Welcome back, friends! We're getting firmly into the depths of summer, and it's hotter outside than ever in a lot of places. Which means it's time for two things: one, to reflect on the social issues that climate change poses to human society, and two, to stay inside where it's cool and play some video games! To help you out a bit, we have some great stories here at WIRED Games. Last week I said we'd published our final Pride story, but I lied: I forgot about our massive profile of Ian Alexander, who you may know as the voice of Lev in The Last of Us Part II. James Bigley II spoke to Ian and Neil Druckmann, the creative director and cofounder of developer Naughty Dog, all about the process of casting a trans actor to play a trans character, and how important it is to be able to bring your lived experiences to characters that are supposed to embody those experiences. The whole profile is an amazing read, and full of great photos of Ian as well. Check it out! If you're looking for something new to play and haven't already checked out the Emily Is Away series of games, Nina Corcoran has a great rundown of the trilogy, noting how perfectly it embodies early internet nostalgia. She talked to the game's creator, Kyle Seeley, about what it was like to re-create the mid-aughts aesthetic of sites like Facebook and YouTube (called "Facenook" and "YouToob" in the game), as well as nailing how we used those platforms to communicate. Even if you never experienced it back then, the games are worth your time. Speaking of nostalgia, we have two more stories designed to tickle those sleeping neurons in the back of your brain: First is Zack Huffman's dive into the game Drug Wars, the drug dealing, cop fleeing trading game that virtually everyone had on their graphing calculator in the 1990s. Long before we played games on phones, John Dell built Drug Wars to pass the time on the one thing he was allowed to have in class: his TI-82 calculator. If you remember playing it, or if you've played any of its iterations and mobile ports since, you'll love this story. Second is Michael Seidlinger's look back at one of my favorite PlayStation 2 games, Gitaroo Man, which put you in the role of a universe-saving guitar rocker named U-1, the last legendary hero of Planet Gitaroo, and given the Last Guitaroo, a magical guitar with which you'd beat bad guys, save the innocent, and, of course, play to the rhythm on the screen. Gitaroo Man is a cult classic these days, and difficult to find. But it embodied a wackier, more experimental era of console gaming, where games like Parappa the Rapper and Space Channel 5 ruled our hearts but Metal Gear Solid 2 and Silent Hill dominated the sales charts. Finally, we had two more thematically appropriate features this past week that I'd love for you to read, if you like: Emmie Harrison-West's essay on how gaming with her husband actually made her marriage stronger, as opposed to tearing it apart the way pop culture says that video games will. In fact, both she and her husband are avid gamers, but it wasn't until they bought a Nintendo Switch and started playing collaboratively instead of off in their own types of games that they discovered how great it was to spend time gaming together. And next is Thom James Carter's well-researched look at how video games affect your brain, for better and worse, and how you can harness the good parts without suffering the ill effects. That's all for this week, but we have plenty lined up for the long holiday weekend, so make sure to check back. And of course, please consider subscribing to WIRED if you don't already. It supports our journalism and makes sure I can pay my ever-growing electric bill, what with video games and air-conditioning. I'll be back next Wednesday! 🏳️🌈 The untold story behind Lev's voice in The Last of Us Part II. When Neil Druckmann wanted Ian Alexander to play Lev in The Last of Us Part II, he had to do some digging to find out how to reach him. But he wasn't daunted, and Ian wanted the role. This is a story about how the two of them found each other, and how Ian was able to bring so much of himself to Lev's character. 😬 Emily Is Away re-creates social media's awkward, early days. If the early days of Facebook or using AOL Instant Messenger away messages to communicate your feelings makes you nostalgic, the Emily Is Away franchise is for you. Even if you didn't live through those days, the games will take you to a time when we were all a little bit more vulnerable on the internet. 💊 The wild spread of Drug Wars, from your calculator to your phone. The game that students in schools everywhere traded between graphing calculators via transfer cable in the '90s has since spawned a variety of mobile and browser games. We talked to the original developers of the game about how they came up with it and how it spread so rapidly. 🎸 Before Guitar Hero, gamers rocked out to Gitaroo Man. Arguably one of the first great rhythm games (although by no means alone during its time), Gitaroo Man was the kind of quirky weirdness that embodied the PlayStation 2 era. The game is a cult classic these days, but worth your time if you ever get your hands on it. 💑 Gaming with my husband made our marriage stronger. If you believe the memes, video games will inevitably lead to wrecked relationships, with one partner sitting lonely on the bed while the other has their headset on for one more game. Well, it doesn't have to be that way, and Emmie Harrison-West's story is proof. 🧠 What gaming does to your brain—and how you might benefit. A lot—and we mean a lot—has already been said about the impact of games on your brain. But in this piece, we talk about the benefits you can get from it, as well as how to avoid the pitfalls that come with devoting too much of yourself to any hobby, including video games. |
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