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Toss a Coin to your Learners: A small game-based pilot
This fall I am teaching three courses at two small colleges here in Maryland. Two sections are the same class, at one institution, and a third similar course at another college. All are in-person, on campus sections. For years now, I have been slowly tinkering with ideas about how school, college in particular, is already…
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Diablo 4: A Terminal Deficit of Soul
One knows basically what to expect when starting a new game of Diablo: archetypal role-playing game class selections, gothic Christian aesthetics, and hordes of hellish monsters to vanquish. In this, Diablo 4 is perfectly competent. Unfortunately, however, the game suffers from a catastrophic lack of character. Having raised my sorcerer to level 100 and turned…
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Critical Game Analysis: The Strange Ox
Occasionally, I am asked about my work as a critical game scholar, and I have to come up with some kind of short-hand for explaining it. Usually my go-to is comparing game studies to film studies or literature, which usually helps get us to a perspective of analyzing games for social, artistic, or cultural significance…
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Opening Baldur’s Gate
This is something of a first-and-continued impressions of the phenomenally successful Baldur’s Gate 3, released by Larian Studios in 2023. I delayed writing anything on the game for several weeks because I was simply not having a very good time with it, but I was pretty sure the game wasn’t to blame. To put it…
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New Cycle: Humanity on the Brink
New Cycle entered early-access a few days ago and I was tempted enough to take a look at the latest in an ever-growing niche of mid-size city-builders. What I found was a startling, melancholy requiem for humanity, teetering on the brink of disaster, yet stoically carrying on, perhaps in vain. New Cycle fits into a…
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Aloy’s Heroic Feminism in Horizon: Forbidden West
The image above represents two of the first results in Google when searching “Horizon Zero Dawn feminism” and clearly depicts how any art criticism works. On one hand we have an example touting Horizon: Zero Dawn (HZD) as a breakthrough, and on the other, as a disappointment. As it ever was, and probably always…
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Horizon: Forbidden West – Kinesthetics of Combat
In Horizon: Forbidden West, Guerilla Games have created the most satisfying combat experience that I’ve had in a game—maybe ever. I will try not to stray into hyperbole in this piece, but clearly, HFW hit almost every note right for me, and I will have more to say about the rest of the game in…
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Far Cry New Dawn: All in the Family
Far Cry New Dawn was released in 2019 as a spin off of Far Cry 5. The game was initially priced at about $40 which reflects its limited scope. Speaking broadly, I am strongly in favor of developers making further use of already-developed assets such as the world of Hope County, the dialog and weapon…
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