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November 18th

…of our medium. It is populist and demotic, familiar to everyone. It accepts – neither defends nor apologises for but accepts – the history of the medium so far. It sounds like a word by 8-year-olds for 8-year-olds. And as critics we must banish the idea that only those po-faced seriousness are worth our time. We should make a virtue of trashiness, embrace the garish, valorise the vulgar, fuck the haters. Clearly, videogames are about instructing computers to hallucinate vast mazes of desire which channel the human will to knowledge through strange and beautiful paths where Princess Petit a will…

November Roundup

It’s winter! Or at least, it is where I am. As we enter one of the coldest winters in British history (according the hyperbolic mainstream media), it’s hard to think our southern hemispheric friends will be enjoying the sunshine and not lamenting its absence.Whether you’re curled up by a roaring fireplace or lazing by a smouldering barbecue, I hope you enjoy this month’s Blogs of the Round Table.

November’s theme was Origins. I had my own origin experience when I launched my new videogame culture magazine Five out of Ten, and if you thought I wasn’t going to

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This Year In Video Game Blogging 2012

…for Rocks Paper Shotgun, collected here, called “A People’s history of the FPS.”

Andrew High went in depth on what he sees as the next great barrier for video game creation, the proper use of audio with detailed descriptions and many examples of music and mixes.

Jonas Kyratezes says what he aims for in his design is grace.

We say games are art, but do we mean it? We certainly don’t behave like it. A comparison with other art forms immediately highlights the difference. No-one sells a book with a feature list. Not even blockbuster movies,

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January 27th

…CHARIOT

This week saw the demise of veteran games publisher THQ. Richard Moss takes us through a history of its logos and branding.

GAMES AND ACTIVISM

Here’s an interesting game of political vandalism you can play at your own risk: Camover.

#OBJECTIFY

This week also saw the announcement Objectify a Man in Tech Day, set for February 1st. Event founder Leigh Alexander offers an overview on New Statesman, as well as an FAQ on her personal blog and these helpful tips for keeping the event positive and non-phobic.

Elsewhere, Stephen Beirne lays down in…

February 3

…to round out the debate.

Trigger warning for sexual violence: Mat Jones takes a bullet for us all and does a short oral history of the Reddit game forum and how it feels about Sarkeesian’s Tropes Against Women.

Michelle Ealey writes for The Border House and explains that blaming entertainment for X thing isn’t the way to go about it. At the same time, Simon Parkin writes that the military industrial complex has many tentacles and that manshooter games are intimately linked to the actual gun industry. Mitch Krpata responds to the debate at large by writing that…

February 24th

In the year 2148, commenters on Brainy Gamer discovered the remains of an ancient spacefaring civilization. In the decades that followed, these mysterious artifacts revealed startling new blog topics, enabling travel to new critical heights. The basis for this incredible technology was a force that controlled the very fabric of space, time and the ludodecahedron.

They called it the greatest discovery in game critic history.

The civilizations of the blogosphere call it…

THIS WEEK IN VIDEOGAME BLOGGING

In this adventure you play Commander Kris Ligman, the galaxy’s most desk-bound human Spectre. Press [Spacebar] to skip

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March 2013 – “Female Role Models”

This month we’re having a very special edition of Blogs of the Round Table. Don’t worry, it’s not like those episodes of Fresh Prince that tried to warn you off taking drugs: we’re running a series of features for Women’s History Month.

March’s theme is “Female Role Models”:

“Who is your female videogame role model? It could be a favourite character that you relate to, or a developer or writer whose work you admire.

If you don’t think that any character meets the role model criteria, then how can games better portray female characters?”

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March 17th

…an interesting essay on the new SimCity as modernist artifact.

On Not Enough Shaders, Emily Rogers relates the immense (and occasionally, difficult to believe) history of Howard Lincoln, former attack dog lawyer for Nintendo of America.

And the shining star of Polygon, Tracey Lien, has a new feature up on the birth and success of FTL.

DEVELOPMENT

Critical Distance doesn’t feature only critics– we’re also interested in the experiences and observations of designers from all aspects of development.

On her personal blog, interactive fiction legend Emily Short has posted some valuable design notes on why…

March 24th

…Some of them won’t be as lucky as I was. Some of them won’t be as lucky as Lara Croft was, either. Some of them won’t survive. Some of them will be silenced forever.

Some of them will die and some of their attackers will live.”

But for most, Lara Croft isn’t enough. Samantha Allen at The Border House outlines why enough is enough, there should be more women protagonists in videogames by now. In the same vein, Maggie Greene illustrates via her knowledge of the brave women in Chinese history, noting that the kinds of women…

April 21st

…bioshock infinite, is that it makes black people props in a storyline in which white people get to revise white history through all kinds of fanciful sci fi wizardry in order to make themselves feel better while STILL excluding and marginalizing black people, and we’re supposed to be happy about it.

ETHICS IN THE TIME OF MANSHOOTERS

On his personal/professional site, developer Charles Cox writes on why he will never work on First-Person Shooters again. Back on Kotaku, an industry veteran from both the development and publishing side of the fence condemns the exploitative practices of today’s…