Abstract image evoking bird silhouette

Hello Everyone, this is Zolani taking over for Kris on This Week in Videogame Blogging. Let’s get to it!

Big Box

Aevee Bee wrote two stellar pieces of writing on Destiny this week, one of them is a series of mini-reviews on the game’s flavour text, the other a longer piece on what makes Destiny curious and interesting as a massive budget title.

Over at Kotaku, Patricia Hernandez does well articulating Fallout 4’s struggle between its role-playing roots and its streamlining towards action-game systems. At the Mary Sue, Bryan Cebulski makes recommendations of literature for Fallout fans, and Joseph Cain writes on how Fallout 4 represents gender dynamics.

And Rich Geldreich writes an important piece on the toxic behaviours of programmer culture that reinforce the homogeneity of its communities (don’t read the comments –ed).

Black Box

At Gamasutra, Richard Moss has a fascinating piece on Return of the Obra Dinn, Lucas Pope’s follow-up to his IGF-winning Papers, Please, and the context of the 1-bit grayscale style it uses. Daniel Muriel also writes on Papers, Please, exploring the game’s representation of the political frontier.

Meanwhile at PopMatters, G. Christopher Williams writes on Nina Freeman’s Cibele and The Videogame Confessional, and Jorge Albor reflects on how games represent personal experiences.

At Not Your Mama’s Gamer, Bianca Patti looks at the use of trauma in women’s stories such as Tomb Raider and Jessica Jones.

Sandbox

Also at Not Your Mama’s Gamer, Alisha Karabinus writes on Open World experiences and how they fit into a definition of play.

Stephen Beirne has a new Two Minute Crit up on his youtube, where he talks about the Crouch and Zoom mechanics of the Metal Gear Solid games. And consider picking up Unwinnable Weekly’s new double issue on Metal Gear Solid, and there are three pieces you can read online: One on Metal Gear Solid V, one focusing on its character Quiet, and another on the game’s film inspirations.

Elsewhere, Gregory Avery-Weir writes on games that do well exploring villainy. Finally, Jake Tucker has an absorbing retelling of the development of the original Rainbow Six, and its impact on the military first person shooter.

Mailbox

That’s it for this now, friends. If you come across some work you’d like us to call attention to next week, don’t hesitate to give us a shout on Twitter or email. We depend on our readers and contributors to help call attention to the ongoing discussions in all sorts of circles.

Don’t forget to catch our most recent podcast with Giant Bomb’s Austin Walker and our new Blogs of the Round Table prompt for December.

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Take Care, and Keep Reading!

Zolani