Search Results for “history” – Page 7

December 3rd

…of Duty game has, unsurprisingly, sparked the interest of historians.

Watching History Fade Away in ‘Call of Duty: WWII’ – Waypoint Rob Zacny argues that the positioning of soldiers as ambitious heroes does a disservice to the majority of people who served in the second world war.
“Call of Duty: WWII Unravels the Meaning of History,” by Reid McCarter – Bullet Points Monthly Reid McCarter explores the perverse feeling of fetishizing combat in our memory of the Second World War

“The nuclear bombings that ended World War II are seen, by many artists and

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…feelings behind a veil of jokes. Yes, I don’t like being mobbed by people who feel wronged if I so much as suggest that bikini armor is ridiculous, but I’m also a journalist, so I like to be able to have and express my own opinions.”

New game plus

Games history gets some fascinating treatment this week, with pieces surveying a host of technical and cultural developments.

DF Retro: The history of water rendering in classic games • Eurogamer.net John Linneman studies the technological history of visual effects that give the impression of fluid surfaces.

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Assassin’s Creed II

Critical Distance is proud to present this Critical Compilation of Ubisoft’s Assassin Creed II, curated by Gilles Roy. A history scholar with game design training at Montreal’s INIS, Gilles is also co-editor at Play the Past. You can follow him on Twitter @gillesroy.

“Assassin’s Creed II makes its predecessor look like a tech demo…”

Read this reviewer statement once, it rings out like a truism; twice, it’s a borrowed line; three times, a running gag. But four times… is this a hatching Templar conspiracy? Or were people back in 2009 just sharing notes to ease the burden

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November 29th

…historical fidelity in games. This is sometimes a bad-faith cudgel weilded by reactionaries incensed by the idea that non-white and/or queer and/or disabled people can feasibly exist in historical or quasi-historical settings. This is not that. Here, we’ve got three writers exploring different ways in which games “play” with history, manipulating it to their own ends, for purposes good or ill or maybe neither but still artistically interesting.

Ethics in Strategy Gaming, Part 1: Panzer General | The Digital Antiquarian Jimmy Maher traces the history in wargaming of excising war crimes from war games so that players can

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April 25th

…This is more than just a problem of technology–history is never objective, and games and authors that don’t fit the canonical narrative of gaming get left out all the time. With all that in mind, our next two featured authors this week look back at games that have been technologically obselesced, or forgotten by history for an extended period, or both.

Chaos Rings and the chaotic frailty of mobile gaming history – LudoLudo Dissonance | Pixels For Breakfast Rowan Carmichael revisits a solid JRPG that has been nearly lost to the relentless march of mobile obselescence.
1986:

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December 4th

…alternative history for games Amr Al-Aaser explores the history, legacy, and patchwork localization history of Chunsoft’s sound novel games.

“One day I hope to see fan translations of these Super Famicom Sound Novels, their imitators, and maybe even the titles that followed on the Playstation. For now, I stay grateful to the remake’s translators, and the video creators who make it possible to experience, at least in some part, these moments in history.”

Critical Chaser

We close out the week with some solemn advice for Snappers everywhere.

Using your phone on the…

No Culture? Gameplay Aesthetes

Sure, it’s about a board game, and a forgettable one at that, but Greg Costikyan makes a point that it’s important to know about the history behind even bad or un-interesting games:

For what godforsaken reason are we featuring Twiggy Game today? To make a point: the danger of lack of culture.

What do I mean by “lack of culture?” Just this: with novels, cinema, music and every other form of art, we have long-standing traditions of criticism, analysis, reviews, and discussion. People know something of the history of the forms in which they are interested,

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November 21st

…defined).” Here’s their introductory post explaining their goals for the site.

And stretching the idea of history in an entirely different direction, this week Gamers With Jobs have been partying like it’s 1998! Here’s Rob Zachny writing on Thief from a ‘98 perspective; Julian Murdoch on Baldur’s Gate as the hope for CRPG’s; and Allen Cook on Alpha Centauri in ‘Once Upon A Future History’. Does the term retrospective even apply here?

David Carlton has been playing Dragon Age: Origins and looking at pacing, and is quite frank: “it’s a rare game that can make me look fondly…

December 2nd

…a deeply physical and embodied experience, and decisions around if, when and where we should send American soldiers to shoot people need to be made with this in mind.

On a similar note, Scott Juster of Moving Pixels writes of Call of Duty‘s troubled relationship with reality.

ONE (OR TWO) FOR THE HISTORY BOOKS

Buzzfeed contributor Chris Stokel-Walker gives us a lengthy but rewarding history of Pong.

On Eurogamer, Simon Parkin furnishes us with a vibrant tale of the Grand Theft Auto player who “spilled” Hot Coffee.

LET’S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS

It…

August 4

…there on the list of poignant things you can say about a game you made.

Simon Parkin wrote a retrospective on Earthbound. Spoiler: is good.

SOME HISTORY. WE ALL LOVE HISTORY. I’M TELLING YOU TO LOVE HISTORY.

Jed Lepinski recounted the creation and legacy of The Oregon Trail.

Angela Cox writes on “The Othering of Time Age of Empires II.“

Cornelius Holtorf explains the playful desire of reality-altering efforts of time travel in contemporary culture.

MISC.

Paul Tassi asks “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Nintendo?”

This is a wonderful…