Tag Archives: Tomb Raider

First-Person Perspective and the Untroubled Gaze

The other day I was playing Fallout 3, and in my zeal to kill as many guards as possible before escaping Vault 101, I switched to third person perspective. It was jarring, but I decided to give it a shot: … Continue reading →

Posted in Critical Conversation | Tagged Arkham City , , Claire Redfield , , Film and Masquerade , , Laura Mulvey , Mary Ann Doanne , Maya , , , Salvador , Thatmonster , , | 5 Comments

Against Diluting Censorship

Lana Polansky “People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.” -Soren Kierkegaard The past few weeks have been dogged by some rather unsavoury aspects of videogame subculture regarding rape culture and … Continue reading →

Posted in Critical Conversation , Features | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Heart of Darkness: E3, Violence, and Context for Outrage

by Adam Maresca To everyone who has been finding some of the content from this year’s E3 to be pushing the boundaries of sexual politics and highly graphic violence: what kept you? In case you think that question was rhetorical, I’ll give you my best guess. It’ll scare your mom! It’ll scare your little sister! It’ll SCARE YOUR DOG. (And also the ESRB.) As a particularly new medium, video games have been the target of moral fervor since the introduction of gory violence, with plenty of memorable flashpoints along the way. Mortal Kombat and Night Trap were hounded by Senator Joe Lieberman, David Grossman demonized imaginary Doom levels in the aftermath of the tragedies of Columbine, Jack Thompson led a failed two-pronged crusade against Grand Theft Auto, and Breivik’s self-implicating statements have name-dropped Call of Duty. We were fortunate in many ways that the vocal opponents of these games chose to resort to Continue reading →

Posted in Features | Tagged Adam Maresca , Call of Duty , Call of Duty: Black Ops II , Crysis 3 , Duke Nukem Forever , E3 , Gaspar Lewis , Grand Theft Auto , Halo 4 Gears of War: Judgment , Hitman:Absolution , Irreversible , Jack Thompson , , Marilyn Manson , Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance , , Randy Pitchford , , , Watch Dogs | Leave a comment