Review: DmC: Devil May Cry

While I generally like blogging, I don't really like what it has done to my reviews. Because I tended to write review essays, my reviews used to have some interest to them, some more central idea to explore. Now, most of the more interesting thoughts I have on a game make their way into the blog, and I end up writing something like boilerplate reviews.

This isn't really great salesmanship for my newest review. It is far too boilerplate but maybe just saying this will remind me to try to return to form in some way. I hope.

DmC is good by the way, not knock-your-socks-off amazing, but it is good fun to play and to experience its antics. Rebooting was a good choice. The new Dante is emo, but he actually manages to make you care a bit about he and his friends once in awhile. Weird for a Devil May Cry.

DmC: Devil May Cry

A Strategy for Dying

yolo. sort of.

A Strategy for Dying

Is Catherine the Last of the Manic Pixie Dream Girls?

This is something that I wrote some time ago, maybe a month and a half ago, so my thinking on it is not exactly fresh.

I find myself haunted a bit by the game Catherine. It has flittered in and out of my brain for the last several years as an example of a video game that is really trying to tell a story for adults and with some complexity. The recent notion that I had of Catherine herself being a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, while typological in nature, actually indicates that my thinking on this may be the case, as this is a figure common in grown up storytelling because she is a figure that concerns meditations on aging, responsibility, and telos. You know, stuff grown ups are at least supposed to worry about.

Originally, I had simply titled the article, "No Manic Pixie Dream Girls for Video Games?"

Is Catherine the Last of the Manic Pixie Dream Girls?

A Stranger in His Own Land, or Assassin's Creed III and the Alien

An assassin with a personality? With relatable or familiar personality traits?

Not this time out, Assassin's Creed.

A Stranger in His Own Land, or Assassin's Creed III and the Alien

Moving Pixels Podcast: Our Best Games of 2012

On this podcast, we discuss video games, those things that require you to press buttons.

Moving Pixels Podcast: Our Best Games of 2012

Laying Bare the Protagonist: The Hypersexualization of Bayonetta and Dante

Just talking about naked men and women in video games again. Gee, I've never done that before.

Laying Bare the Protagonist: The Hypersexualization of Bayonetta and Dante

The Best Games of 2012

"The Best Games of 2012" has gone live at PopMatters. An eclectic list as always, since our writers' interests and tastes are across the board. It does represent a pretty decent mix of indies and major publisher's offerings, some small games and some big ones.

I'm still kind of bummed that FTL didn't make the list. I also probably would not have included Dishonored and Assassin's Creed III on the list were it entirely my votes that counted. Both games have some good design, but the former still seems a tad soulless to me, while the latter I found to be a real slog.

Then again some may question my heavy advocacy of Max Payne 3, but I'm sorry, it's pretty damn good. I could never hate Max.

The Best Games of 2012

More Masks, More Deviants: Understanding Our Role in Hotline Miami

Well, I've spent the last few weeks losing my ever loving mind. Luckily, someone said something to me that reigned in my self-indulgent bullshit.

At least, I guess that I'm actually writing again, which is well timed given that PopMatters is off its winter hiatus.

So, some thoughts on the nausea inducing, but horrifically pleasurable experience of playing Hotline Miami, many of them related to some old observations that I have made about Killer7 and how masks play a role in representing our position in gaming:

More Masks, More Deviants: Understanding Our Role in Hotline Miami