I spent most of last week at an annual academic games conference and have spent a lot of time processing and digesting what went on there. The thing that I love about these conferences is that I get to sit and talk (and drink beer) with other academics who often […]
Monthly Archives: July 2015
34 posts
No More Heroes, created by the enigmatic Suda51, is arguably one of the most entertaining action-adventure/hack-n-slash franchises to ever hit the Wii. The game follows Travis, an aspiring assassin whose dream is to fight his way through the United Assassins Association until he is number one. Admittedly, I was a […]
At a party a few weeks ago, I ran into a guy who was in UCSD’s undergraduate literature/writing program at the same time I was, and, in the course of our conversation that evening, we found ourselves eventually turning from the typical small talk (Hi! How are you? What are […]
Nintendo president, Satora Iwata, passed away Saturday at the age of 55. During his 2005 GDC keynote, Iwata-san said “On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer.” And it was the gamer in Iwata-san […]
When I first heard about Pley.com, a LEGO rental service, I had mixed feelings. As the “Netflix” of the LEGO world, Pley.com offers a similarly styled rental service. You select your desired LEGO sets and add them to your queue, and as the sets come available, they are sent to […]
Episode 105: Dialogue, Critique, and Privilege (Right click and save as to download, or find us on iTunes or Stitcher). For Episode 105, we welcomed three friends of the show in to talk about some difficult topics. We were joined by Dr. Cody Reimer (congrats on the new position!), PhD student […]
I’ve often wondered about the potential reach of games. If marketing was a little different. If (some) games were. So when Her Story came along, with its straightforward interface, search-based mechanic, and nonlinear mystery narrative, I saw the potential immediately for the game to spread, though the problem with something […]
We’ve been talking a lot about Tauriq Moosa’s recent Twitter hiatus, because of the far-reaching potential. Personally, I’m unable to equate my experience with Moosa’s experience because I’m a white female on the Internet and not a person of color. I can’t possibly understand his experience with blanket negativity and outrage culture, […]
Today we are excited to announce that the Kickstarter campaign for our new Invisibility Blues video series is going live. Through this series, Samantha and Alisha will explore race and racial representation in video games via such topics as women of color, indigenous populations, and character generation engines in games. […]
Another anime season has come and gone and it’s time again to reflect on and discuss some notable series of the Spring 2015 season. This season unfortunately didn’t produce as many standout titles as last season did, which was something I admittedly find a bit disappointing. Many of this spring’s titles […]
Recently Tauriq Moosa left Twitter (he’s back) after receiving hate, threats, and abuse for writing an article about the race problems in Witcher III. If you haven’t played the game, he’s right: that game is white as hell. He has come under fire a lot, and I wanted to share […]
I got married last weekend and, coincidentally, that same weekend, the New York Times published a trend piece that explores the fact that the number of women keeping their maiden names after marriage is on the rise. And I say “coincidentally” because I just so happen to be one of […]
A few days ago, I stumbled across Seduce Me the Otome on Steam. The game is free on Steam, and is described as “A romantic comedy visual novel centered around a girl named Mika Anderson, who gets entangled in the affairs of incubi.” I was curious and the game was […]
After this year’s E3 I thought that it would be fun to look back at one of my posts about last year’s E3 and the status of women in games. Last year we were talking about Aisha Tyler’s claim that female NPCs in games increased diversity in games and Anita […]
This year the 4th of July feels more distant than others for a number of reasons. Several weeks ago on June 19th we celebrated 150 years of emancipation with Juneteenth (which happened for slaves in 1865, not 1776), Black churches are burning in the South, and unarmed Black children, women, […]
Over the years — and particularly, in the last year — the notion that game reviews should be objective, depoliticized, or both, has arisen time and time again, and been debated, discussed and parodied to oblivion. But who are the people asking for objective game reviews? Who thinks they’re possible, […]