-
3 weeks ago | 
aftermath.site | Luke Plunkett
Imagine getting up on stage for a presentation that would have cost in the ballpark of $500,000, all promote your new video game, and instead of having people talk about it, they are instead talking about:a) Your stupid hatb) How your little speech sounded like a wizard breathed life into a downvoted Reddit comment.
-
3 weeks ago | 
flipboard.com | Luke Plunkett
1 day agoJune started without the usual cascade of rainbow logos. Meta, Pepsi and Ubisoft — brands that embraced LGBTQ+ marketing with Pride colors just two years ago — stayed monochrome, betting that neutrality equals safety. For a decade, these brands were criticized for 'rainbow washing,’ accusing them …
-
3 weeks ago | 
aftermath.site | Luke Plunkett
We were sent a few examples this week of something that is both deeply funny and, given the time and the context, deeply predictable as well. Our 'Destroy AI' t-shirt, released last month, was the result of a collaboration between human beings. The only machines involved were our personal computers (Kim, the artist, lives in Germany, so we had to electronically mail her our design ideas), and I guess a few at our merch providers, who had to print and then mail the shirts.
-
3 weeks ago | 
aftermath.site | Luke Plunkett
One of the many announcements made today during Sony's State Of Play presentation was a re-release of the classic Final Fantasy Tactics, in a bundle called Final Fantasy Tactics - The Ivalice Chronicles. It includes two versions of the game, an enhanced/expanded edition and the original, but we're not here to discuss those details, you can read that in a press release.
-
3 weeks ago | 
aftermath.site | Luke Plunkett
You may have heard that there's a brand new video game console out this week, the first major hardware launch in almost five years. There's also a huge summer video games showcase, where all the latest and greatest new releases will be shown off, many for the first time. It should be the biggest week of the year for games. And yet. Can you feel the excitement in the air? Or, I guess, can you not feel it? Can you feel the absence of where it should be?
-
1 month ago | 
aftermath.site | Luke Plunkett
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown came out last week and, being a turn-based tactics game, I was both personally and professionally obligated to try it out. How does a series based on TMNT, which famously features loads of melee combat against hordes of shitty enemies, work in a tactics game, a genre usually known for cover, guns and careful planning?
-
1 month ago | 
aftermath.site | Luke Plunkett
9 Kings is a new game out in Early Access that describes itself as a "fast-paced roguelike kingdom builder", but which I'm going to describe as "a deckbuilder where everything dies, all the time". Choosing to play as one of a roster of unlockable kings, each the leader of a distinct faction, you start the game with a 3x3 grid where you can draw cards--and these can be either units, buildings or effects--and play them on one of those tiles, building or engaging whatever it is you lay down.
-
1 month ago | 
aftermath.site | Luke Plunkett
You might remember, you might not, but back in 2017 a guy began sharing his bathroom renovation experience on Something Awful, and it was a wild ride. Basically: a Very Confident Man was doing his own bathroom reno, and despite the best advice from… everyone speaking to him, made a succession of terrible decisions, many stylistic, others load-bearing (like weakening the floor beneath the tub). It became so notorious that in 2019 a Doom mod was made to commemorate the job.
-
1 month ago | 
aftermath.site | Luke Plunkett
Every year, Meteor in Tokyo run a cool little exhibition where artists imagine an interesting/funny video game and design a cartridge for it, even though the game itself does not exist. Yet as you're about to see, with the 2025 show now up and running, many of them are so good that you will want them to exist. The exhibition, called Famicase, has been running for ages; this is the 19th successive year I've covered it, and it never fails to disappoint.
-
1 month ago | 
aftermath.site | Luke Plunkett
As the video game industry continues to move towards an all-digital future, and as people have started learning what that means--we are trading ownership for convenience--it feels like there's a growing awareness that, whether it be in the name of preservation or just being able to say you own something, maybe we should keep buying physical copies of video games after all.
