In October I went to Utah’s only Anime Con; Anime Banzai! I’ve been going to this one on and off for years, but this year it was bigger and better. Knowing many of the staff, I decided to give them some free publicity. Read the rest of this entry »
Archive for the ‘Articles’ Category
Banzai!
Friday, December 4th, 2009I Am a Gamer
Sunday, January 11th, 2009But I don’t want to be a gamer anymore. I’m looking for another term, even a separate but equal term for a person who likes to play all sorts of games. Why? Gamers as a community police each other only when they wish to. They may be rabid about the best this or the worst that, but as a whole they manage to flow together. Say just three words, three simple words and gamers will rise in solidarity. Be he ne’er so vile this phrase shall gentle his condition: video game violence. The bile and froth rise even now to defend, declaim, and defuse this mode of operation of the game industry. Never has so great a battle charge been made as those who ride across the plain to defend the fair Princess Video Game’s honor. Read the rest of this entry »
This Is Our World Too: Preventing Real Victims of Virtual Rape
Sunday, January 11th, 2009
In 1993, Julian Dibbell wrote about a rape in cyberspace. At that time, the idea was completely foreign to most of the readers of The Village Voice where the article was published, and this was still basically true five years later when it became the first chapter of his book My Tiny Life. Today, the idea of virtual rape hits a bit closer to home, especially for gamers. In fact, just last year, Belgian law enforcement officials investigated a claim of virtual rape in the online game Second Life. Read the rest of this entry »
A Gaming Con for Tucson: RinCon ’08
Sunday, January 11th, 2009
On the weekend of October 31st, 2008, my hometown, Tucson, Arizona, had its very first gaming convention: RinCon ’08, organized by the Southern Arizona Gamers Association. Taking place at the Tucson Convention Center, RinCon ’08 featured three days of gaming, both scheduled and spur-of-the-moment, an exhibitor hall and other cool activities and events. It was the most fun I’ve had on a Halloween weekend since I got too old for trick-or-treating and all-night candy binges!
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G.I.R.L. Power?
Sunday, January 4th, 2009
This year, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) announced a new program entitled G.I.R.L., or “Gamers In Real Life”. The purpose of G.I.R.L is, to quote the website itself, ‘to positively impact the way females are depicted in video games and create and influence content to be appealing to women’, and ‘to encourage the gaming industry to positively promote women throughout all facets of games, game production and into game management’. Read the rest of this entry »
Killing Grannies, Slaughtering Monsters and Leveling the F*** Up
Tuesday, November 4th, 2008
In the seemingly endless debate on whether or not video games are moral, I find that discussions of morality itself are strangely absent. Most debates deteriorate into bickering and name-calling anyway, but I find it absurd that many pundits choose to focus entirely on aspects of the games themselves whilst ignoring aspects of how morality works in the first place altogether. To be fair, morality is not an absolute; deciding what is and isn’t moral is the beginning of a slippery slope which at best leads to confusion and at worst to us-against-them preaching. But in trying to twist video games to fit into our own ideas of morality, whatever those may be, we’ve got it backwards. We shouldn’t be discussing whether video games fit into morality; we should be discussing how morality fits into video games. Read the rest of this entry »
An Atypical Princess: Ashelia B’Nargin Dalmasca
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008Female video game characters began as either the prize, the motive or the vixen, and then settled into supportive roles. Currently, video game ladies struggle to break free of the “hot and deadly” shell of a male audience. Princess Ashelia B’Nargin Dalmasca deviates from the stereotypical female role with her powerful personality and abilities in Final Fantasy XII and empowers females, gamers and characters alike.
Princesses in video games rarely appear without a typical entourage: gallant princes, castles and flowing dresses. Pursuing these princesses are devious, not-as-pretty women and arrogant, ill-intentioned men. FFXII’s Ashe does not carry such baggage; a refreshing and much needed change. Read the rest of this entry »
Princess Peach: Feminist?
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on Coin Heaven. spacepope4u now writes about pop culture on his blog, Back of the Cereal Box.
Had I asked this question ten years ago, the answer to the above question would be a resounding “no.” To be blunt, that Peach — who had then only recently shed the first name “Toadstool” in the States — was a big pink sissy whose primary function in life was to get kidnapped and scream “help.” Peach didn’t even have the honor of being the first leading lady in Mario’s life. That character, of course, was Pauline, who did about as much and at least got to wear a more modern-looking outfit. With her floor-length royal gown and odd, flipped-out Farah Fawcett hair, Peach was a dead weight character — a reminder of what a woman’s place was 50 years ago. She was an uber-stereotype of what women should be, injected into the Mario series to balance out the overwhelmingly male cast with a double dose of sugar-coated girliness. Read the rest of this entry »
Should Gamers Embrace Femininity?
Tuesday, February 5th, 2008This past Christmas I timidly strapped on a plastic guitar. It was my first time playing Guitar Hero outside of a Best Buy and I couldn’t exactly enjoy it. I was at my partner Chris’s cousin’s house, standing in front of his extended family, about to rock out to Nirvana’s “Heart Shaped Box.” My lack of self-confidence didn’t come from the fact that I knew I wasn’t going to be the best, or because I anticipated many missed notes. Instead, it came from the fact that I knew I was going to be better than Chris’s mom, a woman who, before this, probably only touched a video game controller when straightening up her living room, yet laughed her way through “Surrender.” I was going to show Chris’s family that I had a little bit of talent and the experience that comes from years of playing games. What I dreaded was that I knew his family wouldn’t accept that I’m a gamer in my own right, separate from Chris. My gaming isn’t a compromise, a way to spend time with my boyfriend. I wouldn’t be able to explain to them that gaming is a passion I’ve had since I was five. Read the rest of this entry »
Choosing Imitation Over Innovation
Saturday, January 5th, 2008The essential game-authoring tool for creating exciting, original RPGs without programming knowledge [...] comes with a wide variety of commands enabling you to shape a world and tell a story completely from your imagination.
- Enterbrain’s RPG Maker promotional video
Enterbrain’s RPG Maker series of programs are, right now, probably best known to mainstream Western audiences as the chisel with which Super Columbine Massacre RPG! was sculpted from a lump of badly-dithered photographs and Marilyn Manson .midi files. For the uninformed, Super Columbine Massacre RPG! is a rushed, bug-ridden, borderline-unplayable recreation of the 1999 Columbine shootings in which the player takes control of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as they wander around a poorly-drawn representation of Columbine High School and engage in Dragon Warrior-style turn-based combat against characters like “Nerdy Girl”, “Openly Gay Man” and “Church Boy”, none of whom can effectively defend themselves as you cast “Shotgun” on them from your magic menu. Read the rest of this entry »
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