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mass effect

June 10th

…fraught.

“Though we can hope that this trend toward empowered female protagonists persists, it is lamentable that these particular females can only seem to achieve agency by not being there.”

Narrative

Discussions of queerness and inclusion continue in much of this week’s writing on narrative.

  • The Mass Effect Issue: Romancing the Krogan | Unwinnable Khee Hoon Chan considers what it would mean to enter a relationship with some of Mass Effect’s unromanceable, less-humanoid characters.
  • Belonging Outside of Belonging: Avery Alder’s Dream Askew | Unwinnable Sam Desatoff interviews Avery Alder and digs…
Abstract image evoking bird silhouette

September 30th

…punk from Cyberpunk • Eurogamer.net Edwin Evans-Thirlwell chronicles how Toronto-based indie devs are reclaiming cyberpunk from AAA gaming’s bland, overproduced transphobia. Consider taking your Cyberpunk 2077 dollars elsewhere.

  • “It’s not enough to point at Bayonetta or FemShep and say ‘job done’” | GamesIndustry.biz James Batchelor interviews Daisy Fernandez on diversifying both the number of and variety of women in games, both as characters and as developers.
  • All Too Human – ZEAL – Medium Marcos Gonsalez reflects beautifully on queerness and the limits of (heteronormative) human imagination in Mass Effect. Also, I goddamn loved this one.

    • …

    October 7th

    …Game Studies – No Straight Answers: Queering Hegemonic Masculinity in BioWare’s Mass Effect Theresa Krampe applies a queer game studies approach to the Mass Effect trilogy to examine its representations of queer masculinities.

  • Game Studies – “Why do I have to make a choice? Maybe the three of us could, uh…”: Non-Monogamy in Videogame Narratives Meghan Blythe Adams and Nathan Rambukkana examine representations of non-monogamy in AAA games.

    • “Do representations of non-monogamies in game narratives break with or reinforce mononormative and heteronormative tropes? How might challenging the normative dynamics of compulsory monogamy open up new and…

    March 13th

    …a societal leech, attempting to profit from the skill of others without bothering to succeed of his own accord? What is teabagging if not the Randian artistic ideal, your dominance made manifest in physical, objective form?

    Mass Effect 2 also proves its staying power. Chris Breault talks about the ‘Best Story in Mass Effect 2.’ While David Carlton takes a wider look at the game and then at the end does our job by linking to over a dozen posts about it.

    The Artful Gamer has a double header this week, first talking about the problems with…

    October 10th

    …images the player’s imagination no longer feeds it. The abstraction loses traction.

    Also on Popmatters, Nick Dinicola takes apart the ending of Mass Effect 2, calling it the least suicidal suicide mission he’s ever experienced — at least after his second playthrough. Nick examines the strengths and weaknesses of the endgame and postulates on how it could have been better executed. He writes:

    Attacking the Collectors’ base in Mass Effect 2 is far from suicidal. If I have even a vague sense of what to do, it’s easy to keep everyone alive.

    GamerMelodico’s Kirk…

    January 6th

    …and meanings of touch and feeling in games.

  • Game Studies – Time and Reparative Game Design: Queerness, Disability, and Affect Kara Stone uses the experience of developing her game Ritual of the Moon to think through the temporality of queerness and disability, and to introduce her theory of reparative game design.
  • Game Studies – When (and What) Queerness Counts: Homonationalism and Militarism in the Mass Effect Series Jordan Youngblood critiques queer representation in the Mass Effect games as subservient to and commoditized by an overarching hegemonic colonialism.
  • Game Studies – “theyre all trans sharon”: Authoring Gender in…

    • December 8th

    …do is the only realistic path through the fear, uncertainty, and confusion that defines the present and its own vision of the future.”

    Player Who

    The four articles gathered here alternately look at identity construction and identity representation in games, and focus both on player-customizable and non-player-customizable characters.

    • A Case Study of Transgender Representation in Video Games: Mass Effect’s Hainly Abrams – NYMG Anna Burns presents a critical overview of the sole trans character to date in the Mass Effect series of games.
    • Jedi Fallen Order’s interesting female relationships are hidden behind a bland…

    January 26th

    …keep them relevant, most often with unpaid labour. Three authors open this week with explorations of some of the fruits of that labour.

    • Exhumed: The Art of MMO Necromancy | RE:BIND Catherine Brinegar revisits the MMOs of yesteryear, and finds that fans have resurrected not only the servers, but the communities that populate them.
    • The Mass Effect trilogy remaster everyone wants is already here – thanks to modders • Eurogamer.net Cian Maher profiles the difficult but fruitful challenge of keeping the Mass Effect games up to date with mods.
    • ‘Doom’ Will Never Be Eternal Without Mods

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    May 10th

    …Just Disappointed: Animal Crossing’s Fantasy Capitalism Fails to Imagine a Better World | Sidequest Melissa Brinks finds a lack of transformative imagination in Animal Crossing‘s escapist fantasy, where capitalism feels warm and welcoming because its structural evils have been excised from the simulation (in the interest of disclosure, I am cited in this article).

  • TOWARDS THE STARS – DEEP HELL Skeleton discusses how the Mass Effect games ape Star Trek in superficial style but eschew its communal utopian ideals in favour of a kind of pan-human extrapolation on American exceptionalism.

    • “What Mass Effect wants you to…

    August 30th

    …. *suspenseful pause* is you.

    • Darkest Dungeon is a Landlord Simulator | Fanbyte Vrai Kaiser peels back another layer to why you were the bad guy all along in Darkest Dungeon (spoiler alert: there are no good landlords).
    • The Ballad of Bargain Bin Gendo: Why Alec Ryder is the Worst Part of Mass Effect: Andromeda | Cross With You Katherine Cross observes that Alec Ryder sucks, and that his suckage pulls the rest of Mass Effect: Andromeda down around him because the game itself seems oblivious to the narrative and emotional significance of that suckage.
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