Kill Screen

I forgot. I received the first issue of the Kill Screen magazine. It is an extraordinary magazine! Of course it’s even better when you read it in the right environment.

KillScreen on the Beach

It’s a quite inspiring collection of extremely well-written and insightful articles. For example, “Big Buck Hunter” dives into the world of modern arcade shooter gallery games. Another article reviews the fascinating history of pinball machines, focusing on the political coup that led to their prohibition. Another article is a haunting analysis of the symbolism and emotional effect of the most shocking video game bosses.

It’s finally a very different kind of video game magazine. It fixes a lot of the mistakes that crept into the video game magazine mentality because of their computer technology background. Kills Screen finally ignores technology and customer reviews. It deals with the culture of gaming instead. A good example of the success of that formula is my favorite article from the first issue. It’s called “King of the Ogres” and it’s written by Nicholas Geist. It’s a bittersweet story about the author’s WoW addiction and his relationship with a woman not familiar with games. He reflects about what it means being a geek today. He expresses perfectly the awkwardness of being emotionally involved with a virtual world on the one hand, and constantly second-guessing yourself up to the point of being repulsed by the game’s culture on the other hand. It struck a chord with me. But the reason why this is a proof that Kill Screen’s formula works is that my girlfriend (a complete non-gamer) read the article too. She enjoyed it quite a bit and we were were discussing it the entire evening. Try this with PC Games.

And yeah, the 1st issue also includes a slightly chaotic interview with me. So I’m biased. Get Kill Screen anyway!