Latest articles by Tom Francis
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim review
Coldworld A vast and gorgeous world of exciting possibilities, fascinating places, engrossing adventures and flying lizards.
Murder Incorporated: ten months of deception for one kill in Eve Online
best of When does being a bad person in a game make you a bad person in real life?
Introversion's surreal curio, Darwinia, could have changed strategy games forever
From the archives A strange war of tiny digital souls.
Why I love duelling with toilets in Half-Life 2: Deathmatch
From the archives Central heating will never be the same.
The Orange Box review
editor's choice Our original Portal, Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode Two reviews from 2007.
Prey vs. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided: why one intro works and the other doesn't
preyus ex An analysis of the opening minutes of two games shows why one succeeds and the other disappoints.
How a terminal cancer diagnosis inspired comedy crafting game Crashlands
Dragon slaying Sam Coster describes his tumultuous years of game development and cancer treatment.
How Rembrandt, Princess Mononoke, and an emu with arms inspired Inside's flesh potato
Blob story The story of Inside's very weird ending. (Spoilers ahead!)
The case for giving players less control, and NPCs more
GDC 2016 80 Days writer Meg Jayanth argues that players often have too much power, while NPCs are helpless to change their own lives.
The story of Battlefield 2’s tumbling ball of murderous medics
GDC 2016 A test of Battlefield 2's bot medics that took the 'I' out of AI.
Frozen Synapse devs on why Frozen Cortex was a conceptual failure
GDC 2016 Mode7 discusses the trouble it had convincing its fans to play a sci-fi sport.
Doing your job in Metal Gear Solid 5
MGS makes you feel like an operative instead of just a violent lunatic.
The killing decision in Metal Gear Solid 5
Konami adds an interesting twist to the lethal vs. non-lethal debate.
Metal Gear Solid 5's failure spectrum
Giving you more room to recover from slip-ups creates a better experience.
Galactic Civilizations 2 war report: part six
Diary A race for knowledge begins in the face of insurmountable odds.
Galactic Civilizations 2 war report: part five
diary Total defeat seems inevitable. But wait...
