Start Press: Herding Scapegoats
Once upon a time, rock ’n’ roll was controversial. To concerned parents and clergy, Elvis Presley’s dance moves on late-night television prefigured some hip-swiveling apocalypse that would bump traditional moral values right off the planet's outer rim. In 1985 there were even Senate hearings (Senate hearings!) in which Frank Zappa, John Denver and Dee Snider of Twisted Sister were forced to answer for rock’s moral transgressions before Tipper Gore and her colleagues in the Parents Music Resource Center.... read more
Start Press: How I Learned To Love The Plot Spoiler
As I played through Remedy’s thriller Alan Wake (check out our review of the game here), I kept thinking about the gaming community’s paranoia over inadvertently reading plot spoilers. Just a few hours before the board of CrispyGamer.com sent the most talented editorial team in online game journalism packing, a feature by journalist Tom Bissell went up on Crispy’s homepage entitled “Spoilsport: On Gaming’s Unhealthy Obsession With Spoilers.” At the Game Developers Conference earlier this year in San Francisco, Crispy’s former managing editor Elise Vogel shared with me the urgency she felt in getting this particular piece up on the site... read more
April/May 2010 Crossword Puzzle: What's the Alternative (Hint)
From Paste issue #62. Check your answers.... read more
April/May 2010 Crossword Puzzle: What's the Alternative (Answer Key)
From Paste issue #62. Print the puzzle.... read more
April/May 2010 Crossword Puzzle: What's the Alternative
From Paste issue #62. Check your answers. Get a hint.... read more
Crossword Puzzles
Each issue of Paste has a custom-made crossword related to that month’s content produced by Brendan Emmett Quigley. Enjoy!... read more
Start Press: In Your Game We Play
In the Old Testament book of Sega Genesis, you can read about the first game Adam and Eve played together in the Garden of Eden. Before the Apple IIe. Before LuCiFeR666 tricked Eve into downloading a virus-infected copy of Resistance: Fall of Man. Before the curse descended and 8-bit Nintendo cartridges had to be mouth-blown like harmonicas. Before the sinister Red Ring of Death. Before Cliff Bleszinski dyed his hair streaky blond for the first ill-advised time. Before Adam and Eve were ordered to go play outside the garden.... read more
Start Press: Lookie Here!
My apartment is relatively compact, meaning the kitchen, dining room, living room and study all occupy the same room. What this means is, I don’t have the luxury of a basement “man cave” where I can stash all my videogame consoles and musical instruments. What this means is, my wife frequently finds herself in the room with me while I’m playing videogames. And that probably wouldn’t be such a bad thing—it’s easy enough to plug in headphones, which provide a better sound experience anyway—but I have this one compulsion that drives her crazy.... read more
Start Press: The Daily Grind
During my childhood gaming years, I spent an inordinate amount of time marching my poor avatar in circles. He’s just lucky he wasn’t self-aware, that stocky knight draped in plate armor, walking the same tedious circuit for hours beneath the heat of a sun that no one had programmed to set.... read more
March 2010 Crossword Puzzle: Taking Directions (Answer Key)
From our 50 Best Living Directors issue. Print the puzzle.... read more
March 2010 Crossword Puzzle: Taking Directions (Hint)
From our 50 Best Living Directors issue. Check your answers.... read more
March 2010 Crossword Puzzle: Taking Directions
From our 50 Best Living Directors issue. Check your answers. Get a hint.... read more
Catching Up With... Dante's Inferno Concept Artist Wayne Barlowe
Wayne Barlowe gets paid to make your eyes pop out of your skull. The wildly talented science fiction and fantasy artist/author designed the creatures for James Cameron's Avatar. He's done concept art for a number of other Hollywood blockbusters, including Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Hellboy and most recently Peter Jackson's two-part, big-screen adaptation of The Hobbit. But even though he's done reams of work for the film industry, it was his vivid reimagining of Dante Alighieri's Inferno—the appropriately titled Barlowe's Inferno—that made him the perfect candidate to work on Visceral Games' new hack-and-slash action title, which also... read more
Catching Up With... Dark Void's Senior Producer Morgan Gray
Morgan Gray is no stranger to the videogame industry. He began his career testing for LucasArts, then moved to Totally Games as a designer on the X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter series, as well as Star Trek: Bridge Commander, and later as a Project Coordinator on Secret Weapons over Normandy, again with LucasArts. After joining Crystal Dynamics to work on Project Snowblind, he joined the Tomb Raider Legend team as the producer. Most recently Gray has been working for Capcom, serving as the Senior Producer on Dark Void, a third-person shooter that incorporates the Bermuda Triangle, Nikola Tesla, jetpacks and a... read more
Start Press: The Spirit of Radio
The story is already legend. On October 30th, 1938, listeners who tuned in to hear CBS Radio’s regular broadcast of Mercury Theatre on the Air were whipped into a frenzy by a series of increasingly calamitous news bulletins chronicling a Martian invasion of Grover’s Mill, New Jersey. At that moment in history when Orson Welles staged his now-infamous radio drama War of the Worlds, the run-up to World War II was already in motion. The American public might as well have been collectively listening to the cadence of a wooden roller coaster clack-clacking inexorably toward the first of many stomach-turning... read more
The Best Albums, Movies, TV & More From the 2000s
When this decade began, Paste’s website was barely a year old, and the magazine was still a twinkle in its daddies’ eyes. So looking back over the first 10 years of the 2000s feels like looking back over our own history. There hasn’t been a new album, film, TV show, video game or book Paste has covered that wasn’t eligible for our “Best of the Decade” consideration. We had dozens of critics vote in each of these five categories, and then we argued some more until we’d focused our spotlight onto the very best pop culture created during the aughts—whether... read more
Start Press: Lost In Space
Lately it’s been getting dark around five o’clock in the evening. Ireland is situated far enough north that it won’t be long before the daylight—notice I said ‘daylight’ and not ‘sunshine’—will fizzle out each afternoon around 3:30pm. I like to imagine that the sun has gotten sick of its job and begun showing up late to work, slipping out the backdoor early. I don’t mind the shorter days. Nighttime amplifies the comfort of your domestic environs. Like when you’re watching a stage play with an elaborate set and all the lights fade to black except for one spotlight trained on... read more
Catching Up With... DJ Hero Producer Will Townsend
Will Townsend has the job that countless twentysomething dudes could only dream of: He gets paid—and well—to play video games. Townsend is the producer of DJ Hero, the newest incarnation of the Guitar Hero series, which hits shelves Tuesday (Oct. 27). Clad in black-rimmed glasses, a black t-shirt and a Yankees hat, Townsend looked a lot like his clientele when he sat down with Paste recently at the Xbox 360 DJ Hero premiere party in Atlanta. Over the blare of party-goers diving into the new game, Townsend told us about putting the game together, the power of video games and... read more
Start Press: If I Could Turn Back Time
In the past I’ve tended to avoid racing games that strive for a realistic simulation of the driving experience. As far as I was concerned, the brake pedal existed for morning commuter traffic, not virtual speed-demon fantasies. I could abide the handbrake, but only because it allowed you to go drifting around bends, tires screeching like a pack of bloodthirsty harpies on the attack. But it felt wrong that a game would require you to slow down in order to be successful. Inevitably I’d spend a few minutes skidding off the track and spinning my tires in the sand or... read more
How DJ Hero is Changing Music Forever
Video may have killed the radio star back in those dark and desperate times known as the '80s, but... read more
