Recent content by Kieron Gillen

The Comics Panel "The Immortal Iron Fist is the product of an inspired collaboration between crime-pulp godhead Ed Brubaker and comics' new golden boy, Matt Fraction. Co-writing, while not commonplace, has a long history in comics. In fact, even when working on a title by themselves, writers...

I've Got to be a Macho Man At the time of its release, Gears of War was arguably the most technically impressive game ever created. Its production values are as high as the very best games have managed, before or since. The developers even managed to distinguish it from the pack, deciding that...

Hard Times "Once upon a time, games were competitors. Now, primarily, they're entertainers. They aimed to beat you. Now, to be beaten. Our language says much, really. While we've talked about difficulty curves forever, the problems now are 'difficulty spikes.' No one ever critiques a game for a...

Team Roomba "Arriving at the initial crest of enthusiasm toward Valve's Team Fortress 2, Team Roomba's video showing an array of petty, hilarious and oft imaginative cruelty was an immediate memetic sensation. Griefing is usually little more than plain sadism; but with the right soundtrack and...

Stromko: Are you sure you've got your timeline right? Urban Chaos was two whole years before GTA3. Clearly, the 2D GTAs were out, but they were a different sort of thing entirely to what you're talking about. KG

Footprints "'Peter [Molyneux] was making it seem we were all going to be super rich and making these fantastic games - which I think he believed at the time. [Mucky Foot] just threw away those share options. ... You could have at least sat it out for three or four years and have made lots of...

Sensible Soccer "And the trick is that football, more than any other major sport, is one of constant fluidity. Others have lots of handholding for the viewer, with regular stops and short bursts of play before the game comes to rest again, giving the observer a chance to consider. Football...

The Illuminated Ones "With BioShock still close to release, Thomas is reticent to talk about specifics of his work, even though it rests even more heavily on lighting theory. 'Suffice it to say that my section of the game is an attempt to generate a sort of surrealistic dread, leaning heavily...

Culture Wargames Senator Deanna Demuzio of Illinois remarked that "[v]ideo games are not art or media. They are simulations, not all that different from the simulations used by the U.S. military in preparation for war." Kieron Gillen examines games as art and simulation, and why it matters...

More Than a Feeling In their thirty years of existance, Boston has released a score of platinum albums and dozens of popular songs. Kieron Gillen explains why he thinks Boston is also one of the top ten videogame level designers of all time, and explores the sleeper hit that is Guitar Hero...

Culture Wargames Senator Deanna Demuzio of Illinois remarked that "[v]ideo games are not art or media. They are simulations, not all that different from the simulations used by the U.S. military in preparation for war." Kieron Gillen examines games as art and simulation, Permalink