Well, here we are, the last weekday in January. At the start of this month, I wasn’t sure I’d get through it. We’ve had a lot of local drama here, financial stuff with Tam and I, and Girl’s next-door-neighbor went off the freaking deep end. She’s moving today, to a nicer duplex that also happens [...]
Monthly Archives: January 2010
Transgression: Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery
January 28, 2010 – 10:30 am
There is a lot to say about sexuality in video games, from character models to treating romantic partners like vending machines. The transgression series is primarily interested in player action though, so this post is about sexual actions the player can take. This is a much smaller subset of actions in games, and I share [...]
Transgression: Thou Shalt Not Kill, Part 2
January 27, 2010 – 9:15 am
When I first thought about writing the transgression posts on killing, Assassin’s Creed was foremost on my mind. In the games you play as an assassin (first Altair, and later Ezio), who is discovering a plot by Templars to control humanity. The assassins are cast as people who love peace and freedom, and use assassination [...]
Transgression: Thou Shalt Not Kill, Part 1
January 26, 2010 – 9:40 am
Here’s an interesting thing about today’s commandment. The proper translation of it is probably “You must not commit murder.” Murder is different than killing, even if humans are your target in both places. The current Catholic Church (according to Wikipedia) translates this commandment as one against killing, which is a broader term than murder. The [...]
Transgression: Thou Shalt Not Steal
January 25, 2010 – 10:20 am
The rain it raineth on the just and on the unjust fella. But chiefly on the just, because the unjust steals the just’s umbrella. –Lord Bowen It was fifteen or so years ago, and my roommates, Ginger and Jason, and I were talking about role playing games. We’d recently discussed the recent announcement that someone [...]
Transgression by Transgression
January 24, 2010 – 9:15 am
This week I’m going to delve back into my ideas around Transgression. To recap a bit, transgression is the breaking of a boundary, usually a moral or social one. Sins, therefor, are transgressions and we’ll be looking at some of the commandments this week. I’m not a Christian, though I was raised as one, and [...]
Echoes
January 22, 2010 – 9:10 am
I think some of it is nostalgia. Some of it is the nature of games to build on what came before. Some of it is certainly the hit driven nature of games, that forces repetition. Too many games I’ve been playing this year echo an older game that I find I’d rather be playing. Dragon [...]
The Fantasy of Competence
January 21, 2010 – 9:15 am
I’ve done some thinking since I wrote yesterday’s post about frustration in Dragon Age. I think my analysis was wrong, actually. It’s not really about play style. I like run in and bash them on the head games, I like sneaky games. I like tactical games (and the Mage in WoW is a tactical [...]
Playstyle Frustration
January 20, 2010 – 9:10 am
I’m having some real difficulty with Dragon Age: Origins. I feel like I want to play it. There’s — not peer pressure, but a sense from my peers that they liked this game. From people with whom I’ve had detailed discussions about games we both liked. In other words, people whose tastes I felt were [...]
Short Post Today
January 19, 2010 – 9:10 am
My Goddess Daughter evidently didn’t get the memo that the only thing she should bring home from school was refrigerator art, so all of us wound up catching the stomach flu she shared so well. (Momma always taught me to share, after all.) The good news is that I had a day off for MLK Jr Day, [...]