Shall We Play a Game?

Impressions after a week with Sony’s new virtual-reality headset. (Correction: Apparently Oculus Connect is going on right now. Who knew?) NEXT WEEK, WE HOPE: “The Knife of Dunwall” (the “Dishonored” DLC), and maybe Jon Favreau’s Vive thing, “Gnomes and Goblins” SHOW NOTES: Chris’s review of PlayStation VR in Glixel   Review us on iTunes Like us on Facebook Email us at shallweshow at gmail Join the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam community Follow the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam Curators page Follow us on Twitter

Why JJ didn’t play “Deus Ex: Mankind Divided,” and whether Blendo Games’ “Thirty Flights of Loving” ruined “Virginia” for Chris. NEXT WEEK, WE HOPE: PlayStation VR SHOW NOTES: “Thirty Flights of Living” from Blendo Games Warren Spector’s GDC 2013 talk on “Narrative in Games”   Review us on iTunes Like us on Facebook Email us at shallweshow at gmail Join the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam community Follow the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam Curators page Follow us on Twitter

It’s special request hour at “Shall We Play a Game?”: We play “Reigns,” the mobile hit billed as “Tinder for monarchs,” and “Bound,” the PlayStation 4 dance platformer. Then we indulge our own desires with Act 3 of “Kentucky Route Zero.” NEXT WEEK, WE HOPE: “Deus Ex: Mankind Divided” and “Wheels of Aurelia.” SHOW NOTES: “Reigns” developer François Alliot’s essay in Polygon Chris’s New York Times post on video games as ballet Game Oven’s “Bounden,” with choreography from the Dutch National Ballet   Review us on iTunes Like us on Facebook Email us at shallweshow at gmail Join the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam community Follow the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam Curators page Follow us on Twitter

JJ couldn’t get his PlayStation 4 to work in Zurich (really). So we played “Stardew Valley” instead of “Bound.” NEXT WEEK, WE HOPE: “Bound.” Or “Reigns.” Or “Kentucky Route Zero: Act 3.” Or “Wheels of Aurelia.” Or all of them? SHOW NOTES: Chris and Ken Levine talk about ‘BioShock’ for Rolling Stone’s Glixel   Review us on iTunes Like us on Facebook Email us at shallweshow at gmail Join the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam community Follow the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam Curators page Follow us on Twitter

Act 2 of “Kentucky Route Zero,” plus an intriguing Oculus shooter and a little “Auralux: Constellations” NEXT WEEK, WE HOPE: “Bound” SHOW NOTES: Review us on iTunes Like us on Facebook Email us at shallweshow at gmail Join the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam community Follow the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam Curators page Follow us on Twitter

We haven’t reached the center of the galaxy, but we’re ready to deliver our verdict on “No Man’s Sky.” Play it? Or don’t play it? NEXT WEEK, WE HOPE: “Damaged Core” and Act II of “Kentucky Route Zero” SHOW NOTES: Will Wright on “Spore” at the 2005 Game Developers Conference   Review us on iTunes Like us on Facebook Email us at shallweshow at gmail Join the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam community Follow the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam Curators page Follow us on Twitter

The first act of Cardboard Computer’s evocative point-and-click adventure. Plus a little “Deus Ex Go”

We’re still playing Hello Games’ universe simulator/plutonium shooter/alien-language puzzler. NEXT WEEK, WE HOPE: “Kentucky Route Zero: Act I” SHOW NOTES: Listen to us talk about “No Man’s Sky” on NPR’s “All Things Considered”   Review us on iTunes Like us on Facebook Email us at shallweshow at gmail Join the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam community Follow the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam Curators page Follow us on Twitter

Do you want to serenely explore an underwater video game world for two hours, or serenely explore an outer-space video game world for infinity? NEXT WEEK, WE HOPE: More “No Man’s Sky” SHOW NOTES: Review us on iTunes Like us on Facebook Email us at shallweshow at gmail Join the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam community Follow the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam Curators page Follow us on Twitter

Is this the game we need, or the game we deserve? NEXT WEEK, WE HOPE: “Abzû.” Still dreaming about finding time “Quadrilateral Cowboy” before “No Man’s Sky.” SHOW NOTES: Review us on iTunes Like us on Facebook Email us at shallweshow at gmail Join the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam community Follow the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam Curators page Follow us on Twitter

Playdead’s “Inside” rouses us from our summer video-game torpor. A spoiler-free review, followed (at 18:22) by a very spoiler-y discussion of the ending, including JJ’s persuasive theory of What It All Means. NEXT WEEK, WE HOPE: “Batman: The Telltale Series.” Maybe “Abzû.” Dreaming about “Quadrilateral Cowboy.” SHOW NOTES: Review us on iTunes Like us on Facebook Email us at shallweshow at gmail Join the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam community Follow the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam Curators page Follow us on Twitter

We pre-ordered Rifts in February. They’re both finally here. We talk about “Lucky’s Tale” and compare the hardware to the HTC Vive. Then, Chris talks to Gabriel Winslow-Yost, an editor at the New York Review of Books, about why he plays video games, even when he’s a little ashamed of it. NEXT WEEK, WE HOPE: “Inside” SHOW NOTES: “Why Would an Adult Man Play Video Games?” by Gabriel Winslow-Yost Gabriel’s review of “S.T.A.L.K.E.R.” in the New York Review of Books His NYRB review of Michael W. Clune’s “Gamelife” and Liel Leibovitz’s “God in the Machine” His N+1 essay on video games   Review us on iTunes Like us on Facebook Email us at shallweshow at gmail Join the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam community Follow the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam Curators page Follow us on Twitter

Everyone’s playing it. But is it any good? NEXT WEEK, WE HOPE: “Lucky’s Tale” and the Oculus Rift. Maybe “Inside.” SHOW NOTES: Chris’s review of “Ingress” in the New York Times   Review us on iTunes Like us on Facebook Email us at shallweshow at gmail Join the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam community Follow the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam Curators page Follow us on Twitter

Virginia Heffernan, the author of “Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art” and a former TV critic for the New York Times, talks about playing “1010!” on the subway, reaching the top 1,000 on the “Angry Birds” leaderboard, and why the Internet is both a realist work of art and a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. NEXT WEEK, WE HOPE: JJ gets his Oculus Rift SHOW NOTES: “Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art” by Virginia Heffernan   Review us on iTunes Like us on Facebook Email us at shallweshow at gmail Join the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam community Follow the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam Curators page Follow us on Twitter

An interview with a British political journalist that isn’t about Brexit: Helen Lewis, the deputy editor of the New Statesman, talks about why “BioShock” is her favorite game, why she plays as Queen Elizabeth in “Civilization,” and what “Fallout 4” might tell us about the future of America. NEXT WEEK, WE HOPE: “Magic and Loss” author Virginia Heffernan: What I Play SHOW NOTES: Review us on iTunes Like us on Facebook Email us at shallweshow at gmail Join the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam community Follow the “Shall We Play a Game?” Steam Curators page Follow us on Twitter