It’s almost impossible to come up with the top 5 scariest games that I have ever played. In retrospect some of these games were more frightening because of the context than the content (and more in theory than in practice), but let’s have at it. Because I can’t even imagine […]
Yearly Archives: 2011
84 posts
Here is my list of my favorite scary video games in reverse order: 5. Adventure As a ten-year-old playing games in world where a colored squared seemed magical, I might be showing my age to admit that the dragons of Adventure were among the first video game characters to get […]
1. Limbo by Playdead Platform: Steam, PC, XBLA, PSN Cost: $10, free demo Premise: The game itself is very open-ended. You aren’t presented with a story up front, but you do know your character, a young boy, has fallen into the nether-realm of Limbo out the outskirts of hell. […]
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? […]
At the Extra Life gaming marathon last weekend, I played a good amount of the indie game The Binding of Isaac. Several of us played together, taking turns fighting bosses and watching (often, with horror). This game is straight up disturbing. But, I find it disturbing in a different way […]
We talk about games as social critique quite a bit around here. We ask lots of questions. – Do we learn from games? Yes, lots. Some of it is intentional and some is unintentional. Some is positive and some…not so much. Most obviously we learn about logic puzzles and we […]
Alex and I are in the midst of the 24 hour gaming marathon to raise money for Children’s Miracle Network and Riley Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis. Every 6 hours we will take a quick break to record a video confessional with any fellow Purdue gamers who are participating and willing […]
On a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon, I sat on a couch and obsessively played Angry Birds. I had the chance to go outside and be with friends, but I just couldn’t stop launching birds at those mocking, green pig faces. Still, I listened to the exotic tweets of birds, enjoyed […]
Machinima is the reappropriation of animations (and sometimes sound) from a video or computer game, remixed into a different context. For as long as we have had video games, we have had machinima. On the site we focus a lot on video games themselves, but that is not the only […]
Title: A Day in the Woods Developer: RetroEpic Software Genre: Puzzle Game Platform: Windows and OS X Retail Price (at time of review): $4.99 Alex and I have completed our first video review for NYMGamer. We are happy to present you with our thoughts on RetroEpic’s sliding tile based puzzle […]
On October 5, 2011 the world lost a great technology visionary in Mr. Steve Jobs. His passing was extremely sad but, we must admit, not surprising. I won’t take up time and space extolling the virtues of Mr. Jobs and all of the great things that he did at Apple, Atari, Pixar, […]
Episode 20: Everybody Wants to Be Master Chief: On Masculinity and Intersectionality (“Save As” to download or head over to iTunes to subscribe) This week we talk about masculinity and intersectionality. Men, race, sexuality, and anything else that comes to mind. Links of Note: Sponsor Sam or Alex in the […]
I can remember the first time I learned about body dysmorphia in men. I was in a classroom listening to young men reminisce about their high school wrestling days. They wore garbage bags under their clothes when they went running to sweat off extra pounds. They ate nothing but pudding […]
As I played the new Mortal Komat, I was struck by how similar this game seemed to the ones I had always played: similar characters, similar scenes, and similar moves. I’d like to imagine that video game companies are under pressure to develop their characters to move away from […]
In this week’s podcast, Alex brought up the fact that she was reading Judith Butler’s gender performativity theory and I thought that while Butler’s work is a little heavy it could definitely lead us to a good discussion of how feminine and masculine characters in video games are constructed aesthetically […]