[Originally posted on PopMatters] It’s strange what can become normal when disbelief is suspended. So much of what is culturally understood about guns, government, science, other people, and so on is informed by the liberties taken by popular fiction. Fiction reflects reality. People can tell fiction from reality, but each still informs the other. Video … Continue reading Fighting Games and the Power of Motion
(Preface: Most of my interest in games is in how they function as narrative pieces. As a result, most of the writing I do focuses on videogames, single-player games, games with a traditional story structure, games that rely primarily on cinematic and literary narrative techniques and the wide cross-section of all the above. Therefore I … Continue reading The Self-Perpetuating Violence of the Mortal Kombat series
[Originally posted on PopMatters] Playing Agarest: Generations of War for review (PopMatters, 28 Oct 2013) was a bit of a frustrating experience because, while there was a lot to enjoy, there was a lot that was just awful. I ended up splitting the difference and calling it average—the video game kiss of death if there ever … Continue reading A Colonist’s Fantasy: The Problem with the Fair Fight
Can’t tell the difference between real art and high kitsch – Buck 65 So Grand Theft Auto V was released and Lana Polansky wrote everything that ever needs to be said about it (“Top Ten Grand Theft Autos: What the GTA V map size obsession tells us about our culture.” Medium. Sep 26 2013.). Actually, … Continue reading Thoughts on Video Game Criticism
Between review games I’ve been picking away at Deus Ex: Human Revolutions. It’s a game with a fair share of problems: the shoehorned-in boss fights completely break the game’s tone, its plot and characters are wafer-thin, some of the character designs are a self-parody and it’s clumsy with some of its more complicated themes. Still, … Continue reading “We’re helping people, Adam”: Deferring Responsibility in Deus Ex: Human Revolutions
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