G’day team!
Welcome to another issue of the Reconnect Recap! If you are new here, the Recap is a companion newsletter for my website, Reconnect. Reconnect sources articles from nearly 300 different video game blogs and aggregates them all into one easy peasy location for users to access. Meaning if you are even in the mood to read some great video game blogs you don’t need to go hunting you can go straight to Reconnect and take your pick! The site updates several times a day and then at the end of the week I write this newsletter giving you a collection of the highlights from the week that’s been.
And boy has it been a busy week! There was honestly an absolute deluge of great articles to pick through this week. Today we’re covering exclusivity, getting funky with electronic music, hard hitting narratives, indie success stories and much much more!
Let’s dig in.
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Great Write Ups
The pendulum swings: JM Mendez dives into the latest swing towards console exclusives and what this means in the grand scheme of things.
What drove the decision: But why did Sony change their minds and go back to exclusives? Harrison Polites explains that the decision was driven by a lot more than we think.
Wise Words: Museum of Screens wants to impart some advice to hobbyist game makers, as someone with over a decade of experience.
Silence is golden: Voletic shares an often overlooked benefit to retro gaming, and why for many people its the preferred way to play.
The pieces don’t fit: SuperJump Magazine reviews all the different ways games can offer DLC and issues a cautionary warning against those games that bombard you with DLC options.
Raising Funds: Money is hard to come by for funding video games, now more than ever, TWIV via our own Fergus Halliday , talks to developers having to explore alternative funding routes and strategies.
Four little success stories: The GameDiscoverCo newsletter looks into four unheard of indie games that performed well in April and analyse what each one did that made them stand out.
Combating Anti-Semitism: Video Games Industry Memo talks about a new tool built to assess games and game platforms for hateful content, which rates 10 popular games for how their policies and tools handle antisemitic hate.
Romaaan!: GTA has always been a commentary on American Society, I think what many people missed about the fourth instalment was that it was a very honest story of what it’s like to be an immigrant in the USA, and Deyton Dykes explains it very well.
Worn out it’s welcome: We all know the feeling of loving a game for a while then utterly tuning on it, Felix Roth explains the games that they can no longer stand.
A different story: We all know a narrative game can tell a truly compelling story, but what about when it’s a multiplayer game and the crux of what you are doing in the game doesn’t lend itself to easily telling a great story, how do you progress the plot then? Game Sense explores how current multiplayer games tackle this issue.
Shooting the landscape: The Game Enjoyer recounts the history of the photo mode in games and how it helped grow them into a budding games photographer, and the coolest part is the fact that the majority of their photos on their posts are from them.
Externalising Rhythm: Chris (90s and 00s nostalgia) takes us back to Rez, a game that wanted you to connect and feel it’s music, during a time where electronic music had lost its way.
Shooting Gallery: degonyte takes us on a trip down memory lane, explaining how shooters got here, from a very doomed beginning.
Fun Tidbits
Castlevania: SotN And Animal Crossing Get Miniaturised For Game Boy Color
The Team Behind This Motion-Sensing Box Think It Can Match The Sales Of The Nintendo Wii
Thanks For The Memories! Analogue 3D Just Got Its Most Significant Update Yet
DSpico - This Insanely Cheap Open-Source Nintendo DS Flash Cart Is Utterly Essential
Subnautica 2 passes 4M sold and $100M in revenue in under a week
“You Won’t Want To Miss This” - Hilltop Is Gearing Up For A “Major Fan-Translation Announcement”
These Photos Of Old Japanese Arcades Remind Me Of What We’ve Lost
This Mega Man Hand-Drawn Game Guide Is A Delightful Human-Made Antidote To AI-Generated Slop