gaming
theartsdesk |

We are bowled over! 

We knew that theartsdesk.com had plenty of supporters out there – we’ve always had a loyal readership of arts lovers and professionals alike – but the response to our appeal to help us relaunch and reboot has been something else.

Jon Turney |

For a couple of decades, the free video game America’s Army was a powerful recruitment aid for the US military. More than a shoot-em-up, players might find themselves dressing virtual wounds, struggling to co-ordinate tactics with their squad, and facing other supposedly realistic aspects of active service. The realism, of course, had one strict limit. If you died, you could reset the game and play again.

Steve O'Rourke
Rage 2 is a wacky Dayglo-infused post-apocalyptic world filled with various different factions who, for one reason or another, want you dead. Think…
Steve O'Rourke
Based on the 2006 book of the same name, and set in the same universe as the 2013 film adaptation, World War Z follows groups of survivors of a…
Steve O'Rourke
The LEGO Movie 2 Videogame is based on events that take place in The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part film that came out in February. The story begins…

Subscribe to theartsdesk.com

Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.

To take a subscription now simply click here.

And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?

Steve O'Rourke
A rocky start for a new franchise that offers potential and problems in equal measure
Steve O'Rourke
Nearly a decade has passed since the last incarnation but little has changed in this stagnant shooter
Steve O'Rourke
The veteran series returns for another ambitious tour of duty
Steve O'Rourke
When home runs go horribly wrong
Steve O'Rourke
An ambitious Wild West odyssey that matches epic scale with benchmark skill
Steve O'Rourke
Solo rations have been relegated from this benchmark war series
Steve O'Rourke
It looks and plays great, but what’s new?
Alfred Quantrill
A comprehensive look at gaming present and future has surprisingly broad appeal
Steve O'Rourke
Swinging in the city with the arachnid avenger
Steve O'Rourke
High tech meets high calibre in this year’s list of gaming’s brightest sparks
Steve O'Rourke
A comprehensive management sim where you feed the exhibits, the punters and your bank balance
theartsdesk
In association with The Hospital Club's h.Club100 Awards, we're looking for the best cultural writers, bloggers and vloggers
Steve O'Rourke
A big budget interactive story where your decisions can flip the script
theartsdesk
Enter our competition to win a spectacular weekend at England's finest arts festival
Steve O'Rourke
Father-son adventure is a slick and gorgeous spectacle
Steve O'Rourke
God, guns and the great outdoors
Steve O'Rourke
Bring out your wild side in this strange survivalist simulation
Steve O'Rourke
Why bob and weave when you can ground and pound?
Steve O'Rourke
Quality nearly matches quantity
Steve O'Rourke
The force is less strong with this one
Steve O'Rourke
Little blocks, big heroes, loads of fun
Steve O'Rourke
The veteran franchise returns for another bout of epic war games
theartsdesk
News from The Hospital Club's annual awards for the creative industries, plus theartsdesk's Young Reviewer of the Year
Steve O'Rourke
Slicker and slower, the latest version of the football bestseller takes its time to shine

the future of arts journalism

You can stop theartsdesk.com closing! 

We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £33,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d

And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.

latest in today

We are bowled over! We knew that theartsdesk.com had plenty of supporters out there – we’ve always had a loyal readership of arts…
Some exhibitions make you feel inspired, others perplexed. Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting at the National Portrait Gallery left me…
“Fuck Thatcher, fuck neoliberalism.” After these words from the stage, an audience response. “Fuck Thatcher” echoes the approving shout…
Mahagonny, the spider-web city sucking in men (and they are, even in this 2026 take, mostly men) with cash to burn, is the terminus of…
In our society, old people are everywhere, but they are everywhere ignored. For while culture loves youth, it often scorns maturity. So the…
There's little reason to arrive early at the cinema these days, now that filmgoers are forced to endure as many advertisements as movie…
William Nicholson’s drama about the short-lived love between the academic and writer CS Lewis and the American poet who initiated a lengthy…
If you stand close to a picture by Georges Seurat, the experience is totally different from being a few feet away. To a certain extent this…
In prehistoric Britain, life was full of Hs. It was hard. It was horribly hard. It was hardly happy. And, according to Jack Nicholls, whose…
Peaches is primarily known as a purveyor of transgressive, sex positive anthems that have no room for shame whatsoever. This is just as it…

Most read

Mahagonny, the spider-web city sucking in men (and they are, even in this 2026 take, mostly men) with cash to burn, is the terminus of…
Beauty and the Beast? Not quite; the Czech title of Juraj Herz’s 1978 fantasy is Panna a netvor, which translates, much more fittingly, as…
Would you want to marry a spy? After watching Betrayal, probably not.Writer David Eldridge has used the paradigm of the secret world as a…
Some exhibitions make you feel inspired, others perplexed. Lucian Freud: Drawing into Painting at the National Portrait Gallery left me…
“Fuck Thatcher, fuck neoliberalism.” After these words from the stage, an audience response. “Fuck Thatcher” echoes the approving shout…
In our society, old people are everywhere, but they are everywhere ignored. For while culture loves youth, it often scorns maturity. So the…
Boz Scaggs rarely does a less than wonderful album. His latest is an exemplary collection of smooth and soulful standards and a few other…
Phyllida Lloyd’s production of Peter Grimes, first seen 20 years ago, is still one of the jewels in Opera North’s treasury. It was revived…
"How can we sleep for grief?", asks the brilliant and agitated Thomasina Coverly (the dazzling Isis Hainsworth) during the first act of…
Remember the Brass Band Battle of a couple years ago? The one that pitted Romania’s Fanfare Ciocarlia vs Serbia’s Boban & Marko…