MARIA DUARTE picks the best and worst of a crowded year of films
Class struggle at the video games console
BEN COWLES recommends an excellent Marxist critique of the video-games industry
Playing with Marx: Assassin’s Creed Syndicate
STEVE JOHNSON picks his favourites from the many memorable albums of the year, and one stunning new festival
SIMON DUFF picks his favourites, from radical African-inspired electronic rhythms to improvisations on the organ
For GORDON PARSONS, a dramatic exploration of the abuse of young men at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre trumps Beckett, a couple of Hamlets and a bracing Candide
From feminist manifestos to exiled lovers to mythic islands, LEO BOIX selects the best fiction, poetry and non-fiction
FIONA O’CONNOR picks books and films that show defiance in the face of violence and injustice
Marx at the Arcade: Consoles, Controllers and Class Struggle
by Jamie Woodcock
(Haymarket Books, £12.99)
ON THE face of it, Marxists might not seem to have all that much to say about video games and gamers might not necessarily have all that much interest in Marx. But Jamie Woodcock’s brilliant book explains why they both should.
Marx made his video game debut in 2015 in Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. And it was while playing through a sequence where one of the villains belittle the game’s protagonist while delivering a monologue on the industrial “miracle” that brought him his cup of tea, that Woodcock realised the vast complexity of the video game industry.
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