Author: Mark Filipowich

Mark Filipowich is a media critic whose work can be found on PopMatters and The Border House, Medium Difficulty, Game Church, Unwinnable, Nightmare Mode and The Ontological Geek. Many of his articles have been re-posted by Gamasutra, Critical-Distance and Good Games Writing
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The Narration and Abstraction of Bodies in Games

Most games give their player an avatar. The avatar is the player’s body inside the fiction. Obviously, games move because of their audience: players don’t follow a protagonist, the story progresses only in response to the actions of the player’s virtual body. In essence the player’s body, the avatar, becomes the fiction’s narrator in that … Continue reading The Narration and Abstraction of Bodies in Games

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Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII and Defamiliarization

If somebody were to make a game out of that one twitter bot that proposes random situations (@AndNowImagine) the result would look something like Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. I really enjoy the game (Review: Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. PopMatters. Feb 19 2014.), though I admit that I had an extended honeymoon phase with … Continue reading Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII and Defamiliarization

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Making Lightning Strike Again: The Recycled Tropes and Weird Fiction of Lightning Returns

[Originally posted on PopMatters] Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII references several other games in its first few hours. Lightning must gather the souls of a dying world (Valkyrie Profile) on behalf of a divine but untrustworthy benefactor (Legacy of Kain); a clock ticks down to the doomed hour (Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask), and our … Continue reading Making Lightning Strike Again: The Recycled Tropes and Weird Fiction of Lightning Returns

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Review: Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

[Originally posted on PopMatters] Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII is the Moulin Rouge of turn-based anime dress-up fighters set in a neo-noir biblical allegory. And nothing will make me take that back. From the title card, it’s an uncouth blend of mismatched tropes and conventions mixed together with what feels like reckless abandon. In the first … Continue reading Review: Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII

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Connectivity Issues: Abstraction, Subjectivity, and “Close-Playing”

[Originally posted on PopMatters] The inaugural issue of The Journal of Games Criticism featured an article by critic and author Brendan Keogh that argues for a more eclectic approach to games criticism, one based more on the feedback loop between the player and the text rather than on a strictly formal approach that attempts to create … Continue reading Connectivity Issues: Abstraction, Subjectivity, and “Close-Playing”