Breaking Arrows (Page 2)

Resident Evil finds comedy in overly dedicated gig economy worker

Spoilers for Resident Evil (2026) One of the remarkable sources of humor in Zach Cregger’s Resident Evil are his mostly moronic characters and their gleeful abuse by the film. Austin Abrams as our lead Bryan and two others stuck out to me most as caricatures of recognizable people from

The Writing is the Reward

Numbers going up in videogames is boring. It is pervasive and a hamster wheel. Receiving text in games is what makes them worth playing due to their potential to move me and speak to me in ways numbers could never. Numbers go up as a genre is everywhere. We are

Harry, Steban, and Echo Maker working together to build something that should be impossible

Reading Games Writing: This Sacred Body / This Bloody Mind by Artemis Octavio

While reading Artemis’ writing on Zero Parades: For Dead Spies, I was struck by how their major problem with Disco Elysium is the reason I love it so. It provoked and pushed me to further interrogate why I feel that way. I have not played Zero Parades (yet) and so

Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies as Literature

This piece was originally published in 2023 on my Tumblr and as a Google Doc. I have republished here to create a more centralized collection of my writing as well as due to the enthusiasm over the upcoming Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve. Within Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies

Why "Troglodytes" in Cairn?

All throughout Aava’s ascent of Kami she comes across remnants of a group who bear the misnomer of troglodyte. I share the same distaste for this term that Jay Castello notes in their writing on Cairn for Unwinnable, “Called only ‘troglodytes’ (literally ‘cave dwellers’ but with an unfortunate association

The Parable of Aava the Mountaineer

There was a certain woman named Aava who desired to scale the highest mountain in the world: Kami. Her father was a renowned mountaineer, and had placed Aava on the rock wall as early as three. She fulfilled her inheritance, making famous climbs of various mountains, but had at last

Player as Puppeteer and Caretaker in Cairn

While climbing in Cairn you control each of Aava’s limbs individually. It can be a bit odd at first. The game automatically switches from one limb to the next as you attempt to determine which cracks offer an optimum hold for Aava to grasp onto as you push her

The drifter stands on the edge of a cliff looking into the distance at a giant humanoid skeleton that is leaning against a mountain and is covered in snow and decaying

Replaying Hyper Light Drifter

[Today marks 10 years since the release of Hyper Light Drifter. Special thanks to Artemis Octavio for their edits/suggestions on this piece.] I did not play it while I was sick. I did not play it preceding or during or after a death. Playing it did not teach me

Resident Evil Requiem mines horror from hallways and our own atomic wrath

Reading Games Writing: Resident Evil Requiem review by Giovanni Colantonio

less posting and more conversation This article is part of my series on responding to games writing and is a good faith attempt at starting a dialogue, not a personal attack or to feed the chuds on the usual channels of toxicity and trolling. Thank you for your time. This

Despelote (2025)

developed (primarily) by Julián Cordero and Sebastián Valbuena (and many others) spoilers for Despelote Everyone is taller than you. Inanimate objects obtain movement when you touch them. Posters wink at you or sparkle or embiggen the number one, projecting the dream of Ecuador’s football team winning the 2002 World