This week, our partnership with game criticism site Critical Distance brings us picks from Mattie Brice on topics including the "adolescence" of Gone Home and how Grand Theft Auto V works as a horror game. The Illegal Seizing of Motor Vehicles In reference to Grand Theft Auto V, Alisha Karabinus pens a reassuring statement that children can tell the difference between reality and videogames with assistance from their parents. Anjin Anhut agrees that the game will not play tricks with our minds, since it doesn't have a well enough grasp of satire to challenge the status quo:
When joking about any form of oppression out there, you need to make the oppressor the punchline, NOT the oppressed. When joking about any form of inequality, you need to make privileged people the butt of your joke, NOT the marginalized and disenfranchised.
Over at The Border House, Quinnae asks when is enough enough, citing the toxic behavior and somewhat apathetic reaction of community leaders to gamer's sexism and other horrible qualities. Paul Tassi seems to have an answer, saying that as long at GTA doesn't have a lead woman character, none will be given the depth that such a game can afford. Taking a different route, Tom Bissell shares a letter to Niko Bellic of the previous GTA game, saying how the games resent gamers, and how he is aging out of that demographic. A truly touching piece. Rather than turn away from life-rending horror, Nate Ewert-Krocker embraces the grotesque qualities of the game and likens it to the horror genre, where everything is meant to be disturbing:
Both the world and the characters of GTA are meant to elicit both disgust and pity in the player. The counterpoint of those two emotions is what makes a grotesquerie so compelling: the player (or reader, or viewer, or what have you) wants to continue the narrative because they want to see whether or not the characters come to a place that’s less disgusting, less pitiful.
Leigh Alexander compiled subversive games, to which she pointedly dismisses GTAV as a contestant. Elsewhere, journalist Brendan Keogh was too busy trying to take selfies within the game. Some Words From Our Sponsors Is the world ready for the decadent evils of digital sports? We say yes. Jorge Albor recaptures how we are witnessing the emergence of a new sporting culture, that follows traditional sports' footsteps. Dan Solberg goes back to SimCity 2000 to talk about the architecture it predicted we'd have by now, and how real life stacks up to its vision. Our own Eric Swain goes to grips with Endgame: Syria, and reassures us of the inevitable: there is no paradise for those looking for it in the horrors of humanity. He says:
At one point, I thought I had done it. The regime was ousted with no sectarian violence, no destabilizing of the region, and no religious extremists emerging. The only downside was the loss of hospitals, utilities, and other basic facilities from functioning properly. I mentioned this on Twitter and got the response I deserved. “So you made a desert and called it peace?”
Stay Home, Or Else Old Man Ian Bogost has finally finished an oral rendition of his review on Gone Home. Daniel Joseph was able to sglean subversive thoughts gained from Bogost's words:
