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bioshock

March 29th

…(Content warning: discussion of suicide.)

Joe Parlock, inspired by Laura Kate’s post, tells of how his own feelings blinded him to an option in Fallout 3, and elsewhere, Taylor Hidalgo tackles morality in The Deer God.

Mapping Out Our History

Over at the Ontological Geek, James Hinton wrote about how game maps tend to ignore practical implications for interesting design in land masses, and Brendan Vance’s “The Ghosts of Bioshock” reflects on the Wounded Knee massacre of the Sioux and the framing of history in Bioshock: Infinite:

On one hand I feel [Bioshock: Infinite]

…

This Year In Videogame Blogging: 2015

…of Duty titles (video) and how the series has evolved over the last 12 years. And Nate Ewert-Krocker performed a close reading of Final Fantasy Tactics and how its main character comes to recognize their privilege.

Brendan Vance’s longform critique of “The Ghosts of Bioshock” covered the real history of Wounded Knee, Manifest Destiny, and the Boxer Rebellion, versus how their shadows are felt through Bioshock Infinite‘s compromised vision. Samantha Blackmon and Alisha Karabinus came together to in a video for Not Your Mama’s Gamer about the art and animation style of Cuphead and its invocation of blackface tropes,…

Calling for Critical Compilations!

…Bioshock 2

  • Bioshock Infinite
  • Dear Esther
  • Deus Ex series
  • Dishonored series
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
  • Fallout: New Vegas
  • Fallout 4
  • Far Cry series
  • Final Fantasy VII
  • Final Fantasy X and X-2
  • Final Fantasy XIII
  • Gone Home
  • Heavy Rain
  • Journey
  • Kentucky Route Zero
  • L.A. Noire
  • The Last of Us
  • Mass Effect series
  • Metal Gear series
  • Metro series
  • Nier Automata
  • Nier Gestalt and Replicant
  • No Man’s Sky
  • Papers, Please
  • Pathologic
  • Portal and Portal 2
  • …

    • The Last of Us

    …that goes to lengths to create interesting female characters, all the human enemies are male. (CW: anti-indigenous slur) The Last of Us II seems positioned to address Albor’s criticism based on a gameplay trailer (CW: violence against women, gore), but not everyone seems enthused.

    Dadification of the Apocalypse

    One of the most popular approaches to discussing gender in The Last of Us has been examining the relationship between Joel and Ellie as one of surrogate father and daughter. As The Last of Us is positioned within the phenomenon known as “the dadification of games” alongside Bioshock Infinite…

    October 4th

    …really good.

    • 7 Video Game Villains That Would Make Great Roommates | Fanbyte Virginia Paine makes the case for subletting to Eggman, Dracula, and more.
    • Is Your Favorite Bioshock Character Sexy? | Uppercut Monti Velez presents a ranked list of Correct Opinions.

    “Nathan Drake from Uncharted, Joel Miller from The Last of Us, Booker Dewitt from Bioshock: Infinite. These men for years are the reason for fights breaking out between me and my white girl friends. Even though I, powerful in my body with an exclusive diet of Red Bull (please sponsor me) and

    …

    April 19th

    …Fohlman. Fohlman is most well known for scoring the newer games in the Tomb Raider series (Think Anniversary onwards) but he is also known for his amazing ‘micro scoring’ game music technique. I wish I had heard of and read more about it when writing my thesis, because it really sounds quite extraordinary.

    Another great games writer called ‘Tom’ but this one is Tom Francis and the absolute must read post of the week goes to his alternate ending to Bioshock. This stuff is red hot. I’m sure everyone will have read it soon and then we can all…

    Okami

    …out the illustrious deeds set out in the designer’s plan.” He contrasts this last benevolent relationship between player and designer with the more “sinister” ones that exist in games such as Portal, BioShock, and Metal Gear Solid 2. Whereas Okami’s design celebrates the player, these other games have been criticised for sometimes being condascending and insulting (The most famous example of the latter appearing in Clint Hocking’s critique of BioShock).

    Matthew of Magical Wasteland briefly reminds us about the excellent game score, which is “…at once sweepingly grand and surprisingly intimate, blending the traditional and contemporary, it draws upon…

    Abstract image evoking bird silhouette

    July 5th

    …his gaming preferences realised. For example, he says “I would pay… £3 a month for all tutorials to not explain how to move the mouse, but rather explain key aspects unique to their game.” He then goes on to list a number of other things he’d like to see removed from games and how much he’d be willing to pay to see it happen.

    Over at Touché Bitches (a blog with a kindred spirit to Critical Distance in its focus on videogame criticism) pseudonymous writer Touche_Bitch has a bit of a think about whether Bioshock should be, or could…

    February 21st

    …to 2008’s This Gaming Life. I for one can’t wait for the as-yet untitled work. Rossignol also talked about online communities, the site Rock Paper Shotgun as a community [mirror], and a bit about how the infamous Sunday Papers regular feature ties into and reinforces the community.

    Kirk Hamilton finds out what it would be like “If my games could talk” with important implications for any backlog of games.

    With Bioshock 2 and other sequels having now had time to arrive and settle, sequels in general became a hot topic this week with both Mitch Krpata and Michael…

    This Year In Video Game Blogging 2010

    …pieces on Morrowind this year, by picking apart and straitening out some of the most complex lore a video game can have. She went deep into the metaphysics and dug down to the point where reality, both in and out of the game twists, breaks and reconstructs itself.

    Quarter Down had a great piece of satire this year by Josh Harmon about ‘Bioshock 2‘s multiplayer as an Avant-Garde Masterpiece,’ [mirror] though given the material it is hard not to see the multiplayer as a genuine critique of Objectivism in and of itself.

    Critical Distance’s own Ian Miles Cheong…