The Representation of Women and Historical Accuracy

One common reason given for the absence of female characters in video games that are set in the past is that the portrayal is supposed to be historically accurate (see for examples these discussions at the Border House). This great post by Juliet McKenna suggest that excuse is not legitimate. McKenna notes that much of ‘history’ [...]

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The Uncanny Valley of L.A. Noire

Update: SLee and Topher now have an entire case guide out in e-book form. Even better, it is FREE! Update 2 (May 5th 2012): If you want some help answering the questions, but don’t want the spoilers of the actual answers, SLee and Topher now have a guide with tips on how to deduce the correct [...]

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Portal 2 and Feminism

In June, after the release of the Portal 2 trailer at E3 I wrote about some concerns I had reading interviews with the developers of Portal 2. Now it has been released and I have finished the main story and co-op, gone through again for the trophies and to listen to the developer commentary, so [...]

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Manipulating Morals: Drugs and Video Games

On Monday the Guardian ran an article about using drugs to improve moral behaviour. Some drugs affect our emotions, increasing our feelings of trust, social bonding, empathy and lowering our anxiety. Scientists are now discussing the possibility that these drugs might be used to improve our moral behaviour. The assumption seems to be  that we [...]

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In Praise of Penny Arcade on Rape Culture

[Trigger Warning: I am writing about rape again, and I will be snarky, sarcastic and otherwise more emotive in my writing than average] If there is one thing that could be said for Penny Arcade’s handling of the criticisms of “The 6th Slave” comic, it is that they did begin a serious discussion of rape [...]

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The Chainmail Bikini in Real Life

Many gamers have complained about the ridiculous outfits that game designers make their female characters wear (see here, here, here, here, and here). In this video, the guys at Rooster Teeth Labs decided to see what would happen if real women tried to fight each other while wearing video game inspired clothes. The results are [...]

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I Played a Commercial and I Didn’t Like It

Almost nobody likes commercials. Since technologies such as VCRs, DVRs and TiVo are now available, many people prerecord TV shows and skip through the commercials. So marketers and advertisers are trying to come up with commercials that we are willing to watch, or that we cannot get around watching (for example, because they are part [...]

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Some thoughts on the Portal 2 trailer

So by now I am sure most have seen the Portal 2 trailer from yesterday’s E3 conference. If not, here it is. I have to admit, I am excited. It looks pretty and the first game is one of my favorite games. But there are some things that make me uneasy. The first game was [...]

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Game Covers Women Want to See

One of my favorite blogs, The Border House, is renewing a meme about game covers that women want to see. The meme encourages women to write a post about the kinds of game covers that made us want to play a game. The Border House is compiling a list of these blog posts at the [...]

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Oops! I missed Blogging Against Disablism Day

I missed the “Blogging Against Disablism Day“ on May 1, 2010, because I was still in the throws of technology failures. They are over now! Yippi! Thanks to patient partner for working on the problem for a whole two weeks. Here is a great video of my favorite song from Portal in lieu of the post [...]

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