I tried playing video games stoned for the first time in my 50s – and I have some thoughts
Dominik Diamond
Marijuana is legal where I live in Canada, so I decided to give it a try and see whether it would improve my gaming experience – or just end in a panic attack
February 2024
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League review – straddles the brilliant and the banal
‘It’s rotting young people’s brains’: the murky world of gambling in video games
December 2023
Doom at 30: what it means, by the people who made it
In 1993, a team of five coders released what would become one of the most influential video games ever made. Three decades on, they explain how they did it
November 2023
Pushing Buttons newsletter
Pushing Buttons: Why Fortnite is suddenly the most popular game in the world once more
In this week’s newsletter: Almost 45 million people returned to the battle royale for its throwback event. What does that say about Fortnite’s grip on young gamers?
October 2023
Pushing Buttons newsletter
Pushing Buttons: It’s been a fantastic year for games – unless you’re someone who makes them
In this week’s newsletter: The pressures of time, money, expectations and technology are creating a volatile development environment
June 2023
Best culture of 2023 so far
The best games of 2023 so far
Future shockers: 10 great games about rogue AIs
April 2023
Pushing Buttons newsletter
Pushing Buttons: Is the brutal new police ‘bodycam’ shoot ’em up game too indistinguishable from reality?
In this week’s newsletter: Unrecord puts players in the role of a police officer, and looks every bit like real shootings – so how realistic is too realistic?
March 2023
Pushing Buttons newsletter
Pushing Buttons: Why the Resident Evil 4 remake works
‘Keir Starmer just ordered an alpaca airstrike!’ The game that holds up a dystopian mirror to the UK
February 2023
Dead Space at 15: ‘We wanted to make one of the scariest games ever’
A beautifully preserved slice of video game history – Toaplan Arcade Shoot ‘Em Up Collection Vol 1 review
December 2022
2023 culture preview
Street Fighter returns, Link is back and vampires run amok: 15 video games to anticipate in 2023
From space exploration and eerie late night fishing to dungeon-delving and confronting your exes, there’s lots to be excited about – including some long-awaited sequels
Best culture of 2022 so far
The 20 best video games of 2022
From robot-dinosaurs and hypersexual witches to epic clashes with mythological Gods and exquisite fantasies of supernatural wars, 2022 had it all – including a certain word game. Our critics pick the best
High on Life review – limp gunplay and questionable taste
This first-person shooter from Rick and Morty’s co-creator pairs a barrage of nihilistic jokes with flimsy gameplay
November 2022
You can’t out-shoot a teenager: how to play first-person shooters if you’re over 30
Reflexes start to decline in your 20s, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be competitive at first-person shooters any more. Keith Stuart shares some hard-won knowledge
October 2022
‘I need to do this scene upside down’: what it’s like to act in a Call of Duty game
The performance-capture body suits, the annoying helmet cams, the makeshift props … actors describe the experience of making video games ‘where there’s nowhere to hide’
September 2022
Pushing Buttons newsletter
Pushing Buttons: Autumn’s gaming gems
From a creeping horror to a funny alien shooter, here are unexpected finds to play before the onslaught of big-name titles
August 2022
Summer games previews
In The Callisto Protocol, dark and terrible things lurk in space
One of the minds behind deeply unsettling sci-fi classic Dead Space imagines another haunted, forsaken space station in this forthcoming horror game
