***super super duper trigger warning: rape, victim shaming, assholes*** Recently there has been a big debate about the depiction of rape in video games. I’ll recap quickly for those who haven’t heard. In the upcoming Tomb Raider game, there is a scene in which Lara Croft has to defend […]
This past Tuesday (Oct. 2) marked the release of the much anticipated Resident Evil: 6 and the internet was immediately flooded with reviews claiming RE:6 to be the worst in the series yet. One review on Destructoid by Jim Sterling even said, “If any consistently good thing can be said […]
The following video asks the question of whether or not video games are art. Enjoy! Games featured: Journey, Bastion, Braid, Sword and Sorcery, Limbo and The Misadventures of PB Winterbottom.
With the release of Borderlands 2 last week I found myself trying to figure out how I was going to play my favorite split-screen co-op without having a reliable internet connection due to my recent move back home. I quickly recruited my younger sister to play the game with me […]
Coming off the conversations we have been having lately on the podcast about booth babes, I thought another pertinent topic is the “fake gamer of the week” segment found at Kotaku. In this weekly blog, writers find ads and stock photos and write pithy responses mocking all of the things […]
That truly is the question. Downloadable Content, or DLC, has become the norm for any mainstream game and offers extra content that the original game didn’t initially offer. While DLC seems like a great idea the price point of most DLC has become a contended issue among the gaming community. […]
Heads up readers, there will be a lot of SPOILERS in what will be my first (and probably least popular) post on NYMG as I’m going to try and convince you that the Mass Effect 3 endings weren’t as horrible as the gaming world seems to think and that changing […]
I just gave a talk at CCCC’s about the project Sam and I did on female video game podcasters. I talked about the research we had done, what we found, and what I hoped our community of academics could do with the information we found. There are two (sort of […]
I originally wrote this as a rant to keep saved on my personal computer, and it was not meant to see the light of day. It was a file for me to go to when I lost my way, when my work seemed aimless, or when I needed to articulate […]
There is no denying the change in perception of gamer demographics in the past few years. Video/computer games in the early to mid-90’s were made for an adolescent male audience by male programmers, though this isn’t all that surprising, considering that most of the people who would consider themselves “gamers” […]
These days I am spending a whole lot of time slaying dragons and yelling at folks in Skyrim. This week as I was raging through a dungeon that I had just happened upon and didn’t have an assigned quest for I did the unthinkable…I googled the dungeon to see what […]
Currently I have put in about 12 hours played time on MW3 (for those counting, that’s 12 hours in-game time, not the loading screen and not the lobby). I am currently level 56 (finally I got the claymore) so I feel I have a pretty good handle on what is […]
Episode 17: You Say Feminist Whore Like It’s a Bad Thing: Race and Gender in Dead Island and Deus Ex (“Save As” to download or head over to iTunes to subscribe) We talk about Techland’s Dead Island, Eidos/Square Enix’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Tea Party Zombies, and Slavery: The Game. […]
I’ve been talking (and thinking) a lot lately about the differences between historical accuracy and the perpetuation of past culture (ie. the treatment of women in LA Noir and Madmen). I do have a genuine interest in creating representations of cultures in the past, and I think we can learn […]
Episode 14: Dashboard Jesus: On Religion and Video Game Critique (“Save As” to download or head over to iTunes to subscribe) Revisiting religion and video games because it was too big for one episode (and probably for 2). We talk about a boatload of games including Supergiant Games’ Bastion, Sid […]
Episode 11: Sex and Misogyny in Games (“Save As” to download or head over to iTunes to subscribe) The episode where we talk more about L.A. Noire (and sex!). It’s our read of L.A. Noire, new Facebook and iOS games, and much much more! Links of Note: Videogames: An untapped […]