So yeah, this post is going to be about voice. Voice has always been a huge issue with me. Not necessarily with how a voice sounds, but with the absence of voice and what that absence of voice actually means. It’s because of this that The Little Mermaid is one […]
cultural critique
33 posts
I have been waiting a long time for Assassin’s Creed III (and ACIII:Liberation, but I’ll save that for another post). I pre-ordered my copy, mapped out my gameplay time, and did the happy dance when I learned that my mother would be visiting during the release window so that Pea […]
The cake is a lie. Especially when you are talking about having your cake and eating it too. For years video game developers and company execs have been telling us that their use of racial stereotypes in games was not as racist as we wanted to make it seem. That […]
This week Democrat Congressional (Maine) candidate Colleen Lachowicz was outed by Republicans. Lachowicz is not, as far as we know, gay, but she is a gamer. Lachowicz’s opponents have started their own site, Colleen’s World (You can Google it because I refuse to give them an active link), in an attempt to […]
Yesterday’s article at Kotaku about the representation of African Americans in Assassin’s Creed: Liberation hit really close to home because we were looking at two sides of the same coin. While Evan Narcisse over at Kotaku thinks that the Canadian developers are off point with their depiction of a few […]
Episode 37: “Whoa V*gina: Lollipop Chainsaw, Tomb Raider, and the Need for Sarkeesian’s Cultural Critique” (“Save As” to download or head over to iTunes to subscribe) This week we segue from last week’s episode to this week’s by talking about rape imagery in the new Tomb Raider trailer, our playing of […]
I am a mediocre Mass Effect fangirl at best. I quit the first game because the controls and the damned planet scanning were just too friggin’ painful. I plowed into ME2, with its improved control scheme, with gusto that only died down a bit, and I powered through ME3 with […]
As educators we talk about Serious Games, And it’s no small secret that I am not a fan of the serios game. Rather than creating small and less engaging games that focus on specific comment why can’t we just use commercial off the shelf games and look for the larger […]
Chaim Gingold over at the Expressive Intelligence Studio blog has posted a bit about a lecture that Cecil Brown delivered at UC- Santa Cruz entitled Games Blacks Love to Play. It is an interesting piece and a fascinating idea as a whole. Brown traces game play through 3 historical periods […]
Episode 28 : Blinded by the (Gas)Light: Psychological Torture in Video Games (“Save As” to download or head over to iTunes to subscribe) This week we are joined by guest co-host Charlotte Hyde and we talk about gaslighting in video games. Links of Note: Stockholm: An Exploration of True Love
Episode 25 : The Lesbian Avenger: My MMO Can Beat Your MMO (“Save As” to download or head over to iTunes to subscribe) This week we talk about our MMO time capsule. We talk about our favorite MMOs and learn that Sam has been gaming longer than Alex has been […]
Episode 24 : I’ve Got A Dragon on My Back: With RPGs the First One is Free (“Save As” to download or head over to iTunes to subscribe) This week we talk about our RPG time capsule. We are joined by our guest co-host, Charlotte Hyde for a great […]
Episode 23 : Hitting the “Oh Sh*t Button”: Time Capsule 3: First Person Shooters (“Save As” to download or head over to iTunes to subscribe) This week we talk about our FPS time capsule as well as the week plus that we have lost playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 […]
Episode 22: It’s the End of Days: Time Capsule 2: Games of the Apocalypse (“Save As” to download or head over to iTunes to subscribe) As dr. b.’s grandmother would say “It’s the end of days” and this week we talk about apocalyptic games as social critique. We also announce […]
In our last podcast we talked about just what zombies mean in a larger cultural context. A new government publication brought it back to light for me this week so I thought I’d take a minute to throw out a few final ideas before some strange dude comes and eats […]
Episode 21: Blood is Thicker Than VooDoo: Time Capsule 1: Zombies (“Save As” to download or head over to iTunes to subscribe) Just in time for Halloween. This week we talk about zombie games as social critique. Links of Note: Isamu Kamikokuryo thinks that f*ckability is more important than playability? […]