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Agency: Thi Nguyen | Keywords in Play, Episode 10

…of contemplated. So, I think people coming from that background, they might kind of find this idea of applying aesthetics to games really challenging.

Thi: So, this is actually, you can totally see this. So not just in philosophy, but in all kinds of cultural criticism, especially if you look at the history of the reception of games, in academia, and in kind of like places like the New York Times, or whatever, you keep seeing this idea that comes from Kant that like art is supposed to be disinterested, aesthetic experience is experienced, it’s like freed of practicality….

April 18th

…that end in “day”) is always a good day for critical meditations on how popular media alternately props up and critiques the police as an institutional locus of power and violence. We begin this week’s issue with two highlights examining this topic as it relates to a pair of very different well-loved games.

  • The Wrong Side of History, or Being a Cop in L.A. Noire — Gamers with Glasses Blake Reno meditates on L.A. Noire‘s narrative attention to cop corruption and systemic injustice.
  • Disco Elysium and Copaganda – No Escape Kaile Hultner discusses the challenges and concessions

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March 2021

…Show ‘n Tell: Pagan Ultima VIII Pt 2 – Brendan Vance (1:06:19)

It’s hard not to get pulled into Brendan’s enthusiasm for the environments, assets, soundtrack and adversarial difficulty of the oft-maligned Ultima VIII: Pagan, in this edited Let’s Play. (Manual captions)

  • You Were Wrong About Final Fantasy X | A Heartfelt Defense of Tidus’ Laugh – Transparency (34:55)

    Transparency argue the case that the infamous laughing scene from Final Fantasy X is “one of the most misunderstood and unfairly maligned cutscenes in videogame history”. (Autocaptions)

    • Historical Margins

    Rounding out this lengthy mid-section on

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    May 9th

    …concept that informs our next section in different ways across its three selections, as their respective authors situate the artistic, political, and thematic consequences of games in their specific time and place.

    • 1988: P.R.E.S.T.A.V.B.A. | 50 Years of Text Games Aaron A. Reed recounts the history of a Czechoslovakian satirical protest game made on the cusp of democratic revolution.
    • Fresh takes on old favourites – Kimimi The Game-Eating She-Monster Kimimi evaluates the Game Gear take on Ristar and the cross-generational context and developer talent which inform its artistic success.
    • Jet Set Willy [1984] – Arcade Idea

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    June 6th

    …subject either. The game begins and ends with a snowball fight, showing that even though playtime has to end eventually, that doesn’t mean it can’t begin again.”

    The Developer Room

    The localization process is the theme of our next segment, bringing together an exhaustive data dive and a candid interview, spanning topics like cut content, cultural adaptations, and more.

    • A Forensic Analysis of EarthBound’s Deepest Secrets | Video Game History Foundation Clyde Mandelin unearths a trove of secrets and unused content from EarthBound via recently recovered development files from the game’s chief North American localizer.

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    Queer Games Criticism in 2021 (so Far)

    …Points Monthly Kazuma Hashimoto finds Cyberpunk 2077 to be obsessed with binaries in a way that makes the game feel decades out of step with the cyberpunk genre and retro in all the wrong ways. He interrogates the mechanics of how 2077 assigns the player character a binary gender, and how this design is broadly emblematic of the game’s fixation on an antiquated idea of what constitutes cyberpunk.

  • Pride Flags in Video Games Aren’t Enough to Show Queer History | Fanbyte Stacey Henley takes aim here at surface-level symbolism, observing that it isn’t enough to drop a flag or…

    • September 5th

    …ask if I’m okay, and reaffirm the toxicity of the stalker’s behavior.”

    Critical Chaser

    If you’ve read Bad Game Hall of Fame before, you already know you’re in for a good ride here.

    • Urban Yeti! | Bad Game Hall of Fame Cassidy is back with a downright strange GBA game and an even stranger development history.

    “What do you get when you combine a mock cult, Dolemite, surfboarding, and multiple failed distribution deals? Why, a Game Boy Advance cartridge about cryptids, obviously!”

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    September 2021

    …a City is Buried – Jacob Geller (22:54)

    Jacob Geller considers the ethics of romanticising the re-discovery of buried history, as presented in The Forgotten City. (Manual captions) [Embedded advertising]

  • The Power of Abandoned Places – Hello Future Me (29:06)

    Tim Hickson ponders the way people “connect” with abandoned places, as depicted in videogames such as What Remains of Edith Finch (along with texts like Annihilation (Jeff Vandermeer) and House of Leaves (Mark Z Danieliewski)) and real-world disaster-affected sites like Pripyat, Ukraine and Christchurch, New Zealand. (Autocaptions)

    • Critiques of Capitalism

    Following on from last

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    October 31st

    …tensions.

  • Call of Duty’s latest marketing campaign misses the point of Call of Duty | Polygon Kazuma Hashimoto meditates on Call of Duty’s relentless, fetishistic pursuit of authenticity, as mediated by its parallel function as a propaganda machine.

    • “Activision treats this history as something to be exploited in pursuit of “realism” for a franchise that is already entangled with the American military industrial complex in its use as a recruitment tool. It is a tasteless attempt at appealing to its most devoted player base (who are indeed more fixated on the historical inaccuracy of the weapons…

    November 7th

    …of these pieces are historically-rooted pieces on games of some infamy or obscurity–or both–further than that, I cannot escape the feeling that they also belong together on some inscrutably spiritual level.

    • Top Five: Games Cancelled After Release | Bad Game Hall of Fame Cassidy delivers a meaty list with strong intrigue-value on premise alone, but I promise it’s well-worth the full read, too.
    • Tits and Tiles: The NSFW History of Strip Mahjong | SUPERJUMP Baxter chronicles the rise and fall–with many twists and turns along the way delving into innovation, regulation, and obsecnity laws–of horny mahjong arcade

    …