Guardian Games

Creator of Politidex hopes free online app will help humanise politics and act as a way of ‘flipping the narrative’The year is 2016 and Pokémon Go has taken over the world. People are wandering for miles on end, disrupting concerts, and even slamming into poles in their attempts to capture fantastical cartoon creatures.Ten years later, a new generation are flocking to another Pokémon-inspired game. Instead of Pikachu, Charizard and Blastoise, however, players are catching and training up their l

Why are Nintendo releasing a straight-up remake of the space-flight shooter – with many of its original limitations – rather than a fresh new take?The Nintendo 64 was not my first video game console, but it was my formative one. Getting to grips with 3D movement in Super Mario 64 with that weird three-pronged controller is one of my most visceral childhood memories; the long, long wait for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was the background noise to a huge chunk of my youth. But back in the

In the game by Melbourne-based Beethoven and Dinosaur, you play as a teenage girl the night before moving to New York – drinking, skateboarding and getting into trouble, all soundtracked by 80s and 90s classicsWhen Johnny Galvatron was 14, his cousin gave him a copy of the Smashing Pumpkins’ seminal 1995 album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. For Galvatron, a rambunctious teenager in Geelong who defined himself by his musical taste, it was love at first spin. “I don’t think there’s a tra

For anyone needing a break from binging The Pitt, you can always put in your own shifts as a hospital manager, surgeon, paramedic and of course as a demonic morgue assistantLike the rest of the western world, our household is currently binging medical drama The Pitt, revelling in its visceral depiction of life in a modern emergency department. So far the series has yet to inspire a video game tie-in (though there has been an amusing parody), but fans wishing to try their hand at tense medical

Enchanting and a little eerie, Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth is the second great game in as many years based on the classic children’s booksSleepy, happy-sad, and imbued with the mildest peril, Tove Jansson’s Moomin stories may seem an unlikely fit for the action-heavy medium of video games. Rather than embark on swashbuckling adventures, these milk-white, hippo-esque creatures prefer to potter about Moominvalley, only venturing further if the weather conditions are just right.Yet a small Norwegi

James Bond games have always fallen short of capturing the precise feel of the classic movies. But Amazon’s first dip into the 007 mythology seems to have a character of its ownIn the wake of the last James Bond movie, No Time to Die, there was a surge of articles asking whether it should spell the end for Ian Fleming’s secret agent. In that movie, Daniel Craig played the character as a fading force, mentally and physically exhausted, and out of touch. “The world has moved on,” Lashana Lynch’s y

Meeting ‘my people’ – video gamers with very long memories – took me back to an era of machine play that lacked megabytes but had far more tangible presenceI want to tell you about the game that has made me the happiest this month. It’s a game I didn’t complete. It’s a game I didn’t even start. I just held it. And smiled. I have played the game before, but not for many years. Forty of them to be precise.The game is Daley Thompson’s Super Test for the ZX Spectrum. Continue reading...

Hitman developer IO Interactive’s pluralistic take on the British secret agent – his first video-game outing in almost 15 years – promises a Bond for all eras. Here’s what you need to knowIf you want to tell the tale of a young James Bond, you first need to pick which James Bond he’s going to grow into. This was the task handed to Hitman developer IO Interactive, the studio taking digital custody of the spy in 007 First Light, Bond’s first video game in almost 15 years. So what’s it to be? Will

PC; Grey Alien Games, Night Signal Entertainment An innocent-looking charity shop find draws you into a compulsive world of demons, ogres and retro delightsFor a while in the mid-1990s, meta horror movies were the genre everyone was talking about. Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, Scream, the Blair Witch Project – these films simultaneously examined and exploited genre conventions, seeking to scare audiences while also distancing them from the narrative action. You didn’t know whether to laugh or gasp

Genki Kawamura’s eerie new film expands on a haunting video game that leaves players lost in endless subway tunnels. He explains how this makes viewers and players face their worst fearsGenki Kawamura is something of a polymath. A bestselling author, film-maker, script writer and producer – he is also a lifelong gamer who grew up playing and being inspired by the games of legendary Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto. His latest project Exit 8, now in cinemas, is a fascinating adaptation of the J

From mega hit Clair Obscur to the genius Blue Prince, the winners at this year’s event help me refocus on why games really matterThe 22nd Bafta game awards were on Friday, and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 took the biggest game prize. This makes it only the second game ever (after Baldur’s Gate 3) to win top prize at all five of the main awards shows: the Dice awards in Vegas; the Game awards in LA; the public-voted Golden Joysticks in the UK; the Game Developers Choice awards in San Francisco; an

Microsoft has also reduced the price of its Xbox Game Pass video game subscription service, Microsoft Gaming boss Asha Sharma has announcedMicrosoft’s gaming subscription service Xbox Game Pass will be coming down in price from today, but future Call of Duty titles will no longer be available on the service at launch. Other games from Microsoft-owned studios will still be playable on Game Pass from the day of their release, and older Call of Duty games will remain available, the company has clar

The iconic game that came to define 8-bit programming still conjures flutters of nostalgia 40 years on – all thanks to a 15-year-old tea boy who worked a Saturday shift in a computer shop in Greater ManchesterIf you were playing games on a home computer in the early 1980s, you knew about Chuckie Egg. No question. This simple-looking platform game had you wandering around a chicken shed, collecting eggs and avoiding the patrolling hens. But when you reached level eight, a large duck was suddenly

Elisabeth Zetland, a senior researcher at MyHeritage, found that the actual Luigi had immigrated to US from ItalyGaming enthusiasts have known for years that Nintendo named its mustachioed, superhero plumber after the company’s landlord, Washington state businessman Mario Arnold Segale.But it has only just been determined that Nintendo may have unknowingly named Super Mario’s fictional brother after Segale’s real-life father: Luigi, whose biography evokes that of millions of 20th-century US immi

I initially dismissed the Wind Waker’s cartoonish visuals as juvenile. But now I try to carry the game’s sense of joy into all aspects of my lifeI had a complicated relationship with video games when I was a teenager. I had straightforwardly, wholeheartedly loved the Nintendo games that I’d grown up with, tumbling around primary-coloured dreamscapes in Super Mario 64 and having the time of my life. But as I grew into a pretentious young adult in the early 00s, I started to want more from games,

Role-playing adventure and superhero comedy among big winners on a varied night in LondonWith 12 nominations, acclaimed role-playing adventure Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was expected to be the runaway success at the 2026 Bafta games awards, held in London on Friday evening.And while it couldn’t quite match its nine wins at the Game Awards back in December, it was still the joint biggest winner on the night, taking best game and debut game as well as the performer in a leading role award for Jen

PC, Xbox; Sad Cat StudiosThis pulpy sci-fi thriller is a beautiful, if deferential, homage to the genre greats, with a poignant real-world echoFor all of cyberpunk’s cautionary tales of shady corporations and transhumanist folly, it is the genre’s arresting imagery that looms largest in the pop culture imagination. Petroleum flares light up the perpetually rainy Los Angeles of Blade Runner; in the novel Neuromancer, the sky is the “colour of television, tuned to a dead channel”.Replaced, a new 2

PlayStation 5 (version tested), Xbox, PC, Switch 2; CapcomEngineer Hugh is sent from Earth to investigate a malfunctioning research station and meets a young android who helps him fend off murderous mechsWhen Pragmata was announced alongside the PlayStation 5 in 2020, its shiny trailer promised slick sci-fi action in outer space. While it certainly delivers those futuristic thrills in spades, what I didn’t expect was a tender tale of paternal love. This is Capcom’s belated, surprisingly soulful

Popular gaming platform will require age verification, restrict night-time notifications for minors and limit chatsSign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inboxRoblox, a gaming platform popular with kids, will implement increased protections for young users and pay more than $12m to the state of Nevada in what the state attorney general, Aaron Ford, on Wednesday called a first-of-its-kind agreement.“This settlement will create a safer environment for our children

‘Unc’ is meant to disparage older players who favour slow-paced shooters and epic narrative games, but the industry should make games for all generations• Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereWhile researching women’s experiences in multiplayer video games recently, I came across this thread on the subreddit about Bungie’s latest live shooter, Marathon. “I’ve played a lot of shooters, and as a feminine-presenting player tbh it’s often a struggle,” it reads. “I’ve heard