State of the Newsletter address I'm playing at being a games journalist, but I'm currently actively loathing video games. They're still cool, and this is still the enthusiasm newsletter, but fuck me if the state of games, and my own dexterity issues stopping me
It's the personal essay issue! Co-op games that ruin everyone's lives but mine and Margaret's! Margaret on Super Mario Galaxy! Me on the 8BitDo Pro 3, and too many Legion Go products!
Rare Replay! Going tonto for Ape Out! Super Mario Odyssey! Struggling with dungeon crawlers as a disabled person! A review written co-operatively! More!
Plus: why Earth Must Die is set to be the funniest game of the year, how Dead Rising (2006) and Spider-Man (2000) give me disabling anxiety, and how the God Mode feature in the Hades games keeps me playing as a disabled person! More!
It's twelve years since Disney shut down its best MMORPG, and I am depressed.
Plus: The playtest for public domain-themed platform fighter Royalty Free-For-All, and biochemist Dr. Margaret Downs PhD reviews cozy painting game Été.
Plus: first impressions for Karters 2: Turbo Charged, and a little bit of business about kart racers in 2025 generally, how much they'll cost you, and why that's a problem.
Plus: Thwack, a delightfully weird $2 indie tennis game, Biochemist Margaret Downs on Spiritfarer, and more.
An early, less sweary version of this essay was posted on this site's direct predecessor on July 21st, 2025. The July 2025 Xbox cuts have me severely despairing about the state of ‘triple-A’ game production, which is a concept that shouldn’t exist. IP revivals (are a hallmark
It had to happen - there had to be a Mario Kart game that I would only find middling, after mainlining Wii and 8 Deluxe for a significant chunk of the time in my life that I’ve spent playing games. Mario Kart World represents an evolution, and even a
I reviewed this on the Nintendo Switch 1, which is bizarre for me. Skyrim has been out, as I write, almost thirteen years, but, up until recently, it did absolutely nothing for me. I used to find Skyrim unengaging, and its approach of letting the player be a thief-mage-warrior-assassin-chosen-one overwhelming,
Bully: Scholarship Edition is a remaster, featuring additional content, of Rockstar’s school-set open world action-adventure Bully (2006, Playstation 2). You play Jimmy Hopkins, a pitiable fifteen-year-old slaphead sent to Bullworth Academy, a not-so-elite boarding school that’s probably in New England during an unspecified time period that suits the