Abstract image evoking bird silhouette

Welcome back readers.

No, I haven’t seen Star Wars yet, and yes, you are very, very welcome for the time I put in this week reading major pop-culture outlets for quality games writing while dodging spoilers left and right. Nobody’s allowed to ask me for anything else this week.

Oh, if you haven’t seen it already, check out our latest regular feature: This Month in Videogame Vlogging! Our newest member of the team, Connor Weightman, has taken over curatorial duties for video-based content, because keeping everything under one banner was getting unwieldy. When nominating video content for Critical Distance, be sure to use the (not at all confusingly similar) #TMIVGV hashtag to get our attention.

Lastly, because two similar hashtags weren’t enough, don’t forget to nominate your end-of-year favourites with #TYIVGB. Everybody got that? Perfect.

This Week in Videogame Blogging is a roundup highlighting the most important critical writing on games from the past seven days.

Go Play a Star War

Don’t worry–I checked. No spoilers in either of these. Oh, and they’re both awesome reads.

KOTOR 2 is one of the few pieces of Star Wars media I’ve been exposed to that recognizes how fucking terrifying it must be to be a normal person standing in front of a Jedi.”

Media Relations

Three articles this week explore digital games by comparing them to other forms of media, tracing lines of influence and giving a better idea of the many wells that contemporary games draw from.

Kingdom Hearts 3 is a Disney sequel. Of course, I mean this literally. It’s a sequel to the other KH games, which heavily feature Disney content, and often dive into side stories of those universes. But I also mean it as a genre. Kingdom Hearts 3 is a continuation of a series that does little to nothing to advance the storyline so many of us have come to love so deeply. It’s full of shiny gimmicks, and heaps of fanservice, with little actual expansion to speak of. But, like those movies I so adore, it provides a shot of sweetness and closure that fans have been starving for for years.”

Story Spaces

This pair of authors weighs in on the environments of digital story spaces, and the objects that populate them.

“Playing through the levels as a French person, it was obvious to me how much of a hand fellow French people had had in the design. I felt understood and seen rather than seeing the dozen of inaccuracies I can usually point out in other depictions of my hometown and getting lost in the world felt comforting rather than disorienting or frustrating.”

Storied Features

Two authors this week explore how two recent games successfully synthesize their design features with their narrative themes. Also, I will never be over Outer Wilds.

The Outer Wilds is stunning, transformative, and by playing it I get to share in the song that is its experience. I get to bring my own instrument, gather around the campfire, and play.”

Capital Critiques

This pair of authors unpacks their respective games in relation to the wider contexts they exist in and simulate, with some common linkages with capitalism. Check it out.

“We don’t need huge, flashy endorphin-rush-inducing, psychologically refined Skinner Boxes that exist to endlessly trap you. All that we need is a lush hillside, sun breaking over the horizon, our friends at our side.”

Revisited

In this segment, two authors examine games with positive and negative reputations, respectively, and re-evaluate them, pointing out the ideological pitfalls of the former and the redemptive qualities of the latter.

Final Fantasy XIII is a story about messy people. People who lie to each other, people who are pushed to the brink. The most heroic thing each protagonist does is accept who they are, with all of the contradictions and messiness therein.”

Emotive Experiences

A pair of author this week detail how a couple of otherwise fairly grim games provoke feelings of relief, calm, and beauty.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses helps to teach us that regardless of the choices you make and what happens to you, you are creating a fantastic story- one that’s a bit different than everyone else’s and is worthy of celebrating. I think it reminds us there is no such thing as “right” choices, and not everything will go right.”

Critical Chaser

Diego. DIEGO.

“Even with a spam filter, I have been receiving all kinds of eerie, troubling emails during the past few months. Thank you, ESA.”


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