Jordan Wood
@thecrossoverappeal
On YouTube as TheCrossoverAppeal. At thecrossoverappeal.com for commentary, recs, + essays Games writing, music writing. Formerly games studies. CCM explains it all. Bylines: Pixelbyte Gaming, JetsonPlaysGames, Exploits, Uppercut, Barely Textual. 🏳️🌈🇲🇽
That time Steven Curtis Chapman, Scott Stapp, Lauryn Hill, and Mark Hoppus were all on the same record thanks to Mel Gibson and Jesus.
I don’t actually have a job writing about games, but if I magically wrote about games as a full time job instead of as a fringe freelance thing I’m trying to get going somehow, this is how I’d prioritize.
Cracked open God Gave Rock and Roll to You by @drleahpayne.bsky.social this morning. Feel like I’ve been waiting for a book like this for years.
Your boy made it to Opencritic. The 13 year old kid who wrote a three page paper convincing my dad to let me buy an Xbox is really pumped about this.
“This is 10 percent luck, 20 percent skill, 15 percent concentrated power of will.”
“Weapon degradation is fine as a form of productive friction within a game’s design, but when actual engagement with that friction introduces a set of administrative interactions that conflict with the game’s open, experimental, and breezy aesthetic, it’s simply an unpleasant bit of bookkeeping.”
Make fun of the Bluesky trending algorithm as much as you want, but this is the nightmare shit going on over in Zuck’s platform.
I made a playlist documenting the weird explosion of Christian metal, metalcore, and screamo in the 2000s and I’m about as proud of the title as I am anything else I wrote this month.
This was the last show I saw before COVID. Thrice and mewithoutYou in Rochester.