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journey

November 18th

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Kotaku’s Jason Schreier writes on the seductively “perfect” little world of Persona 4. Meanwhile, Brendan “Hotshot” Keogh continues his “A Sum of Parts” column on Gameranx this week with a second essay on Binary Domain, this time on its treatment of posthumanism.

And not to be outdone in terms of ambitious analyses, this week Play the Past’s Roger Travis brings us an interesting interpretation of Halo as an analogue for Homer’s Odyssey.

Several high-profile indie games continued to spur discussion this week. First, Terrence Jarrad laments how treating Journey “like a game” ruined his experience. Then, our

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December 16th

…as design challenges the medium faces to portray it accurately.

Echoing some of the television studies work of Lynn Spigel, Crikey’s Daniel Golding shores up an interesting analysis of how the Wii’s marketing was in fact intended to render the console “invisible.”

THESE THINGS WE PLAY

Every week a good bulk of the criticism we see is devoted to particular games, from new releases to fond classics. Let’s tuck in.

Journey

On VGRevolution, Marc Price shares an emotional, personal account of grief, atheism, and finding ‘Heaven’ in Journey. Meanwhile, Bit Creature’s Patricia Hernandez provides us…

November 10th

It’s getting rather dark and rather chilly around here. Another week, another list of links for This Week In Video Game Blogging.

Video Games Both Great and Small

Horror month continues a little past October with Zachary McAnally looking at Slender: The Arrival‘s horror design and Soha El-Saaawi explaining the journey of Year Walk.

Emanuel Maiberg at Kill Screen looks at the new Call of Duty and how the campaign ends up turning you unintentionally into a terrorist and a Nazi. While E.T. Brooking at The Escapist explores the real world space faring weaponry that has

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June 15th

…than “strong,” she laments that games are “still largely populated by men who feel unsure about how to write and build nuanced women.” On the other hand, Rhea Monique, argues that we should embrace, rather than bristle at Croft’s weakness because she takes the player along with her, through every part of her journey, including her pain and her healing.

Not So Fast, E3, We Aren’t Finished With You Yet

Zack Kotzer reminds us that “Blockbuster Video Games Still Suck at Handling Racism” as well.

Alternatively, rather than calling out games for what they lack, Martin calls…

Episode 26 – Five out of Na Pali

…Tremblay to talk about their book, Escape to Na Pali: Journey to the Unreal, that came out of an upgraded Five out of Ten pitch. They explain their love of the game and the collaborative process for crafting the collection of essays.

http://www.critical-distance.com/podcast/Critical-Distance-Confab-episode-26-side-A.mp3 http://www.critical-distance.com/podcast/Critical-Distance-Confab-episode-26-side-B.mp3

Direct Download Side A

Direct Download Side B

SHOW NOTES

Five out of Ten

Escape to Na Pali: Journey to the Unreal

Five out of Ten Patreon

Reality Check: Murder We Wrote

Opening Theme: ‘Close’ by The Alpha Conspiracy

Closing Theme: ‘Wishing Never’ by The Alpha Conspiracy

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August 16th

…good that gas doesn’t work on robots!’ and a boxing glove pops out and knocks him out.”

“[Others on the development team] just started peppering me with, ‘Why is this funny? What Is the joke? Where does this fall in the hero’s journey? Is this the save the cat moment?’ I’m wide-eyed and going ‘I thought, I thought it was funny I’m so sorry.’ That’s what I realized, as a game writer, you think you have this freedom, but you don’t. There are so many constraints and so many moving pieces, and from then on out I was hyper-aware…

Xenogears, Xenosaga, Xenoblade

…how the game depicts them.

Noman Nasir, meanwhile, puts the game in a broader religious context. The parallels he sees between Fei’s journey and extra-Biblical myth give that journey a spiritual tone:

Fei is also on a pilgrimage of his own. […] The distinguishing characteristics of Xenogears [the mech] are its angelic wings which can be thought of as the polar opposite of Grahf’s demonic bat like wings. Grahf isn’t really Lacan [the character], instead he is the remains of Lacan’s negative emotions. So Fei defeating Grahf’s and his gear symbolizes a sort of freedom attained by the…

November – December 2015

…a strong game experience.

https://youtu.be/WqkZXNZwZq4

History Respawned also took on Fallout 4. In this LP, Jonathan Hunt discusses the history of nuclear war and 1950’s American Culture against the backdrop of the game.

That’s it for this month! Thanks for joining me on this adventure. Next month, please send your submissions for January via Twitter using the hashtag #LetsPlayCD or via email! Also, please consider supporting Critical-Distance through Patreon or Recurrency.

I leave you now with this old eternal saying, “Live the journey, for every destination is but a doorway to another. Good Journey.”

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March 20th

…a control stick in a certain direction for a certain amount of time.”

Human Valuables

Drew Dixon, over at GameChurch, shines a light on Darkest Dungeon’s commoditizing of humans, and how doing horrible things in the name of a little capital can become natural.

Back on Not Your Mama’s Gamer, Ashley J. Velaquez speaks of how This War of Mine: The Little Ones makes its horrifying decisions an unavoidable consequence of its subject matter.

Back at ZAM, Boen Wang takes a journey through the Biblical parallels in That Dragon, Cancer, speaking on the power of the…

September 18th

…for the worse.

The Imaginary Racism of Bioshock Infinite | ZAM Robert Rath takes an in-depth journey through Infinite’s successes and failures in speaking on racism.
The Social Justice Witcher | ZAM Rowan Kaiser explores the fair and equal side of The Witcher III.
A museum is trying to reunite people with their old game cartridges | Kill Screen Blake Hester takes a look at the museum hoping to help wayward cartridges find their previous owners.
Undertale, one year later | Kill Screen Peter Lido examines the relationship between size and success in Undertale’s emotional

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