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May 31st

…and boardgames to gloss over problematic aspects of history.

G. Christopher Williams has found the game design equivalent of trashy movies: making them play fast.

Making a different analogy than the usual film or book comparisons, Naomi Clark asks: Where is the Brie of videogames?

On The German Side of Things

Ally Auner has a recent radio interview she did on gender roles in games available online for listening.

Nina Kiel reviewed the LGBTQIA* documentary Gaming in Color.

Video Game Tourism’s latest monthly discussion covers Bloodborne and the Souls series. It includes an essay…

Episode 27 – Review Comes For The Arcade

…like to see. In our podcast, we discuss how the magazine has sharpened its focus over time, in terms of both its philosophical bedrock as well as the more visible aspects of its design and layout. Enjoy.

http://www.critical-distance.com/podcast/Critical-Distance-Confab-episode-27.mp3

Direct Download

SHOW NOTES

The Arcade Review

The Arcade Review Patreon

Why Weird Games Are Important

Glitches: A Kind of History

We Who?

Predatory Queerness: A Response to “Neighborhood Bondage”

Lana and Zolani Visit A Gallery

Opening Theme: ‘Close’ by The Alpha Conspiracy

Closing Theme: ‘Wishing Never’ by The Alpha Conspiracy

…

June 21st

…is Present

Don’t Die continues to profile some of the lesser-known names in game development, this week offering up a laid-back interview with Microsoft alum and founding Xbox team member Ed Fries. Don’t Die’s David Wolinsky also wants me to let our readers know his site has a Patreon.

Shifting from real histories to the imaginary, in the latest Memory Insufficient Mark R. Johnson explores how the Command and Conquer: Red Alert series communicates its alternate history timeline through its art direction.

And on Not Your Mama’s Gamer, Samantha Blackmon notes a few of the problems inherent…

June 28th

…pitfalls of fast travel.

Javy Gwaltney dives into the character of Batman and Why Dishonored Is The Best Batman Game Ever Made. While, back to Gamasutra, Felipe Pepe gives an abridged history on 21 RPGs.

Sex, Exclusion and Art

Katherine Cross uses Night Witches to define the “difference between a ‘sexist portrayal’ and a portrayal of sexism.” Meanwhile, in response to another Katherine Cross piece for Gamasutra, Lana LeRay argues AAA games are making progress with depictions of sex and intimacy.

Over at FemHype, Jillian looks at exclusion in GTFO The Movie:

…

June Roundup: ‘Pets’

…that sticks out in your mind. On the other hand, maybe games cheapen the process of domesticating or building trust with an animal. Heck, maybe characters in games shouldn’t domesticate animals at all. We want to know about the animal friends that inspired you to make a game or the reasons why you named your first pet after a game character. Tell us about the connection between games and pets.

At Not Your Mama’s Gamer, Alex Lance describes all the pets that have tugged on her heart strings in her gaming history, ranging from her dogs who rest…

July 2015

…are developing a series aimed at discussing race in games. In this sample teaser for the series, the two analyze Destiny‘s character creation options and how they limit racial identity.

At Rock Paper Shotgun, Marsh Davis revisits Deus Ex: Human Revolutions to discuss how it and games in general promote an oxymoronic relationship to power, wherein the player holds all the power yet is framed as being oppressed.

Additionally, this month on History Respawned, co-host John Harney speaks to Boston University’s Dr. Renata Keller about Tropico 5, US-Cuban relations, and racial dynamics.

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August Roundup: ‘Nostalgia’

…vastly different. Nostalgia explores all of it, gathered into a finite shape, a precise and entirely repeatable piece of history, and then serves it to us exactly as it did then, so we can see just how different we are. I’m not just nostalgic for those childhood RPGs that were so mechanically simple and accessible, but also a little nostalgic for the ease with which I could experience them.

Over at One More Continue, the author reminisces about their time pro team with their brother for Day of Defeat. Although the rare victories were especially sweet, the author…

August 2015

…I am an editor of that publication). In this LP, Beirne expands on his article with a discussion of artificial intelligence in Zone of the Enders 2.

But What About Long Form, You say?

Offering a more extensive analysis, Bob Whitaker at History Respawned plays through Dragon Age Inquisition and The Witcher 3 alongside to Matthew Gabriele to discuss our cultural fascination with Europe’s Middle Ages and how it’s manifested in the games.

Elsewhere, Innuendo Studios continues his series about the life cycle of Adventure Games to propose 5 adventure game mechanics that…

September 2015: ‘Maps’

…won. They set a boundary to what otherwise feels vast and potentially limitless, a way to compartmentalize and therefore tackle the world. But how do world maps provide a unifying theme for narrative? In what ways can we see the history of cartography as a colonial practice influence narrative? How do level maps help us conceive of game spaces as literal places to explore? What makes a good level map — ease of use and ability to navigate or bottomless depths to explore?

So good! Before you head off to explore maps of your own, I highly…

September 13th

…examination of the sexual politics of modern video games and seeks to correct that through example.

At Not Your Mama’s Gamer, Bianca Batti looks at Until Dawn as through the lens of the horror genre and what it says about representation and the illusion of choice. Meanwhile, Alex Layne recommends we look to history for the next step of women “transgressing male spaces.”

Lena LeRay goes back to Final Fantasy X-2, a game she saw as unnecessary and somewhat detrimental to the story of FFX, and looks at it from a different angle, as a story about a…