review - Journal of Flakery

Journal of Flakery

review

A collection of 6 posts

Still from the first episode of Foundation on Apple TV+

Forward the Foundation

Note: light spoilers for the Foundation TV series and books. I'm not a big re-reader of books. The total number of books that I've read cover to cover more than once is probably less than ten—not counting books I've read out loud to my children! But Isaac Asimov's 1951

My year in video games

My year in video games

I got a Steam Deck in 2022, and I love it. The form-factor works well for me, its power and battery life are fine since I'm neither hardcore gamer nor frequent long-distance traveller, and its size, portability and price mean I don't need to justify the cost or the space

Ethan Hawke and Greta Gerwig in Maggie's Plan

A dog-plan of a review

On the surface, there's little that links Wiener-Dog [http://www.wienerdogmovie.com] (dir. Todd Solondz) and Maggie's Plan [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3471098/] (dir. Rebecca Miller), except shared actor Greta Gerwig [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1950086/]. But they are both largely about the nature of people, even if

Screenshot from Firewatch

Double exposure

Feelings of vulnerability, both to the elements and to other people, are perhaps the central theme of Firewatch [http://www.firewatchgame.com/], the recently released debut game by young studio Campo Santo [http://www.camposanto.com/]. No doubt we’ve all felt that way at various points in our lives:

Tex Murphy screenshot

Back to the future

The full-motion video (FMV) games of the 1990s occupied an interesting niche in the history of computer gaming. Solid storytelling in games had been established by a procession of text adventures released during the late 70s and 80s, but graphical engines were very basic and nowhere near ready for the

Dawkins' delusion

Dawkins' delusion

At the time of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, I was on holiday in Greece. Although I can transliterate the Greek alphabet (eventually), I do not speak nor read the language, and the increasingly inexplicable scenes which unfolded on the TV news were all the more