Tom Marks
Tom Marks covers video games and interactive entertainment for IGN, with a focus on explaining how a game feels to play as much as how it works on a technical level. He is part of the outlet’s reviews operation, where he writes and edits technology coverage centered on games across PC and consoles. His work stands out for clear mechanical analysis, attention to difficulty and accessibility, and a steady effort to match each game with the audience it best serves.
Game reviews that foreground player experience
Marks spends most of his time on full-length reviews of new releases, from character-driven platformers to big-budget action games. In pieces like his review of Yoshi and the Mysterious Book, he focuses on the moment-to-moment experience, describing what it is like to live inside the game’s world rather than just listing features. He breaks that experience down into pacing, variety, and how well the game sustains its ideas over the hours it asks players to invest.
His reviews often walk through core systems one at a time: movement, combat, progression, level or mission structure, and how these pieces reinforce or undermine each other. He is explicit about how difficulty settings, checkpoints, and quality-of-life options shape the experience for different kinds of players. When a game succeeds, he tends to point to specific design decisions that make its loop satisfying; when it falls short, he isolates where repetition, friction, or technical issues get in the way.
Across platforms, he treats performance and stability as part of the design conversation rather than an afterthought. Frame rate, loading times, input responsiveness, and visual clarity are all weighed alongside art direction and storytelling. That approach makes his reviews useful both to readers who care about narrative and those who care about raw feel and polish.
Systems-focused coverage of strategy and PC-oriented games
Within IGN’s broader technology and entertainment remit, Marks gravitates toward games built around systems and experimentation. He frequently covers strategy titles, roguelikes, and card-based games where rules, synergies, and long-term planning matter as much as reflexes. His writing in this space often drills into how different builds or approaches change each run, and how well a game supports tinkering without overwhelming new players.
On PC-focused releases, he pays close attention to how technical options and configuration tools serve that audience. He notes how well games scale across hardware, how readable their interfaces are in complex genres, and whether control schemes feel native on keyboard and mouse as well as controller. When live-service updates, balance patches, or expansions significantly change a game’s systems, he revisits them in follow-up coverage that explains what has shifted and whether it meaningfully improves the experience.
Previews, lists, and evolving coverage around major releases
Alongside reviews, Marks contributes hands-on previews based on early builds, demos, and events. In those pieces he is careful to separate what he has directly played from what is promised, outlining which systems already work, which are still uncertain, and what questions remain before launch. He uses that format to give readers an early sense of a game’s tone, scope, and technical ambition without overstating how finished it is.
He also helps build out IGN’s evergreen coverage with ranked lists, recommendations, and comparative roundups. In those, he groups games by genre, platform, or mood, explaining what makes each pick distinct and who is most likely to enjoy it. Across formats, his work keeps circling the same core aim: to translate complex, often fast-moving game technology into practical, readable guidance about what is worth players’ time and why.
4 more technology journalists.
Alex Co
Alex Co is a video game technology reporter at MP1st who specializes in live-service systems and online titles, with patch coverage as the core of his work. He tracks game updates in real time, documenting patch numbers, download sizes, platform differences, full or near-full patch notes, and the changes that affect everyday play. He also reports on server status, outages, and maintenance windows so players know if issues are local or on the developer’s end. His beat extends to console exclusives, PC ports, subscription services, and cross-platform features, with an emphasis on implementation details and player impact. He focuses heavily on multiplayer shooters and competitive balance, and also covers live-service calendars, seasonal events, and multiplayer stability, always prioritizing precise, timely, and actionable information for active players.
Alex Perry
Alex Perry stands out for turning consumer technology news into practical help for people using the hardware they already own. They cover consumer technology for the masthead, focusing on software support changes, platform policies, device updates, apps, streaming platforms, and online services. Their reporting shows what changes on screen, which settings matter, what stops working, and what workarounds remain. Perry writes in a direct, utility-first style and often treats news as a service problem to solve. They are especially attentive to aging devices, including older Kindles, and explain cutoff dates, affected models, offline use, sideloading, and account changes in plain language. Their work appears in quick news reactions, guides, and longer explainers, always aimed at readers who want clear, step-by-step answers.
Ali Hashmi
Ali Hashmi covers technology through the lens of video games, using individual titles to show how interactive systems feel and function for players. He writes for Prima Games. His work sits where game design, visual presentation, and user experience meet, with a focus on what it is like to inhabit the worlds that new releases create. He treats game criticism as a way into technology, breaking down how it appears in games instead of doing standalone hardware reviews. He looks at how technical choices support pacing, control, and readability on screen, weighing mechanics, performance, and audiovisual style together. In his “REPLACED” review, framed as “Tears in the Rain,” he shows how animation, lighting, and input responsiveness shape mood, storytelling, and immersion. Across his work, his through-line is the player’s moment-to-moment experience with the technology in front of them.
Andrew Agress
Andrew Agress stands out for covering technology through the lens of video games, with a focus on how new titles actually play rather than how they are pitched. He writes for The Outerhaven and works in a preview-driven format that foregrounds direct time with a game. His coverage of The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales shows his beat: hands-on previews of upcoming titles, with attention to combat, exploration, storytelling, pacing, controls, and presentation. He uses clear genre touchstones and straightforward comparisons, calling the game “Chrono Trigger meets classic Zelda” to place it in context. His reporting stays grounded in player experience and explains what a game feels like moment to moment, not just what features it lists.