Upon its release in 2008, there was little to indicate that the original Dead Space would be anything other than a limp trudge through stock horror. After all, it hailed from the development studio EA Redwood, a team at the time best known for releasing a succession of deeply ordinary takes on the cash cow …
In his not-quite seminal but still very good 1998 essay “F/X Porn,” David Foster Wallace dissects the lasting legacy of James Cameron’s mega-blockbuster Terminator 2: Judgment Day. (Well, more accurately, he examines the enduring stain left by Cameron’s film on the modern action movie, but whatever.) The essay doesn’t offer much in the way of …
The Portal series is home to Valve’s most deliberately uneven and deliriously uncomfortable of narratives. The seemingly innocent fun of cutting holes between dimensions and using them to pass tests or accomplish tasks is offset by the brutal after-effects and the havoc which they can wreak. Likewise the witty banter and amusing dialogue of characters like GLaDOS and Wheatley are immediately rendered moot by the homicidal and power-hungry psychological states that each AI shows when challenged or placed in a position of authority.