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Long-form articles on the art, design, culture, and psychology of video games. Since May 2018, they include extra content.

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Spoiled Treasures and Guilty Pleasures: The Bad Good Game and the Good Bad Game

Reviewing games is harder than it looks. Particularly when the reviewer is tasked with summing up a twenty, forty, or even eighty hour experience into a single number.

The problem is that games are multidimensional. Rarely is a game simply good or bad - most are more complicated than that. An RPG might have a weak plot, but excellent characterization. A platformer might have ugly graphics, but compelling gameplay.

Every so often you’ll encounter a game that stubbornly straddles the line and defies binary judgment. It has solid reasons to be considered both good and bad. Reviews of such games tend not to score them very well, but of course that only tells part of the story. Depending on which side of the fence they fall on, they may be a Bad Good Game or a Good Bad Game.

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