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2 months ago | 
popmatters.com | Luis Aguasvivas
Citizen Sleeper II: Starward Vector Jump Over the Age In this video game’s future, you are a Sleeper, a sentient android, a husk created and controlled for labor. Citizen Sleeper II: Starward Vector, created by Gareth Damian Martin’s video game development studio Jump Over the Age,wants the robota, the Sleeper, you, to escape the drudgery and exploitation of certain forms of labor.
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2 months ago | 
popmatters.com | Luis Aguasvivas
Stimulation is what we live for. We go outside to be stimulated. We say that we want to stay home to relax and disengage, but really, we spend a lot of this time on our devices—getting stimulated. Try as we may, we can’t escape our desire for stimulation. As a result of our relationship with technology, how many of us are so stressed that we are trying to reduce screen time or even opt out of having a smartphone?
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Jan 21, 2025 | 
popmatters.com | Luis Aguasvivas
Everything to Play For: How Videogames Are Changing the World Verso Video games are an economic and cultural force par excellence. Since 2018 the video game industry has produced greater profits than the film and music industries combined. Around 35 percent of the global population regularly plays video games. Grand Theft Auto V has made over $eight billion in revenue since its release, making it one of the most profitable media products ever.
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Jan 13, 2025 | 
unwinnable.com | Luis Aguasvivas
There is just something about a handheld console. Holding a machine that can play games without connecting it to an external display is one of the most intimate experiences in gaming. Since the Nintendo Game Boy introduced handheld games to a wider audience, playing video games outside your home or an arcade has become widespread.
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Dec 6, 2024 | 
popmatters.com | Luis Aguasvivas
In 2024, independent games outshined big-budget AAA releases in quality and innovation. This year, scholar Brendan Keogh’s exegesis The Video Game Industry Does Not Exist serves as gospel. Indie developers utilize the platforms and distribution methods owned and operated by Nintendo, Valve, Microsoft, and Sony to challenge these multinational corporations’ grip on the medium. Hence, why 2024 has shown Keogh’s vision of the industry is not only salient but correct.
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Nov 20, 2024 | 
popmatters.com | Luis Aguasvivas
Phoenix Springs Calligram Studio The next step is not to let yourself get lost in the story. Chasing your beat at any cost will do you no good. As a reporter, it’s better to follow the abstractions. This was my initial sense of the narrative and lead character’s motivations in the new point-and-click adventure game Phoenix Springs by the independent Calligram Studio. However, after careful consideration, I’ve learned a good lesson from playing the game: Real people are behind the words we read.
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Oct 29, 2024 | 
popmatters.com | Luis Aguasvivas
Giant Robot: Thirty Years of Defining Asian American Pop Culture Drawn & Quarterly Identity in the United States (and some will argue, elsewhere, too) is a fraught labyrinth. These days, seemingly at every turn in America, you must negotiate who you are and where you fit in the “melting pot”. Over 13 years since it ceased publication, the magazine Giant Robot stands as an indelible force in the American melting pot of popular culture. Our media wasn’t always this diverse.
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Oct 22, 2024 | 
popmatters.com | Luis Aguasvivas
A bird falls from the sky. It decomposes immediately when its lifeless body hits the verdant earth—an ill omen. Smog, fog, and shadowy figures engulf the protagonists, Alba and the young pup Neva, who are looking at the sight with concern. Serene nature turns foul, transformed into a miasmic pandemonium. Thus begins Neva, a game that is sure to please many. Nomada Studio creates games that are meant to be felt. A game like Neva thickens the air with the moisture of guaranteed tears from its players.
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Sep 25, 2024 | 
popmatters.com | Luis Aguasvivas
It’s been a while since Manu Chao released his last studio album, La Radiolina, in 2007. Seventeen years later, his latest, Viva Tu, is here. This occasion is tinged with a particular sort of melancholy and bittersweetness. He is a prolific artist and activist who believes in the power of music as a force for good. Before the release, Manu Chao was doing what he does best: disappearing into the world – not entirely absent from the limelight, but still required a little effort to find.
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Sep 25, 2024 | 
unwinnable.com | Luis Aguasvivas
This is a feature excerpt from Unwinnable Monthly #179. If you like what you see, grab the magazine for less than ten dollars, or subscribe and get all future magazines for half price. ———“Disregarding one another . . . each heading its own way. Leisurely, with no particular place to go, stewards of a new anxiety.” (Izumi Suzuki, “Night Picnic”)Remembering eventually leads to forgetting what was known and everything that was experienced.
