MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s disection of William Blake
Slim pickings
An ominous dark cloud has descended over the video games industry in 2024 still, SCOTT ALSWORTH finds a handful of silver linings
Helldivers 2
[Arrowhead Game Studios] 
New releases from Christina Alden and Alex Patterson, Odette Michell, Clementine Lovell
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet
GORDON PARSONS acknowledges the authority with which Sarah Kane’s theatrical justification for suicide has resonance today
RON JACOBS welcomes a timely homage to one of the IWW and CPUSA’s most effective orators
THERE’S an expression doing the rounds in the videogame industry right now; survive till ‘25. And that’s not an age thing. This year’s seen more studio closures and mass layoffs than the last.
To add that those of us in the biz are getting angry is something of an understatement. And yet, our anger’s failing to hold capitalism to account in the games we’re creating.
A glance at this month’s Game Awards says it all. The latest cash grab of overly ludocentric games, centring on cutesy robots and infantile, male fantasies, apparently developed for the likes of undiscerning shut-ins, aren’t really doing it for me.
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