Soft Core Gaming

This week I talk a bit about a free-to-play MMORPG that essentially seems to be a game offering an experience of soft core porn alongside the other standard MMO experiences of character creation, loot hunting, and level grinding (Ha! Grinding? Get it?).

Maybe I'm less interested in the game itself as I am some of my final observations about pornography and the nude in art. I posit a thesis about how pornography is not something that we know when we see it, but instead is something that sees you, which seems really interesting to me. I need to think about it in regards to the pornographic in writing, as I have been trying to figure out a way of distinguishing why I don't think Chuck Palahniuk's work is in any way pornographic.

Soft Core Gaming

Endless Play, Endlessly Pursued Goals, and Just Remember: “Don't Starve”

Not the most elegant title for an essay.

I've talked before about my inability to simply play in game worlds. I don't like making my own goals. Playing Don't Starve reminds me of this limitation that I have in experiencing games in this manner.

Endless Play, Endlessly Pursued Goals, and Just Remember: “Don't Starve”

Moving Pixels Podcast: The New Shape of Lara Croft

Lara be thy name.

Moving Pixels Podcast: The New Shape of Lara Croft

Gotta Catch 'Em ALL: Being Programmed to Collect

I remain off kilter and frazzled for oh so many reasons, but I managed to squeeze a few hundred words out of some passing thoughts on comments heard in a recent League of Legends match.

One of these days, perhaps, I'll be able to get my priorities straight once again.

Gotta Catch 'Em ALL: Being Programmed to Collect

Watching People Watching People Play

I had fun watching my wife and kids watching a friend of my daughter's play Bioshock the other evening, which got me thinking about the interactive qualities of "watching."

Watching People Watching People Play

Tomb Raider: Lara Croft is Reborn... Again

So, this is my official review of Tomb Raider. I've chatted about the revision of Lara a couple of times in the last few weeks, which I do here as well. However, I also talk about the revision of Tomb Raider's gameplay also, which I think is not insubstantial.

Tomb Raider: Lara Croft is Reborn... Again

With Great Vulnerability, Comes Great Brutality: The Evisceration of Lara Croft

So, I think that I've come to some kind of conclusion about how I feel about the presentation of Lara Croft's vulnerability in the new Tomb Raider. Some of it works. Some of it is unsettling.

With Great Vulnerability, Comes Great Brutality: The Evisceration of Lara Croft