Boris Bezdar

Baking Potatoes On the Ashes of Society

  • Gaming Under Fire: Pro-Tips for Playing Games When Being Bombed

    Since October 7th, 2023 all I have been really caring about were missiles falling on my head, hostages suffering in dungeons, cascading wars, bigger missiles falling on my head, online leftists—allies of the yesteryear—revealing their solidarity being unlimited to everyone but the Jews, and nowadays, even bigger missiles falling on my head. I never stopped playing games, but finding some time to write about them… Not easy.

    Enough! If this never-ending war is the new norm, there is no other choice than to adapt and make some blogging happen! Even while running to the bomb shelter every couple of hours or so.

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  • On Taste, or I’m Too Old for Discoveries

    It’s hard to overestimate the scale of the change that we as a society of over-consuming and technologically-enslaved junkies had came through in the last twenty or so years. We are still way over-consuming and even more technologically-enslaved than ever, but the way itself we consume and depend on technology had changed drastically.

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  • [Private Wheels] Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit (1998)

    Private Wheels is a series of blog posts where I analyze the representation of the private vehicle’s concept in every Need for Speed game. In the previous post, I dissected Need for Speed II and criticized the game mercilessly for lacking cops. Apart from the game’s mechanical flaws, its most critical design blunders were of symbolic nature. It’s highly advisable to read the series in chronological order.

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  • MyHouse.wad is not another gimmicky Doom map with ingenious level design

    This game refuses to die. This December, Doom will turn 30 years old. Even in this geriatric age for a videogame, after sequels, reboots, and hundreds of other first-person shooters it heavily influenced, this game refuses to die. Booting Doom on every digital device possible has become a discipline in itself, but people still play Doom for sheer pleasure. It’s just that good—simple as it is. With a vast and still thriving community that creates a mad amount of user-made content for the game, Doom has become an amalgamation of all that is good in PC gaming. There’s a poetic beauty in the fact that the game, focused on brutal anger and destruction, serves as a perfect conduit for pure creation. And this stream seems everlasting.

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  • [Private Wheels] Need for Speed II (1997)

    Private Wheels is a series of blog posts where I take a look at the representation of the private vehicle’s concept in every Need for Speed game. Previously I showed how the first game in the series captured the symbolic realm of the private vehicle as it is meant to be perceived by the advertisement through fetishization of luxury, gamification of Darwinian competition, and marketing-friendly presentation of the rebellion aspect. I advise reading the previous post before reading this one.

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  • The Butlerian Jihad: Gatekeepers of Digital Consumption

    In 1863, Samuel Butler published his article “Darwin among the Machines.” It raised the fearmongering idea that machines are constantly evolving and will eventually enslave humanity roughly like we had domesticated cattle. It ends with a powerful statement that if we can’t destroy everything mechanical right now in an instant, then it’s already too late, and we’re pretty much doomed as a species:

    Our opinion is that war to the death should be instantly proclaimed against them. Every machine of every sort should be destroyed by the well-wisher of his species. Let there be no exceptions made, no quarter shown; let us at once go back to the primeval condition of the race. If it be urged that this is impossible under the present condition of human affairs, this at once proves that the mischief is already done, that our servitude has commenced in good earnest, that we have raised a race of beings whom it is beyond our power to destroy, and that we are not only enslaved but are absolutely acquiescent in our bondage.

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  • [Private Wheels] The Need for Speed (1994)

    A car. A private vehicle. I personally don’t drive, preferring public transportation so far as there is still a choice. Nevertheless, I can appreciate the concept. A personal vehicle is a wholesome embodiment of our society’s focus on the atomized individual. You, a driver of your own private vehicle, are a master of your own fate—you drive wherever you want whenever you want. That is, of course, if nobody else drives this way at the same time. Because no matter how hard we try to make cities designated to cars by narrowing sidewalks and multiplying lanes, everyone is a proud individual, everyone is proudly atomized and self-sufficient, and everyone is proudly stuck in the same traffic jams.

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  • UNRECORD: This is why we can’t have the nice things

    People are losing their minds over a trailer for a new FPS game Unrecord that showcases a stunning level of photorealism. While the technical achievement is undoubtedly impressive, the whole situation makes me scream out of my lungs in frustration, “SURVIVAL HORROR! WHY THE HELL IS THIS NOT A SURVIVAL HORROR GAME?”

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  • [Cleaning the Backlog] Subnautica

    Abzu showed us beautiful, majestic, mesmerizing, and relaxing aspects of the ocean. But it lasted for only a couple of hours. Do you know why? Because it’s a lie! The ocean is freaking scary, unnerving, dangerous, and maddeningly terrifying. I’ve played Subnautica for dozens of hours and came to the only conclusion someone in the right mind can reach: we should boil it! Boil the hell of this wet abyss, burn the remains, bury the ashes, and then nuke the burial place several times! This is the only way.

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  • [Cleaning the Backlog] Adios

    Adios is a short, strictly narrative experience. No matter how hard you try, avoiding spoilers while talking about it is near impossible. So be warned—this text can somewhat spoil the game for you.

    By the phrase «cinematic experience,» when used in the context of videogames, people usually mean visually appeasing spectacle of destruction or dramatically charged cutscenes. Adios lacks both, yet it’s the most cinematic game I’ve played in a long time. Like Italian neorealism films, the game embraces and utilizes the mundane instead of avoiding it; like French New Wave cinema, it weaves long and seemingly empty conversations, hiding under their covers motivations, fears, inner struggles, and beliefs of the conversing characters.

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