Matthew Gallant wrote to me the other day and said, “Argh! Exams! I’m freaking out, no time, so hard, need sleep! HALP!” and apologised for not being able to do a proper summary himself up for this link-out. Actually, he didn’t say any part of what I just quoted, but he did say he had exams and was terribly busy, so here’s an interesting little blog post that you can be sure Matthew Gallant thought was interesting.
On the ‘Press Start to Drink’ blog, they’ve been talking about No More Heroes, a game which came out at the start of 2008. Who else but the critical gaming crowd writes about games a whole year after their release? As such, I feel no compulsion recommending ‘No More Feminism: Post-Feminism and No More Heroes‘ to Critical Distance readers. Here’s the money quote:
No More Heroes positions itself as a postfeminist videogame that hails the player as a masculine male and plays on gender and sexual stereotypes of heteronormativity with a tongue planted firmly in cheek and a knowing wink directed at the gamer from behind the yellow pair of hipster shades its protagonist wears, an effect which ridicules the straight, white heterosexual male and his fantasies as much as it celebrates them.
Which, again, makes me think I should pick up a copy of the game and hi-jack my friends Wii just to play it. It continues like this, into even more intriguing territory:
…like the close-contact sport of football itself, Travis straddles the line between immature heterosexual fantasy and homoeroticism. Throughout the game, Travis is delineated as a sex-starved, horny geek who spends his days watching either half-naked men wrestling or overdue pornography.
In another example of the complex relationship between his hyper-masculinity and a more sensitive new man persona, Travis owns a kitten that the player can stroke and play with…
Which should be enough of a teaser to get you to go read the post.