Cerise Magazine

Bioshock, 2K Games, Xbox 360/PC, 2007

What do misogyny, steampunk weaponry, and bathyspheres have in common? Besides a common home on any forum for nerds, they all help build the atmosphere in the fictional underwater city of Rapture, a place where artists are uncensored, science is unhindered by morality, and the common man is not so common after all. Welcome to Bioshock, guys and dolls; it’s one hell of a ride.

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I’ve got thirty minutes before I need to be at the movie theatre for a class assignment. I’m rushing, but I stop dead in my tracks when I come upon the glow of a Gamestop shop window. I hardly ever find myself near one so, at the risk of being late, I go in. I walk past the displays and the guy behind the counter to the shelf of used PS2 games because of her face. Heather from Silent Hill 3 is staring at me with a pair of gorgeous, nervous eyes. I buy it and make it to the theatre with five minutes to spare. (more…)

Any monster-filled gaming session, tabletop or video, can benefit from a little atmospheric mood lighting. It’s easy to just dim the lights, or set up a few pillar candles, but it’s also not that hard to customize some inexpensive glass holders to add an extra little touch of detail to your lighting scheme. Also, it’s fun!
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Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress: A Girl’s Guide to the Dungeons & Dragons Game, by Shelly Mazzanoble, published by Wizards of the Coast, 2007

I’ve been wanting to get my hands on a copy of Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress for months, ever since someone first mentioned it on the Iris forums back in March. A player since the 80’s, I’m not actually in need of a guide to D&D - for girls or otherwise – but as a feminist gamer, I was (predictably!) interested in what a book published by Wizards of the Coast and aimed specifically at female readers would be like. Fortunately, I was able to score a review copy last month, and assuage my burning curiosity!
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For this installment of Gaming in the Media, I am going to deviate from providing game commentary or analysis and instead provide you with some reviews of other gaming blogs to watch. While I do read many of the more mainstream blogs (Kotaku, Gamasutra, etc.) the lesser known blogs tend to provide me with a bit more to grapple with mentally. (more…)

After numerous sequels, books, spin-off games and three entertaining but shallow feature length films, the Resident Evil franchise continues to capture the hearts and dollars of gamers on both sides of the Pacific–and beyond. The now-cliché adage that “violence sells” found its herald with the release of the original Resident Evil in 1998 and the series has remained the spot for nerve wracking thrills and gratuitous blood letting ever since. Far from adding to the exhaustive debate around video game violence, my interests lie with the fluid, often contradictory representations of gender that are seen in Resident Evil 4. And with that, I will bet all the unlockable characters in “Mercenaries” that I know what y’all are thinking…

Yes, Ashley is, bar none, one of the most annoying characters ever to taint a video game franchise.

Yes, she is a rapid departure from previous women in Resident Evil, who relied on their own guile and skill to survive.

And yes, she exists solely to placate the hoards of drooling fanboys whose penchant for virtual violence and digital pornography grows more ravaging with each passing E3. The scene where she is forced to crawl on her knees while the camera follows her from behind? Please. (more…)

By Samara Hayley Steele

Or, How I Survived My First Day as a Female LARPer

Part One

I am nestled in someone else’s sleeping bag, in someone else’s cabin, on the top bunk furthest from the door. I stare at the ceiling. I wish I could sleep. But my body is still tingling with adrenaline.

There is a large rectangular hole covered in chicken wire above my head, and I reach up and run my fingers across the mesh. The wire has been stretched thin in some places. Did a Boy Scout camper once try to escape? I wonder.

The room smells like grass and heavy sweat and I can hear the noise of men sleeping below me—grunting, snoring, and shifting in their bunks. There are six of them, maybe more. Before tonight they were strangers, but now they are my sworn protectors.
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Welcome to the Back Page! This is where we publish the odds and ends that our readers send in, from artwork and writing, to shout outs, thoughts on gaming, and whatever fun and silly things we can come up with. If you have something you want to show off to the rest of our readers, head over to our submissions page and fire off an e-mail to us! (more…)