Category Archives: Criticism
Leadership, Rhetoric, and Videogames
I find myself thinking about leadership often. Perhaps I think about leadership because we rhetoricians get press (for good or ill) for a few months every four years when our nation chooses a leader based on “mere rhetoric.” But, I … Continue reading
Framing Meaning through Play – or – Everybody’s Gone to Film School
*Minor spoilers for Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture to follow, I think.* The perfect shot is a powerful thing – not only in communicating pleasure and meaning to a viewer, but also in the feelings it can engender within its … Continue reading
Hype and Nostalgia: Gaming’s Memory Flows
It took me about four hours to find out that double-clicking made Manny Calavera move faster, running instead of the slow walk I had gotten used to. The game had changed there, in an instant, to something much different. The … Continue reading
Criticism and Habits: My Fear of Never Alone
Every Wednesday in high school I went out to do community service that the campus ministry of my Catholic high school facilitated. We would go to nursing homes, care facilities, and homeless shelters, work for a few hours, and return … Continue reading
What I’m Playing Now: Combat Mission Red Thunder
In my ongoing effort to find a hybrid game uniting the best principles of table-top RPGs, wargames, and video games, I’ve been exploring the world of wargames a lot. Specifically, I’ve been following two table-top wargames: Bolt Action and Infinity. … Continue reading
What I’m Playing Now: Elite Dangerous
I’ve made no secret in the past that I love space sims and that I’m on the lookout for the next Starflight. I’ve tried many games, but none really filled in that particular gap in my heart. Until recently. I’ve … Continue reading
Sports Games and Remediation
Brendan Keogh wrote a wonderful article for Reverse Shot on the visual workings of FIFA ’14 and it’s really cool. As someone who plays a ton of different sports games, I’m always excited to see new critical engagements with the … Continue reading
What I’m Playing Now: Heroes & Generals, and Verdun 1914-1918
Contrary to Gaines, I’m not a big competitive online FPS player. In fact, I’m quite frankly horrible at them. However, there’s a few games in the genre that I’ve lately enjoyed; the first one was Heroes & Generals, but lately … Continue reading
clanius
Jason Coley
LCooke
ludogabble
Higher Level Gamer 
“We Just Want to Make Good Games.”
I’ve been writing a lot for I Search for Traps lately, but through my discussions of table-top RPGs I’ve come across an old question that I’ve encountered when I was studying the world of video games: What is a good game? … Continue reading →