Search Results for “�� insta—batmanapollo” – Page 9

May 27th

…feel such an expansive detachment from its happenings and goings-on. Take, for instance, my unprejudiced penchant for destruction: “We aren’t bad people,” I assured my friend Julian, right as his Witch Doctor punched a desk into smithereens. “We are only cats who like to tip things over.”

The Gameological Society’s Drew Toal takes us through two classic games of thrones, while Moving Pixels’ Jorge Albor writes in praise of support characters. And Andrew Lavigne kicks it oldschool for us this week in more ways than once with this feminist psychoanalytical textual reading of Resident Evil 3.

Thanks…

June 10th

…old barker. Then perhaps something a might more mainstream to further slake your eyes. A duo of Kotaku pieces may perhaps: Kate Cox’s “E3 Makes Me Really Appreciate the PAX Ban on Booths Babes” and Patricia Hernandez’s “Committing Genocide in Pokemon Helps Me Shape Who I Am.” I believe the origin of such vintages speak for themselves.

And let us not forget the ever faithful, ever constant producer that is PopMatters. For you consumers your weekly haul included G. Christopher Williams talking about ‘Alan Wake’s Women‘ from the newest installment of that franchise and Nick Dinicola closely examining the…

June 17th

…to this idea is the latest installment of Eric Lockaby’s “How You Got Videogames Wrong” series for Nightmare Mode, musing on games’ ability to train us to perceive consequence from scenarios where our agency is narrowly constrained:

For Kevin, the consequence of Journey was that he is probably–and if so, quite wonderfully–a closet sociopath. Furthermore, the consequence was that–contrary to his everyday self, I assure you–Kevin had been trained by wave after wave of inconsequential games into needing strict guidance for comprehending consequence itself. I find this potential particularly disturbing. For it seems to me that implying agency

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August 5th

…environment? Dys4ia’s use of metaphor is straightforward and effective, and we as players instatntly understand what it’s telling us. That’s the power of comparison.

At Moving Pixels, G. Christopher Williams actually attempts to answer the question of “u mad?” He’s a braver person than I, evidently. His piece is an interesting consideration of why League of Legends players so obsessively want to know if they’re hurting their opponents. The answer speaks quite directly to the lack of consequential signifiers in online competitive play, he says.

The Mary Sue’s lovely regular contributor Becky Chambers does it again with…

September 9th

…genre, and in doing so weighs the mechanic’s pros and cons:

I don’t think regenerating health is enough to “ruin” any game, and I don’t think that using it in the manner that is currently popular is a bad thing in every single instance, especially when your goal in designing a game is to create something for as wide an audience as possible. At the same time, health management is one of the most fundamental components of videogame design, and casting away the long-term component of it also saps a lot of interesting gameplay potential, not to mention

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September 16th

…Against Humanity is to enter an instant community based on ridicule, where everyone involved has agreed to participate and everyone is in on the joke. In a sense, these are racist and sexist jokes with the benefit of a safe word, the agreement that nothing on the cards is meant seriously and that no-one will carry the game forward into their day-to-day lives.

Jackson W. Ryan calls “Malaria the Invisible Wall of Far Cry 2,” lamenting that Ubisoft made up a disease with a ready treatment rather than gone full on with malaria.

Chris of Scripted Sequences…

October 14th

…the Red Dawn remake, saying: “In many ways, Homefront shows the North Korea Kim Jong-un wishes he inherited.”

To be certain, not all games or critical themes get a fair shake their first go-around in the critical sphere. That’s what is so exciting about doing This Week in Videogame Blogging, as it’s a good excuse to track down the sorts of articles on the kinds of games which unfortunately got overlooked on first release. For instance, take this fantastic metanarrative reading of Kingdom of Amalur by Matt Schanuel, or this meaty, deep reading of The Last Story by Andrew…

October 21st

…

Our own Alan Williamson is himself highly critical of Kellaway’s article but argues that we shouldn’t dismiss outsider criticism, noting that “video games are often unashamedly elitist and obtuse.”

Jim Rossignol of Rock, Paper, Shotgun counters: “Actually, no, I don’t think we really need to worry about what non-gamers think of games. And that is because, in this instance, we are the highly educated elite.”

Mattie Brice opines that we can’t demand cultural legitimacy and then dismiss outside criticism:

The gaming community, or let’s say the ones with voices- popular developers, media, and maybe celebrities

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November 11th

…Connor, as Ratonhnhaké:ton, is unworthy of being an assassin. He is tainted. He can only be an assassin (and avenge the deaths of his Native people?) as Connor Kenway, the son of a white man and not the son of a Native American woman. While Ubisoft tries to play up his Native heritage he is another instance of the great White savior coming in to save/avenge the lowly savage.

Knowing X-COM: Enemy Unknown

Over on Venture Beat, Rob Savillo spends a bit of time musing on what makes you care for your soldiers in X-COM.

Binary…

January 20th

…bullets and ray-guns.

SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE VIDEOGAMES

On Nightmare Mode, Mattie Brice writes about how many AAA games, for instance Spec Ops: The Line, seem a world away from the kinds of violence she faces every day.

Posting on his home site, indie developer Jonas Kyratzes writes a lengthy critique of his interpretation of Brice’s article, on the value of war narratives in games and a kind of criticism not based in identity politics.

On his Electron Dance, Joel Goodwin also remarks on what he terms “confessional writing,” or journalism and criticism…