ISSN 2572-5572 UNWINNABLE MONTHLY Volume 4, Issue 10 - October 2017 THE RELIGION OF SPACE • MASS EFFECT MURDERSPIES U N W I N N A B L E Monthly 96 Editor in Chief | Stu Horvath Managing Editor | James Fudge Editor | Amanda Hudgins Design | Stu Horvath Asst. Editor | Jason McMaster Social Editor | Melissa King Copyright © 2017 by Unwinnable LLC Unwinnable All rights reserved. This book or any 820 Chestnut Street portion thereof may not be reproduced Kearny, NJ 07032 or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission www.unwinnable.com of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. For more information, email: [email protected] Unwinnable LLC does not claim copyright of the screenshots and promotional Subscribe | Store | Submissions imagery herein. Copyright of all screenshots within this publication are owned by their respective companies This machine kills fascists. Shortform a brief introduction to the issue Letter from the editor | Stu horvath the games untouched on the shelf BackLog | gavin Craig must-watch streaming documentaries documentary Sunday | megan CondiS what’s new, undiscovered and unholy in metal BattLe Jacket | CaSey LynCh horror games of the 20th century monSter cLoSetS | BroCk WiLBur fictional companions and goth concerns thiS mortaL coyLe | deirdre CoyLe the intersection of games and world history checkpoint | Corey miLne ridiculing and revering everything rookie of the year | matt marrone dissecting the world the Burnt offering | Stu horvath three fingers of analysis when two will do the heavy pour | Sara CLemenS a monthly soapbox here’S the thing | roB riCh board games and ennui the mcmaSter fiLeS | JaSon McMaSter art, and words about making it artiSt SpotLight | Zi Xu our monthly recommendations PlayLiSt | reading LiSt | now Playing | our monthly crossword puzzle unSoLvable | Brian tayLor Longform the quest to travel the stars is a kind of religion godS & aStronautS | Oliver miLne Shepard is always right, no matter what i, murderSpy | BiLL CoBerLy a developer Q&A, sponsored revving the engine: the SouLkeeper | ContriButorS From the Desk of the Editor in Chief | Stu Horvath K, I literally have a kid coming any second now, so I am going to do this Olighting fast, OK? First, let us appreciate Zi Xu’s cover art. If I were in space, I would be in a constant state of prayer, and I’m an atheist. That image is your lead in to Oliver Milne’s fascinating feature on science fiction and how the language of space travel mirrors the langauge of religion. In another one of our accidental themes, Bill Coberly’s feature also hinges on space as depicted in Mass Effect, and the shocking amount of freedom Shepard gets as a Spectre. Like, a suspicious amount of freedom. So much freedom that maybe there’s something wrong with it. Read on to find out what Bill uncovers. In the columns, Gavin seems a little overwhelmed by his ever-growing backlog. Megan Condis is chilled by the implications the documentary The Confession Tapes has for our justice system. Casey Lynch, meanwhile, brings the metal (I’m digging the new Ancient VVisdom, Grave Pleasures and Korrupt). Brock Wilbur regrets checking out Geist for the Nintendo GameCube and makes us suffer along with him. Deirdre Coyle reveals her interesting relationship with Drakan: Order of the Flame, a game that probably does not deserve the amount of thoughtfulness she brings to it. Despite his best efforts, Corey Milne can’t escape Severed and Matt Marrone, to his dismay, has to escape his son. Speaking of sons, did I mention mine is coming ANY SECOND? I am calm, I promise. Not freaking out at all. But I didn’t have a lot of time to whip up a full column, so you get like four mini-columns instead. Sara Clemens picks up my deep think slack with an excellent essay on The Exorcist TV series, which I had avoided and, it seems, I am poorer for it. Weighing in on the great contet vs. creator debate, Rob Rich gave me the opportunity to use a header image of H. P. Lovecraft in this not as spooky as I’d like October issue. And finally, Jason McMaster professes his love for a little game called Destiny 2. Oh, and Brian Taylor’s excellent crossword is back! And there’s a profile of Zi Xu. And we’ve got a fun interview with the folks behind the VR RPG The SoulKeeper. And lists! OK, I gotta go pace. So much pacing to do. Pace, pace, pace. Stu Horvath Kearny, New Jersey October 12, 2017 Backlog | Gavin Craig The Games I’m Not Playing alendars are liars. At the moment, my calendar says October, but it is Cfunctionally for the vast majority of working critics the end of the year. In a few weeks, editors will be asking for year-end lists of the best media of 2017, so for those of us hoping to make something resembling a contribution to these lists, there are just a few weeks to try to catch up on all the games/ books/films/music/TV/etc. that we haven’t quite gotten to yet. This is, as one might imagine, exacerbated for a writer whose one regular outlet is a short monthly column about games not released this year. The list of my favorite ten games from 2017 currently includes eight games. I have some catching up to do. There are, however, a number of games that I can tell you right now will not be included, not because of any necessary deficiency on their part, but because there is no way that I will have played them enough to have formed a meaningful opinion of them. This is at times an entirely practical matter. Cuphead, for example, is an Xbox/Windows exclusive, so I can’t play it. Sometimes, this a matter of deep and ongoing frustration — NaissanceE, I’m looking at you — but right now it is in all honesty a relief. I can in good conscience simply mark Cuphead off my list. It’s out of my hands, so there’s no point in worrying about it. Similarly, I haven’t updated from the Wii U to the Switch, so neither Splatoon 2 nor Mario Kart 8 Deluxe will be making appearances on my ballot. Are they really new enough to be considered more than updated rereleases of their Wii U incarnations? Would the Wii U version of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild merit inclusion on a year-end list, even if it’s not quite as shiny as the Switch edition? I’ll admit that neither of these questions strikes me as compelling enough to justify the investment required to answer them. Other exclusions are a bit more subjective. (And this is one of the reasons I tend to describe my year-end lists as my “favorite” games rather than the “best” games. I don’t have the luxury of playing widely enough to really make an argument that my favorite games are objectively better than every other game released in a given year, and I’m more than a little skeptical that such a thing is really possible in any meaningful sense even for better and better- played critics than me.) I’ve never played any of the Dark Souls games, and I’m not going to play Nioh any time soon either. This isn’t Nioh’s fault. I’m sure it’s magnificent. But it isn’t really for me and I don’t feel terribly bad about that. I do feel a twinge of guilt, though, that I’m probably never going to play Rain World deeply. There are dozens of games where I can swing a sword in a lushly-rendered digital environment, but the non-anthropomorphic survival premise and idiosyncratic 2-D visual design of Rain World strike me as being much more interesting. I’ve even loaded Rain World up once or twice, but I’m not sure I’ve even figured out the basic controls and I simply don’t have enough intrinsic motivation to overcome the initial difficulty curve. I’m sorry Rain World. It’s not you; it’s me. Destiny 2, for me, is this year’s Overwatch. All my friends seem to dig it, but it’s not going to overcome my aversion to multiplayer games. Like Overwatch, I’m sure that Destiny will carry on just fine without me. On the other hand, it’s not quite as simple for me to write off some of the other games that I’m just not going to be able to fit in. I’m going to fight to make it through Nier: Automata (I’ve started, but, yeah, let’s just say that I’ve started). Chances are good that I’ll get to play Tacoma, if only because it’s just a few hours long. I might even get to Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, but if I’m honest, I probably won’t before it becomes eligible to be a column entry next year. Persona 5 just isn’t a possibility. Horizon Zero Dawn and Rime are going to have to wait. Resident Evil 7 is right out. And life goes on. I still haven’t played The Last Guardian from last year. In all honesty, I’ve never finished Shadow of the Colossus. In fairness, I wasn’t assembling a year-end best games list in 2005, but in any case, it’ll still be waiting for me when I’m ready. Games don’t disappear after the year-end lists are compiled and published.