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?

To read more:

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.

To read more:

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