The Minotaur: Prisoner Before Monster
Who, or what, waits inside the Labyrinth? Half man. Half bull. All monster. The Minotaur stalks the twisting corridors beneath Crete while fourteen terrified young Athenians search for an exit that does not exist. Then Theseus arrives. The hero follows Ariadne’s thread into the darkness, kills the beast, and escapes from the maze. That is […]
A Layman’s Guide to High School Football
You can hear it before you see it. The band warming up. The whistle. The crowd. The announcer testing the microphone. The pads cracking somewhere near midfield. The concession stands waking up. The smell of popcorn, nacho cheese, wet grass, and whatever miracle is happening on the grill. That is high school football. Not the […]
Guilty Crown: Heavy Is the Head That Wears the Crown
It has one of anime’s greatest soundtracks. One of its coolest power systems. Political revolution. A viral apocalypse. Remote-controlled mecha. And a protagonist who will occasionally make you want to reach through the television and shake him. Welcome to Guilty Crown. At first glance, this 2011 anime feels like somebody threw dystopian science fiction, Code […]
Dying Light: The Zombie Game That Taught Us to Fear the Dark
The sun is setting over Harran. Your watch starts beeping.Somewhere behind you, something screams. Good night. Good luck. FAMILIAR VERSION Most people can describe Dying Light in four words: The zombie parkour game. That reputation is understandable. When Techland released Dying Light in 2015, its biggest selling point was obvious. This was an open-world zombie […]
The Fall of Tenochtitlan: How an Empire Actually Falls
Five hundred and five years ago today, one of the greatest cities in the world fell. On August 13, 1521, the Mexica ruler Cuauhtémoc was captured while attempting to escape the besieged city of Tenochtitlan. Organized resistance collapsed soon afterward. The capital was devastated. The Spanish conquest of the Mexica Empire had reached its decisive […]