Landscape Painting and the Vistas of Assassin’s Creed II

Set in the Italian Renaissance, Assassin's Creed II represents an effort to represent this period visually, politically, and artistically. Since many art critics recognize the Renaissance as a time in art when the landscape became particularly important, it is interesting to note that even the game mechanics of Assassin's Creed are interested in visually representing the sweeping grandeur of landscapes and cityscapes.

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Landscape Painting and the Vistas of Assassin’s Creed II

Locomotion, Parkour, and the Illusion of Competence in Video Games

Mirror's Edge, Prince of Persia, and Assassin's Creed. All games focused on locomotion. More specifically these games are interested in simulating something like free running.

However, some are more successful than others at doing so.

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Locomotion, Parkour, and the Illusion of Competence in Video Games

Ms. Pac-Man: Post Feminist Icon

I got inspired this week watching a video satirizing what it might mean to take a feminist approach to "reading" the image of Ms. Pac-Man.

While intended for laughs, nevertheless, it got me thinking about the problematic nature of presenting Ms. Pac-Man at least as a more traditional emblem of feminist ideals. Thus, I decided to consider her in light of more current theory concerning Post feminism and the problems arising from what critics like Angela McRobbie have called the "double entanglement" of traditional and progressive politics in images of contemporary women.

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Ms. Pac-Man: Post Feminist Icon

Review: Astro Boy

Sometimes retro can suggest a quaint charm, but sometimes retro just means old. That is the case with Astro Boy: The Video Game. The game is retro in all the wrong ways.

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Astro Boy: The Video Game

Uniforms Are Relics: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

So a lot of people are talking about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and the scene in which the player takes on the role of something like a terrorist. I played through the level in question a couple days ago, and while it is clearly horrifying, the horror provoked leads to some interesting self reflection about why we blindly follow rules. An appropriate theme for a game about playing a soldier, eh?

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Uniforms Are Relics: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

The Ballad of Gay Tony Is the Straightest Grand Theft Auto Ever

With the release of Episodes From Libety City comes Rockstar's newest expansion to Grand Theft Auto IV, The Ballad of Gay Tony. Rockstar, never a company to shrink from controversial subject matter, nevertheless, is less interested, perhaps, in gay slurs than it is in examining sexuality and ultimately how it defines family dynamics.

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The Ballad of Gay Tony Is the Straightest Grand Theft Auto Ever

Parent-Child Bonding: Video Games that Bridge the Generation Gap

I have three girls ages 14 and younger. The youngest is addicted to Penguin Club. The other two have generally less interest in games. Now I realize that kids can and should do their own thing, but given my own love of games (something left over from my own childhood), it is nice to occasionally sit down and play with them within a context that we all can appreciate.

Playing some recent kids' games for review and being able to join in with my kids while doing so got me thinking about what makes for the kind of game that both children and adults can enjoy. Balancing the interests and difficulty level required to keep the attention of both age groups can be a tall order to fill. So, I began thinking about some of the games that my kids and I have bonded together over in order to figure out the criteria necessary to creating a good co-operative experience among gamers of different generations.

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Parent-Child Bonding: Video Games that Bridge the Generation Gap

Democratizing Dictatorship: Tropico 3

I thought that I would comment on the political elements of a god game this week, so I reviewed Tropico 3. The game as a dictatorship simulation is well suited of course to political discussion, though one would think all god games tend towards allowing for an experience of playing with absolute power (you do play a god after all. Nevertheless, Tropico 3, unlike many other sims of this sort, is actually more revelaing about the limitations of a singularity of vision in ruling because of its tendency to focus on the way that others' interests tend to distract from such a singular focus.

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Democratizing Dictatorship: Tropico 3

Hard Boiled Heroism For the Kids: MySims Agents

Sometimes you play for the sake of challenge. Sometimes you play for the sake of character and charm. Games for kids these days seem sorely lacking in both, but in the case of MySims Agents, the game has a lot more in common with hard boiled detective fiction (and maybe more in terms of gameplay than plotting, though it contains a elements of that genre in both), and I find that charming.

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Hard Boiled Heroism For the Kids: MySims Agents

Inclusive Criminality: Multiculturalism and Saint’s Row

I'm kind of wild about open world crime games. Much like the Western or the mobster flick, the genre is for me currently the most American of video game genres as it concerns itself frequently with topics most often associated with American life, liberty, achievement, and economic success.

I am returning to a topic that I wrote about a considerable time ago when reviewing the first Saint's Row that seems to me one that might not normally be associated with the themes of crime fiction, the odd inclusivity of the 3rd Row Saints. How American is it to even want some pluralism in your street gangs?

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Inclusive Criminality: Multiculturalism and Saint’s Row

The Gleam of Electric Sex: What Video Games Might (or Might Not) Teach Us About Sex

This week's blog largely concerns my reactions to some obsrevations made by David Cage of Quantic Dream about the "stripping sequence" in a demo of Heavy Rain. Cage's interesting observations about how players reacted when made the object of a voyeur's gaze got me thinking about how sexuality has been represented in other games and what limitations those representations have on producing more interesting explorations of sexuality in video games.

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The Gleam of Electric Sex: What Video Games Might (or Might Not) Teach Us About Sex

Review: Fatale: Exploring Salome

So, I haven't played The Path, but I have heard all sorts of interesting things about this "arthouse" game from Tale of Tales. I thought the notion of riffing on fairy tale heroines was nice enough, but, you know, it's been done.

When I heard that Tale of Tales intended to play around with the story of Salome in their next "game," though, my ears pricked up: sex, violence, voyeurism, and the Bible! Now, you're getting into my areas of interest (body theory and theology being two of my chief interests).

In any case, Tale of Tales was nice enough to send a review copy over to PopMatters early this week, so I spent an evening or two with it.

I like it. You may like it. Not everyone will like it. But here's why (and also an explanation for why I am calling it a "game," not a game):

Review: Fatale: Exploring Salome

Moving Pixels Plays Telephone: "Ganking" Broken Systems in Video Games

This week my fellow Moving Pixels bloggers and myself decided to play a game of telephone in order to discuss some gaming related topics. Beginning with a post by L.B. Jeffries on Tuesday, we are considering how the concept of "ganking" (a term normally associated with multiplayer experiences) might apply if considered in relation to single player experiences.

What resulted is a discussion that has largely considered issues concerning player freedom and design intentions and how those two sometimes competing interests may or may not be resolvable. I posted a continuation of the discussion today, and Nick Dinicola will serve as the anchor for the discussion on Friday. If you are interested, I am providing links to all of these parts of the discussion here (so, check back here or on PopMatters on Friday for Nick's essay and the discussion's conclusion.

Oh, and as I noted in response to some comments on L.B.'s essay, this is a game of telephone. As such, we are playing fast and loose with semantics assuming that games of telephone are about allowing unusual correlations and correpondences in language to emerge as a result of passing a message along and allowing it to be reinterpreted. We are playing fast and loose with terminology here, but that's kind of the fun of telephone, right (and, of course, we always run the risk of ending the game with a very different message by the end)?

Moving Pixels Plays Telephone Part 1: Considering “Ganking” the System in Video Games

Moving Pixels Plays Telephone Part 2: “Ganking” Broken Systems in Video Games

Moving Pixels Plays Telephone Part 3: The Right to “Gank” the System in Video Games

The Weirdly Sexed Up Evony Advertising Campaign

My latest blog posting over at PopMatters is really less an analysis of a video game than an analysis of a marketing campaign for a game.

A fair amount of virtual ink has already been spilled about Evony and its propensity towards extremely sexed up advertising for what might be a much less than sexy medieval simulation game. However, I wanted to talk a little bit about the campaign and its generally deceptive quality and how gamers might be better targeted by publishers.

Frankly, if you want to sell sex to gamers, then sell sex (but it better actually be a part of the game), however, if you have a different sort of game in mind, then find the right niche for your marketing because the drooling masses that you're luring in are unlikely to stay to drop a dime on a game that just doesn't have what they're looking for in it.

More here:

The Weirdly Sexed Up Evony Advertising Campaign

Review: Wet

Since I was recently chattering about the bodies of Lara Croft and Rubi Malone, I figured I may as well review the game featuring Rubi, Bethesda's Wet.

As I mention in my review, I really want to love Wet as it is an homage to the exploitation film, a genre that I can't help but admire for its audacity and moralism. While seemingly gameplay that favors visually dynamic combat as a measure of success over any kind of substance would seem like a perfect fit for aping the exploitation genre, but it actually hinders the game. The visual feast of sex and violence that exploitation cinema thrives on suffers in video game translation as it is not a medium that is tailor made for voyeurism.

More thoughts on this idea and the appeal (or lack thereof) of Rubi Malone here:

Review: Wet

Elegant Tramps: The Bodies of Lara Croft and Rubi Malone

A recent post for the Moving Pixels blog at PopMatters as well as a recent playthrough of Bethesda's Wet got me thinking about the perceptions that we have as gamers (male and female) to certain sexualized female avatars.

L.B. Jeffries's post concerned a study that suggested that female gamers might actually prefer to play as hypersexualized avatars (defined as having exaggerated sexual characteristics), and I wanted to consider how presentation of female bodies beyond the merely biological (taking into account clothing, tatoos, etc.) might also effect how we respond to such characters.

The result of these musings is the following essay:

Elegant Tramps: The Bodies of Lara Croft and Rubi Malone

Review: The Beatles: Rock Band

Earlier in the week, my former editor, Mike Schiller, wrote a very good review of Guitar Hero 5 that made a good many interesting comparisons between the GH release and the newest iteration of Rock Band. I thought that his observation that there was really "nothing new" about the Rock Band release was ironically the new games greatest strength.

As a result, I have written about the appeal of what is already a fairly accessible casual, party game has only grown more accessible and casual via the addition of The Beatles to the Rock Band set list. It is the age of the material that makes the game more inclusive to the generations that lived prior to the rise of the video game as a major cultural medium, making potential inroads into the Boomer set as an audience for games.

You can read more here:

The Beatles: Rock Band

The Art of Atmosphere: From Bioshock to Wolfenstein

My newest Moving Pixels column over at PopMatters is a look at one of my favorite topics when discussing games. I tend to take an interest in rhetorical features of media, and as a result, I often am interested in how games communicate and the mechanisms that underlie such communication.

I have written a lot in the past about how atmosphere generates certain emotive responses in players. One of my favorite series to consider this way (and the one that really peaked my interests in the way that games evoke emotion in the first place) is Grand Theft Auto. Vice City in particular has always been a game that I cannot help but be blown away by its ability to generate nostalgia through music and other elements.

However, the fullest evolution of communicating a world in recent games (in my mind) has been Bioshock with its stunningly detail oriented build of the city of Rapture. Like GTA's approach to world bulding, it is the little details, music, architecture, etc., in Bioshock that generate a real sense of history to that world that is communicated intellectually and emotionally to the player. I was reminded of this detail oriented build when playing Wolfenstein but then found myself underwhelmed by its aping of Bioshock's more successful elements. Thus, I decided to consider how Bioshock may be influencing current game worlds and where those imitators may have lost their way in emulating their inspiration.

More at the link below:

The Art of Atmosphere: From Bioshock to Wolfenstein

Active Learning: The Pedagogy of the Game Tutorial

A recent run in with the hideous tutorial offered by Hearts of Iron 3 got me thinking about game tutorials and why they work sometimes and sometimes fail miserably.

I blogged about the strengths and weaknesses of active learning (seemingly a rather obvious pedagogy for the particpatory media of games).

More below:

Active Learning: The Pedagogy of the Game Tutorial

Review: Majesty 2

On Wednesday, my review of Majesty 2 was published over at PopMatters. Among other September releases like The Beatles and Wet, it isn't exactly a big ticket item, but it is a pretty solid RTS or simulation.

My interest in looking at it was largely to focus on its fairly unique take on a restricted economy (something that other RTS's sometimes fumble with as they tend to begin with the player struggling with economy but eventually lead to a kind of uncontrollable boom). I liked what I think is a more conservative approach to economy that keeps the struggle more tense and realistic.

Additionally, the game makes some interesting suggestions about the relationships between authority and money. You can read more at the link below:

Review: Majesty 2

Are We Allowed To Hate Ourselves?: Reconsidering the Prince of Persia

I realize that a fair amount of virtual ink has been spilled on the conclusion of Prince of Persia, some in praise of and some decrying it. But I have wanted to write awhile about it myself because it is such a risky decision to allow the player to be required to not only view this ending but also required to participate in an activity that includes undoing all the work that you have accomplished by playing the game.

In my estimation, it was one of the most dangerous things that I have seen a major game publisher do with a storyline. Even if it means potentially alienating a segment of the audience, I wish more designers would be willing to take the risk of presenting a character that we may play as and also hate.

You can read my thoughts on it at the link below (which, of course, contains major spoilers about the game).

Are We Allowed To Hate Ourselves?: Reconsidering the Prince of Persia

Review of Batman: Arkham Asylum

My review of Batman: Arkham Asylum has gone live at PopMatters. In addition to just really being impressed by the manner in which atmosphere is generated in the game, I found that my dominant interest when playing this new Batman became its collection components.

Emphasizing Batman's role as an investigator, Arkham Asylum does what few games tend to do regarding the rather standardized and overused convention of collecting random doodads: it makes doing so relevant to the character that you are playing.

If you are interested, my review can be found here:

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Project Runway As a Game? The Problems of Evaluating Style in Video Games

I have a new blog entry available at PopMatters concerning the problems that games have encountered in properly presenting issues of aesthetics and style in the form of game mechanics.

I am particularly interested in the marginal success of games like The Urbz and Playboy: The Mansion in finding a way to make game mechanics that acknowledge the "rules" of fashion and style, and it is at that point, rules' systems that I propose how designers might begin to approach considering how to better generate games that can accomodate and evaluate aesthetic content.

You can read more at the link below:

Project Runway As a Game? The Problems of Evaluating Style in Video Games

Everyone Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't I?

I have been writing game reviews for about six or seven years for PopMatters, but I have resisted blogging for some time. My prior public experiences on the 'Net and my fragile ego informed my decision to remain "virtually" quiet. My colleague L.B. Jeffries recently convinced me to go ahead and start blogging over at that other site, though, and so far my ego has stayed intact. Thus, I decided having a space to report updates to my work (both blogs and reviews) might be worth giving a try.

As a result, I will be posting here most Wednesdays when my blog at PopMatters, Neuromance (which falls under the umbrella of the Moving Pixels blog), updates. Additionally, I think that I may begin reprinting some of my favorite reviews from the last few years that have grown rather dusty in the PopMatters archives.

I hope that folks might enjoy them or at least find them interesting or somewhat useful.

Without further ado then, I present my most recent blog post, "It's Always More Fun Killing Nazis" over at PopMatters (link below) for your consideration and hopefully you should be hearing from me again at least by next Wednesday.

Just be careful, I bruise easy.

Oh, and thanks for stopping by.

It's Always More Fun Killing Nazis