Recently, when I’m not performing diligent research, sifting through a hard drive’s worth of mp3s, resting my chin in my hands contemplatively and having deep deep thoughts about pop songs for you lovely people, I’ve been playing a video game called  Bastion. It’s a really fun game, but more importantly, it’s a genuinely moving experience. If it was just the Isometric Action RPG it is in its core mechanics, that would be fine, but it’s Bastion’s presentation that makes it so unique and fantastic. That’s not to say that it’s style over substance; rather, it’s substance communicated perfectly by style. The most basic element of this is that Bastion is remarkably pretty, a techni-watercolor post-apocalypse that is simultaneously cartoony and grim. Added to this is the unreliable narration of Rucks (voiced beautifully by Logan Cunningham) who wryly comments on our actions as we hack and slash and shoot and explode our way through this ruined world, foreshadowing betrayals of trust and revealing dark secrets.

And all that would be enough to set Bastion apart from the pack: Wild-West tinged apocalyptic fantasy game, a Cormac McCarthy fairytale, wonderfully written and presented, full of depth and charm. But what elevates Bastion from a great game to an excellent one is its music, and the way it’s interwoven with the narrative.

Bastion‘s soundtrack was composed by Darren Korb, a New York-based musician with a background in scoring movies and television. Korb’s seamless blend of steel-bodied cowboy country, big beat electronica, western classical, and American and Middle-Eastern folk musics breathes uncanny life into the gameworld. The violent struggle for survival, the uneasy peace between rival countries Caelondia and Ura, the despair brought about by living off the scraps of your own dead civilization, and the hope of a brighter future (or a return to the comforting arms of the past); these things are present not only in the game’s visuals and narration but in the martial chaos of the industrial drum, oud and mouth harp-led “Terminal March” and the frontiers-y, old west-meets-breakbeats jam “In Case of Trouble.”

But while Korb’s compositions certainly flesh out Bastion, it’s the folk songs he wrote for the game that most inform the narrative. “Build That Wall” and “Mother, I’m Here” are sung by two of the game’s secondary characters (one of whom’s singing voice is Korb himself). They songs are relics of the world destroyed by the Calamity, the remnants of an all but extinct culture. They are eulogies and warnings, an attempt to hold on to the ephemeral and an acknowledgement of the inevitable. One of the most remarkable things about these songs isn’t fully evident until the end of the game, where they are combined into the soaring, sadly beautiful and beautifully sad “Setting Sail, Coming Home.” The songs are reflections of each other, parts of a larger whole. And, moreover, depending on the choices you make in the endgame, one’s interpretation of the lyrics is shifted. I don’t want to spoil too much, so I’ll just say that “Setting Sail, Coming Home” is as split between wanting to return to a bygone world and trying to build something out of its ashes as the rest of game is. I may or may not have teared up at the end of my first playthrough.

Bastion can be played on pretty much anything from an iPad to an XBox 360, and I strongly advise you to do so. Even if you are video game averse (and seeing as the medium is currently dominated by dumb, jingoistic bullshit like the Call of Duty games, I really can’t blame you) you should at least watch a few gameplay trailers, and listen to Darren Korb’s fantastic soundtrack. Hopefully it’ll change yer mind.

That’s this week in NTTOD. Follow Simon Lazarus Vasta on Twitter @hunter_s_narc.

Criminally overlooked in retail despite its unique qualities, Binary is in many ways similar to Blade Runner: in the future, cybernetic technology is so advanced that it becomes possible to create robots that are indistinguishable from humans. After a U.S. attack by a so-called “hollow child,” an international spec-ops team is sent to Japan to apprehend the creator of the world’s most advanced robotics technology, under violation of an international treaty banning the research and development of sentient intelligence in machines. Only unlike Blade Runner’s replicants, hollow children have no idea they’re not human.

There’s plenty of commentary that can spark just from this setup: humanity playing God, ethics in technology or even, as Binary was developed by a Japanese team, issues Japan has historically grappled with regarding its military stance or its own cultural identity. It’s a bit unexpected for a game whose surface-level description could be summed up as using automatic weapons to destroy robots.

Binary’s self-awareness is likely its most fascinating aspect. On a design level, this manifests in the AI of your enemies, all Japanese-manufactured cybernetic soldiers (nicknamed “scrapheads”). Thematically tying in with the idea of evolution, they dynamically react to changing battle conditions, adapting as situations warrant by, say, shooting malfunctioning teammates or picking up weapons even if primary shooting limbs have been blown off.

Yet hollow children aren’t self-aware. They are ignorant to the reality that they’re actually machines. The only thing that separates them from the scrapheads on the battlefield is a layer of artificial skin and implanted memories. And if these androids lived as humans for so long, what can it even mean to be alive?

It’s almost impossible to get into the meat of Binary without revealing too much about the narrative, which twists unexpectedly while raising heavy questions about natural selection and the dichotomy between real and artificial life. Interestingly, the developers also acknowledge the cultural stereotypes Japan usually affords foreign culture, lending a touch of Zoltan Korda’s Sahara to the proceedings—all this in the body of a dumb sci-fi shooter.

Binary Domain is available now on PS3 and Xbox 360.

Steve Haske is a Portland-based journalist. You can follow him on Twitter @afraidtomerge.

Unlike his peers, Xavier High School sophomore Demetri Sofides doesn’t just play video games on his computer—he designs award-winning versions of them.

In 2010, Sofides was one of 13 winners from around the world of “The Game Changers,” a digital media and learning competition co-sponsored by video game publisher Electronic Arts and the MacArthur Foundation. Sofides’ winning entry was a new level he developed for Electronic Arts’ game, Spor. “The game has this feature where you are able to create creatures and buildings, so I used it to create a ghost story called The Lantern Bearer,” he explained.

Sofides’ prize was a trip to Electronic Arts’ studios in Redwood City, Calif. For Sofides, who has been designing games for as long as he has been able to type, it was a dream come true. “It was pretty cool. I still keep in touch with one of their lead designers,” he said.

Sofides’ first love, however, is board games. He admits to still having a desk drawer filled with art and concepts for games yet to be created. At a certain point, however, he decided to retire Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit and try his hand at designing video games. His interest in art and writing is also an asset in developing his work, which often has pleasing aesthetics and engrossing storylines.

With his end goal of becoming a professional game designer, Sofides explains that he follows the advice outlined in Malcolm Gladwell’s New York Times bestseller, Outliers. “People who reach the top of their fields, according to this book, accumulate 10,000 hours of practice. I’m working to get in my 10,000 hours of practice in game design.”