So Papo & Yo (Minority Media, 2012) is a game that I have been interested in playing for a while. When the indie title appeared on PS3 about a year ago I did a bit of research to see what other folks were saying about the title. I was simultaneously intrigued and disturbed. If you [...]
Posts Tagged ‘cultural critique’
The Monster Within: Papo & Yo As A Meaningful Experience
May 8th, 2013 
dr. b. 
Posted in PC, PS3, Uncategorized 
Tags: children, cultural critique, Culture, diversity, Education, serious games 
1 Comment »
She Has No Voice So I Must Scream: On Voice and Agency in Video Games
April 15th, 2013 dr. b. So yeah, this post is going to be about voice. Voice has always been a huge issue with me. Not necessarily with how a voice sounds, but with the absence of voice and what that absence of voice actually means. It’s because of this that The Little Mermaid is one of my most hated Disney [...]
Posted in Games and Rhetoric, Uncategorized Tags: cultural critique, diversity, feminism, gender, race 5 Comments »
I Was Born An Assassin: On Minorities, Agency, and Legitimacy in Video Games
November 5th, 2012 dr. b. I have been waiting a long time for Assassin’s Creed III (and ACIII:Liberation, but I’ll save that for another post). I pre-ordered my copy, mapped out my gameplay time, and did the happy dance when I learned that my mother would be visiting during the release window so that Pea would be entertained during my [...]
Posted in Games and Rhetoric, Uncategorized Tags: Assassin's Creed, cultural critique, diversity, race 4 Comments »
The Cake is a Lie: Post-Racialism in Assassin’s Creed III and Games Advertising
October 12th, 2012 dr. b. The cake is a lie. Especially when you are talking about having your cake and eating it too. For years video game developers and company execs have been telling us that their use of racial stereotypes in games was not as racist as we wanted to make it seem. That it really wasn’t racist at [...]
Posted in Games and Rhetoric, Uncategorized Tags: cultural critique, diversity, history, race Comments Off
When Play Becomes Serious; Time to Stand Up
October 6th, 2012 dr. b. This week Democrat Congressional (Maine) candidate Colleen Lachowicz was outed by Republicans. Lachowicz is not, as far as we know, gay, but she is a gamer. Lachowicz’s opponents have started their own site, Colleen’s World (You can Google it because I refuse to give them an active link), in an attempt to discredit her as a viable [...]
Posted in Games and Education, Games and Rhetoric, Miscellany, Uncategorized Tags: cultural critique, MMORPGs, racism, sexism Comments Off
Between Two Worlds: History, Concubinage, and Assassin’s Creed: Liberation
July 24th, 2012 dr. b. Yesterday’s article at Kotaku about the representation of African Americans in Assassin’s Creed: Liberation hit really close to home because we were looking at two sides of the same coin. While Evan Narcisse over at Kotaku thinks that the Canadian developers are off point with their depiction of a few Black folks walking around New [...]
Posted in Games and Education, Uncategorized Tags: cultural critique, history, race, sexuality Comments Off
Episode 37: Whoa, V*gina!: Lollipop Chainsaw, Tomb Raider, and the Need for Sarkeesian’s Cultural Critique
June 25th, 2012 dr. b. Episode 37: “Whoa V*gina: Lollipop Chainsaw, Tomb Raider, and the Need for Sarkeesian’s Cultural Critique” (“Save As” to download or head over to iTunes to subscribe) This week we segue from last week’s episode to this week’s by talking about rape imagery in the new Tomb Raider trailer, our playing of Lollipop Chainsaw, and Anita Sarkeesian’s [...]
Don’t Put That in Your Mouth!; Or, Mass Effect 3 and Prostibots
June 6th, 2012 dr. b. I am a mediocre Mass Effect fangirl at best. I quit the first game because the controls and the damned planet scanning were just too friggin’ painful. I plowed into ME2, with its improved control scheme, with gusto that only died down a bit, and I powered through ME3 with a furor that I haven’t [...]
Posted in Miscellany, Uncategorized Tags: cultural critique, feminism, sexuality, women in games 2 Comments »
Not Serious Games, but Taking Games Seriously: Bioware Steps Up the Diversity?
March 14th, 2012 dr. b. As educators we talk about Serious Games, And it’s no small secret that I am not a fan of the serios game. Rather than creating small and less engaging games that focus on specific comment why can’t we just use commercial off the shelf games and look for the larger issues in there and use [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Tags: cultural critique, diversity, gay, masculinity, queer, social construction 2 Comments »
Called to Duty in Call Of Duty?: On Culture, Immersion, and Lack in Video Games
February 20th, 2012 dr. b. Chaim Gingold over at the Expressive Intelligence Studio blog has posted a bit about a lecture that Cecil Brown delivered at UC- Santa Cruz entitled Games Blacks Love to Play. It is an interesting piece and a fascinating idea as a whole. Brown traces game play through 3 historical periods of African American presence in [...]
Posted in Games and Rhetoric, Uncategorized Tags: cultural critique, Culture, game theory, literary theory, race Comments Off
