015]
Color-coded Careening:

On the Ingenious Design of Messhof’s High-speed Pared-down Platformer Flywrench

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Introduction:

Mark Essen, under the pseudonym and eventual team name Messhof, rose to prominence as an indie developer through the breakout success of his simplistic multiplayer swordfighting game Nidhogg in 2014. But within the burgeoning indie scene of the late 2000s and early 2010s, he had already been known as the developer of, among other things, a free 2007 release called Flywrench. Evidence of this indie community fame can be found in the 2010 game Super Meat Boy, which includes the ship from Flywrench as a playable character. By that reasoning, Flywrench should be at least as well-known as BIT.TRIP RUNNER.

But it would be another five years before Messhof would put the finishing touches on the full and final release version of Flywrench, which became available in 2015. This is a somewhat unfortunate fact, as by 2015 the indie scene had grown massively (not least of all with platformers). And so the game launched to relatively few sales and relatively little fanfare. Thus, one of the early notable titles of indie platforming, which with slightly faster development could have been remembered alongside Super Meat Boy, VVVVVV, Limbo, Fez, Braid, Spelunky, and Cave Story as one of the forerunners of the explosion in indie games in general and indie platformers in particular, has in its final form been more-or-less lost within that very explosion.

In this article, I hope to help fix the timeline—by highlighting how Flywrench remains today, even among the countless competing options now available, a truly original, unique, and enjoyable game.

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[Game: Flywrench, Messhof, 2015]
Color-coded Careening:

On the Ingenious Design of Messhof’s High-speed Pared-down Platformer Flywrench

 was last modified: November 17th, 2021 by Daniel Podgorski

[Game: The Beginner’s Guide, Everything Unlimited Ltd., 2015]
The Intermediate’s Guide:

A Critique of the Repeatedly Self-destructive Metafictional Story of The Beginner’s Guide

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Introduction:

The Beginner’s Guide is a peculiar project. In a nutshell, it’s a collection of small games and game concepts by a developer known as Coda, with an accompanying narration from the collection’s curator Davey Wreden. It has higher aspirations than merely being an anthology, however, as the voiceover presents a story about the narrator’s relationship to both the games being presented and the developer of those games.

This metanarrative touches on several worthwhile topics, including the interpretation of games (and art generally), the potential satisfaction or dissatisfaction of game development (and creativity generally), and what any art object may or may not be able to say about the creator of that art object. Along these lines, The Beginner’s Guide is deserving of some praise. It dares to push the envelope of what a game can be, and it does so in an experimental way that has proved fruitful in other media, especially in the past 200 years of literature and across most of the history of film.

But along essentially the same lines, the game is worthy of criticism as well. I have no way of expressing even the heading under which that criticism falls, however, without spoiling or even potentially ruining the experience of the game. So I’ll just spit out my usual warning, and then we’ll dig in: the nature of this article is such that it requires spoiling the plot of The Beginner’s Guide, so you should only continue reading after this paragraph if you either do not mind spoilers or you have already played the game.

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[Game: The Beginner’s Guide, Everything Unlimited Ltd., 2015]
The Intermediate’s Guide:

A Critique of the Repeatedly Self-destructive Metafictional Story of The Beginner’s Guide

 was last modified: January 13th, 2025 by Daniel Podgorski

[Game: Dead Space 2, Visceral Games, 2011]
Deadened Space:

How Small Elements of Design, Optimization, and Polish Combine to Diminish Dead Space 2

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Introduction:

I personally hold what seems to be an increasingly rare opinion among players of the Dead Space series: that Dead Space 2 is a noticeably worse work of art than the original Dead Space—a lesser work of horror as well as a lesser game in general.

But I must admit that, on first glance, it’s not remotely clear why anyone would hold my opinion. After all, nearly every element that hooked people into Dead Space, nearly every element that I praised in my own article on the game, remains present in the sequel: an engrossing and precisely tuned sound design, a plot that deftly blends sci-fi and body horror, a set of enemies who navigate through ductwork to ensure no space ever feels truly safe, a dismemberment-based fighting system that increases combat complexity while enhancing uncertainty regarding whether any given foe is deceased, a pacing that spaces out spans of tension with spans of relief, a combat system that straddles the line between being restrictive and being empowering, and an eschewing of a traditional HUD in favor of diegetic menus and indicators on and around the player-character’s suit.

Yet, for all that, I would still maintain that there has been a slight slide down the scales of quality from the first game to the second. After some careful consideration, I’ve come to a conclusion as to why this is. Frankly, I don’t think Dead Space 2 has any big, glaring problems that weigh it down. It remains a very solid follow-up to the original, and an entertaining, worthwhile experience. This is not a traditional review of the game, which would surely be much more favorable than what follows.

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[Game: Dead Space 2, Visceral Games, 2011]
Deadened Space:

How Small Elements of Design, Optimization, and Polish Combine to Diminish Dead Space 2

 was last modified: October 5th, 2022 by Daniel Podgorski