Game, Narrative, and Bristol Palin in Dancing With the Stars

Something kind of unusual for me this week, as I discuss a television show. However, Dancing With the Stars is a competition, a game of some kind, right? In my estimation, it also isn't exclusively a competition based on physical performance either.

It is the game-like qualities of this show that I wanted to explore this week, especially by relating the goals of players (competitors) with how one plays a game or why one plays a game. More specifically, I discuss my confusion about why Bristol Palin is a player at all in this season's mixture of game, narrative, and performance:

Game, Narrative, and Bristol Palin in Dancing With the Stars

Moving Pixels Podcast: Death & The Video Game Player

Death happens in games. A lot.

Well, or at least it used to. This episode of the Moving Pixels Podcast considers the changing face of death in video games as well as what kinds of roles death serves in games.

Is death about punishment, pleasure, pedagogy, or is it merely an immersion breaking illusion? We play around with a number of possibilities.

Moving Pixels Podcast: Death & The Video Game Player

Review of Mafia II: Jimmy's Vendetta

My take on Jimmy's Vendetta, the follow up DLC for Mafia II, is up over at PopMatters. My discussion is an extension of sorts of what I started talking about in my review of the full game, considering how Mafia II limits open worlds in certain ways and how Jimmy's Vendetta might serve to "re-open" the world but at the expense of the full game's strengths in having restricted certain experiences in Empire Bay.

Review of Mafia II: Jimmy's Vendetta

Moving Pixels Podcast: A Brief Review of This Year's Indie Games

This week Nick, Tom, and I discuss a few indie releases from this year, including Thomas Brush's Coma, Alexander Ocias's Loved, and Digipen's Solace.

You can find that discussion here:

Moving Pixels Podcast: A Brief Review of This Year's Indie Games

Samus Aran Has Always Been Sexualized

Samus Aran is a tricky one. Like many Nintendo characters, she has (in most games) been voiceless. As a result, there hasn't been a whole lot of character development surrounding this icon (though in some sense more than a Link or Mario). She still has this status as an important character in gaming history as a female protagonist in one of the longer running Nintendo franchises, especially with the heavy emphasis on her gender at the close of the original game.

That emphasis is part of the tricky presentation of Samus's femininity though:

Samus Aran Has Always Been Sexualized

The Name Above the Title

A few thoughts on educating gamers through the marketing of creators rather than merely marketing content:

The Name Above the Title

Moving Pixels Podcast: Masculinity and the Male Body in Video Games

A follow up of sorts to the Moving Pixels podcast discussion from last week. This week Kris, Nick, and Tom and I discuss a variety of male characters, their body types and personas, and how they relay messages about masculinity to players. In addition to traditional heterosexual constructions of male bodies, we also consider some of the presentations of homosexuality and the masculine.

Moving Pixels Podcast: Masculinity and the Male Body in Video Games

Prude Nudes: Prison Rape, Playboy, and 'Mafia II'

Concerning the inconsistent uses of nudity in Mafia II, especially as they concern the "mature":

Prude Nudes: Prison Rape, Playboy, and 'Mafia II'