Search Results for “history” – Page 4

May 1st

…give an artificial sense of life to the characters in their worlds — guards going about their duty in Skyrim, or bandits bickering in The Witcher 3 – Dark Souls places its unreality centre stage.”

Art and History

Playing with the Past « First Person Scholar

Michael Hancock reviews a new book about games and history.

“Playing with the Past‘s preoccupation is, obviously, with history and videogames, but it is how it goes about pursuing that connection that differentiates it from other books of its type. From the introduction, editors Kapell and Elliott affirm…

We need to talk about Florence and emotional labour | Tumblr Mahli-Ann Butt describes the gendered affective labor at play in relationship simulator Florence, and calls for a more utopian vision of romance.

“It’s not just about the labour of making someone feeling happy or contented in an interaction between individual players, but unravels the fabric of social pressures, the processes, and the implications around these dynamics.”

History

Two great pieces on history and games were published this week – if this is your jam, don’t forget to submit a piece of writing…

Bioshock: Infinite

…the foreboding menace with melody and handing an apple to a terrified child like a socially conscious Disney princess.

Robert Yang examined Infinite’s use of a “use key” and the history of it in games, specifically how it relates to the game’s level and story design, and how it constrains moments of emotional climax by only being able to relate to them through the same tools it uses to root through trash for health items.

Soha El-Sabaawi, at re/Action, wrote about her history with games and why Daisy Fitzroy felt like such a betrayal of her hopes…

October 4th

…Replicant and connecting with Queer history | AIPT Trevor Richardson reflects on the erasure of history, in and out of game, for queer characters and queer players, in coming back to OG Nier.

“A major theme of Nier and Nier: Automata is discovering an erased history and learning about your identity and how it has been validated or contradicted by that history. It can be a discovery that reifies your existence, but for both queer people and the characters of the Nier games, it can also be one that unveils the ways your people have been murdered,…

July 6th

…not historically accurate!” — is fallacious at best.

Bradwell’s article relates directly to recent discussions on Assassin’s Creed, so this History Respawned video with Bob Whitaker interviewing Jessica W. Luther concerning race and the slave trade as depicted in Liberation and Freedom Cry is a nice follow piece. While a bit unfocused, it’s a good history lesson.

Elsewhere, Seth Brodbeck mulls on board game Eminent Domain and observes that its science-fictionalized imperialism, while theoretically dodging the issue of discussing real history, “is not understandable absent the context of European colonialism, and the use of sci-fi euphemisms threatens to…

February 7th

…Oral History

Gamasutra – Considering Street Fighter II’s legacy on its 25th anniversary

Psychology

In The New Inquiry, Alfie Brown discusses the position of mobile games in relation to labour, arguing that rather than being counterproductive uses of workers’ time, they are designed to maximise compliance. Over on Medium, Alex Fleetwood discusses the difficulty parents have deciding how much digital distraction their children should be allowed, and offers his mixed digital-physical project Fantastic Beasts as an alternative for parents who feel alienated by screen-based play.

Seconds of Pleasure
What parents need to know…

May 8th

This week as I read games blogging from around the web, I’m thinking about how games criticism reflects the many uses of software as tools and contexts for cultural practices. A game can be like a pair of shoes that you slip on in order to try out a new role or mode of being.

Clogs

Walking back hundreds of years, critics trace the roots of gaming as a practice and a literary form in their comparisons with European history.

The Banner Saga 2 is an Ancient Story in Modern Form :: Games :: Features

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November 27th

…that something racist they laughed at—for example—isn’t important. It’s just a joke. It’s just for fun.“

State-sanctioned violence

Increasingly, writing on history and games is taking on board not just how history is portrayed, but what’s at stake in those portrayals – what do the games being critiqued suggest about the way that we remember the past?

“Battlefield 1 is a Fantasy,” by Gareth Damian Martin | Bullet Points Monthly (Content warning: descriptions of xenophobia) Gareth Damian Martin’s reflections on the glorification of war are a nuanced and timely intervention, suggesting that when we talk…

December 17th

Games history went off the beaten track this week, with pieces of writing and video on alternative and even unsanctioned aspects of the medium’s heritage. Meanwhile, genre-bending analyses and challenging calls for better artistic dialogue abound, as writers unpick the critical issues shaping what games could become in the future.

Lifespans

Writing and documentary on games history has had a fantastic week, with four particularly stellar examples.

Brazil’s Video Game Gray Markets – YouTube (video: subtitles) Cloth Map visits games collectors in Sao Paolo, Brazil, who discuss how games culture there is influenced by a

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March 18th

…— a vigorous celebration not just of “bad” art but of the “bad” in art — it is also not infrequently about reclaiming art from the artist.”

History

Three articles look at the points where history and games meet – histories of games, and games portraying history.

A Short History of Hentai Games – YouTube (video: auto-captions) Alexandra Orlando argues that pornographic games are an essential part of the history of game design in Japan, and touches on the future of the genre as a thriving part of the indie scene.
Mixed Media: Inheritance…