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Nick Capozzoli

@nickcapozzoli.bsky.social

1.7K followers 450 following 2.9K posts

architect | critic | games journalism award chair @ https://nygamecritics.com/ | newsletter & blog @ https://www.arcadence.com/

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Nick Capozzoli @nickcapozzoli.bsky.social · Jul 16

A little over halfway through the year is a good time to ask: what games journalism/criticism pieces have you enjoyed so far in 2025? Looking for recs for consideration for the Games Journalism Award (now 11 years running!). Late November/early December '24 is ok! nygamecritics.com/the-games-jo...

The Games Journalism Award

By Nick Capozzoli, NYVGCC Journalism Chair The Games Journalism Award is given to one journalist or critic for distinguished contributions to the field during the voting year. The selected journali…

nygamecritics.com

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Reposted by Nick Capozzoli

Jack Sapoch @jacksapoch.bsky.social · 18h

We traced over 30 unique assets to Washington-based 3D creator Ian Hubert, who makes bespoke models created for his sci-fi project Dynamo Dream, available to his Patreon subscribers.

Scans of parking lots, antennas, and pipes were repurposed as Hamas and Iranian military sites

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Jack Sapoch @jacksapoch.bsky.social · 18h

Many of these “illustrations” aren’t based on verified intelligence at all.

Our analysis of 43 official IDF videos found recycled 3D environments, spatial inaccuracies, and assets lifted from unrelated artists and institutions.

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Jack Sapoch @jacksapoch.bsky.social · 18h

NEW: Since October 2023, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit has released dozens of 3D animations illustrating alleged Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iranian sites

The style is now unmistakable: satellite zoom-ins, black & white wireframes, and red-textured houses - a new visual language of war

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Nick Capozzoli @nickcapozzoli.bsky.social · 1d

same energy as that time the Jonas Brothers played with Stevie Wonder and the one kid tried throwing it to him by saying "take it away Stevie!" or w/e but his voice cracked

max tani @maxtani.bsky.social · 1d

Bari Weiss introduced herself to CBS News staff today on the network's 9AM call, saying she wants to "win," which requires restoring trust to CBS. She also said she was excited for staff to get to know the Free Press, and ended her remarks by saying: "Let's do the fucking news."

Nick Capozzoli @nickcapozzoli.bsky.social · 2d

i suppose you could say that I too have a meta storyline that's a little on-the-nose and probably going nowhere but that i'm contractually obligated to perpetuate

Nick Capozzoli @nickcapozzoli.bsky.social · 2d

ah shit they got us, the ubisoftlikes

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Nick Capozzoli @nickcapozzoli.bsky.social · 2d

they've done a very specific thing right when by the end of the game I sidle up to some ridiculous looking climb, with obvious mudslide traps and nasty trip-ups, and instead of getting mad, I laugh, knowing it's going to fuck me

Nick Capozzoli @nickcapozzoli.bsky.social · 2d

they def. seed the field. I think the power is in doing everything ad absurdum, with enough commitment that they become leitmotif—so that the player can find character development in "getting stuck in a pit" for the 3rd time, or "falling and losing progress" instead of feeling 1st impulse responses.

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Nick Capozzoli @nickcapozzoli.bsky.social · 2d

bsky.app/profile/nick...

Nick Capozzoli @nickcapozzoli.bsky.social · 5d

*record scratch* yep that's me

Nate, stuck in the middle of the planks of a water wheel at the top of its rotation. Only his ass and legs are visible.

Nick Capozzoli @nickcapozzoli.bsky.social · 2d

You're thinking he doesn't see himself the way that you see him, and then suddenly it's reframed as if: he's seen himself that way for a lot longer than you have, and he feels it so much more acutely. I honestly felt a real pang of guilt.

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Nick Capozzoli @nickcapozzoli.bsky.social · 2d

Uncanny or hyperreal?

Nick Capozzoli @nickcapozzoli.bsky.social · 2d

And much to the game's credit, it doesn't linger on it. The characters in this land aren't here for that, they quickly move right past it. It trusts that you, the player, knew what it meant—and know what it means that everyone wanted to move along without confronting it face-on.

Nick Capozzoli @nickcapozzoli.bsky.social · 2d

*very minor spoiler alert* hearing the line "I wish I was dead" in the game cut me off mid-laugh. It's the kind of swerve that even Disco Elysium—another very funny game—never really nailed, for me. More powerful here because it'll have gone absurdist humor for 9 out of the previous 9 bits.

Giovanni Colantonio @marioprime.bsky.social · 2d

The thing that’s fucking wild about Baby Steps is that it includes stuff like this, some of the funniest shit I have ever seen in a game, and also has scenes that will gut you in ways you just won’t see coming.

Jeff Grubb @grubb.wtf · 2d

i get that people want video game stories to be something other than this, but i actually don't get it youtu.be/wtGXXUAcqak

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Giovanni Colantonio @marioprime.bsky.social · 2d

Jeff Grubb @grubb.wtf · 2d

i get that people want video game stories to be something other than this, but i actually don't get it youtu.be/wtGXXUAcqak

All ice cream cutscene

YouTube video by Cuttyflame

youtu.be

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Ryan Teague Beckwith @ryanbeckwith.bsky.social · 2d

Editor in chief, city editor, features editor

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Razzball @razzball.bsky.social · 2d

Built in a lab to appease billionaires

"I know that there are some people in this room who don't believe that my marriage should have been legal," Ms. Weiss told the Federalist Society, an influential
conservative legal group, in 2023. "And that's OK. Because we're all Americans who want lower taxes."

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Niv M. Sultan @nivmsultan.bsky.social · 2d

adding on this, I think often about Peter Schjeldahl's "The Art of Dying." if you like or love something, champion it; if you don't like or love it, be generous in your consideration of it (thoughtful and curious, not obsequious, deferential, or afraid)

www.newyorker.com/magazine/201...

"I retain, but suspend, my personal taste to deal with the panoply of the art I see. I have a trick for doing justice to an uncongenial work: “What would I like about this if I liked it?” I may come around; I may not. Failing that, I wonder, What must the people who like this be like? Anthropology."

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Nick Capozzoli @nickcapozzoli.bsky.social · 2d

it'd reveal a baseline incuriosity that's anathema to the job of critic; having the thought "it's just not for me" should prompt any critic to immediately stop and first start unpacking "Why isn't it for me?" then explicating that for the reader. "It's not for me" is not an answer worth reading.

Nick Capozzoli @nickcapozzoli.bsky.social · 2d

a critic bringing an unexamined preference to bear on a work is basically tantamount to skipping the "show your work" part of a math problem and writing down an answer: meaningless

Carolyn Petit @carolynmichelle.bsky.social · 2d

respectfully: no. develop your own taste, absolutely, but own it. it's fine to think that popular thing is bad. it's fine to not have an opinion too, but i see statements like this one all the time and i just want to push back a bit: there's nothing wrong with having the courage of your convictions.

"there are many filmmakers whom i clearly recognize as major artists while remaining completely untouched and, frankly, annoyed by their work. learning the difference between "i hate", "it's bad", and "it just isn't for me" has been a crucial feature of my maturation as an artist and human being."

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Nick Capozzoli @nickcapozzoli.bsky.social · 2d

Q.E.D.

Nick Capozzoli @nickcapozzoli.bsky.social · 3d

it's all very logical and thematically consistent and at the same time more than a little bit deranged

Nick Capozzoli @nickcapozzoli.bsky.social · 3d

it's like, specifically, the bad ending of Clair Obscur: "You've learned to love these guys! Learned to love this routine! Canonically, they all now have to perform it for you forever! Isn't that great?"

Nick Capozzoli @nickcapozzoli.bsky.social · 3d

the Hades games are probably the first thing I'd point to when it comes to good examples of thematic set dressing for a roguelike but that said it's very funny they're contractually obligated to not end & thus all have to find a "fun" reason their protagonists have to keep pushing the same boulder

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Nick Capozzoli @nickcapozzoli.bsky.social · 4d

I will wash the dishes
while you have a few small beers

Nick Capozzoli @nickcapozzoli.bsky.social · 4d

god,

Ken Klippenstein @kenklippenstein.bsky.social · 4d

CHUCK SCHUMER: "New data came out today from KFF - and that is not Kentucky Fried French Fries ... the Kaiser Family Foundation"