Kill Screen Magazine's Blog, page 334

Final Fantasy XV gets weirder, adds sick car

There are not many other genres where four people with perfect hair, wearing all black, can ride around in a convertible that combines the suicide doors of a Rolls Royce with the bold roundness of an Audi, casually killing everything that they come across, and there be absolutely nothing be wrong with that picture. Oh and I guess one of them is a prince? Still nothing wrong with that.

That’s the beautiful thing about the JRPG, Final Fantasy, and Square Enix. None of them are afraid to go to strange places and do strange things while they are there. Final Fantasy has never been about just doing the same thing over and over again—it’s about doing the same thing over and over again in gloriously weird locales. It’s about trying to save their version of Gaia one moment and then traveling through time to fight some kind of lunar space witch. Riding around the countryside with your bros, popping out to fight some monsters, and doing it all in the name of saving the world or whatever fits perfectly into that design aesthetic by wildly breaking from it.

Square and Enix have a combined 45 years of experience in this sort of game design, and they’ve been fairly accused of conservatism before. Final Fantasy XIII, for example, was accused of being just a 60-hour hallway filled with random battles. If this new trailer for Final Fantasy XV is any indication, they’ve internalized that criticism, but rather than change they’ve melded it to the aesthetic, to wonderfully bizarre ends. Hallways are boring, but road trips are the best.

Will a game designer ever win a MacArthur "genius" grant?

918 awards, none to games

The Art of the Algorithm exhibition aims to make hidden systems viewable

London Design Festival takes aim at understanding big data.

Oral Perspectives lets you walk a day in a mouth in virtual reality

Jaw-dropping work from Alec McClure.

The cat drinking fountain that actually exists and can be bought with actual dollars

Premium, hand-crafted cat furniture.

Poor old Kinect is finding new life as a scientific assistant

Well, it's good to see it busy. 

Get intimate with Barfcade Jam's romantic puking games

There's nothing more romantic than puking together.

How a group of players cracked open Quake 3 and found a new way to play

We could learn a lot from the trickjumping movement.

Playlist: a trio of new videogames to delight you this week

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Also check out our full, interactive Playlist section.

REPRISAL UNIVERSE (PC AND MAC)
BY ELECTROLYTE

You are Thallos, a mighty warrior with a large tribe and powerful elemental totems. The world is yours ... until your jealous siblings act all evil-step-sisterly on you and leave you to die in solitude. Well, put on your ball gown, Cinderella, because they ain't through with you yet. Inspired by the God game Populous, Reprisal Universe is Thallos' search for his lost people with the power of nature. Explore the cosmos, learn new totem powers, remind the world how mighty you are.

Perfect for: Nature fans, born leaders, Captain Planet lovers

Playtime:However long it takes to reclaim your title.

URIEL'S CHASM (PC)
BY RAIL SLAVE GAMES

This is the kind of game that interrupts gameplay with actual footage of people calling it garbage. The kind that aspires to be viewed as "shovelware." The kind that claims to be "the unlicensed Bible game that should have been buried in the desert." The kind about space nuns saving orbital monasteries, featuring narration by no-wave godhead Jarboe. Uriel's Chasm, in other words, is the kind of game you should play immediately.

Perfect for: People of the "punk games aren't dead" camp, those who attended Bible school only to find metal instead of Jesus

Playtime: Half an hour.

TWELVE A DOZEN (IOS)
BY BOSSA STUDIOS

Twelve a Dozen is a perfect example of educational games gone right. It's Math Blaster's cool older cousin. Twelve a Dozen has you solving math problems, sure, but it's wrapped up in totally competent platforming,Metroid-esque power ups, and puzzle solving done by the Surgeon Simulator folks, of all people. It's a bizarre equation, but one worth solving.

Perfect for: Kids, adults, Math Blaster apologists

Playtime: As long as your math skills hold up.

You could have played Pong on a giant Olafur Elíasson building

What better way to honor one of the world's first videogames?