Modern Masculinity In Red Dead Redemption 2’s Old West

How Arthur Morgan’s Vulnerability Is His Biggest Strength

Stacey Henley

By virtue of its thematic setting, Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar Games, 2018; hereafter RDR2) is inherently anachronistic, in that video games are typically thought of as cutting-edge media technologies, while the Western genre has a more historical appeal. Not only historical in that the game takes place in 1899, but in that Western movies and TV shows had their boom in 1950s-1960s with a post-war “injection of violence” (Cook, 1999, p. 134) into popular media. The Western genre has in fact had several bursts of popularity, with a rich literary history beginning when the frontier still existed in the late 1800s. Red Dead Redemption (hereafter RDR), while not the first Western video game—Wild Arms, Call Of Juarez and RDR’s spiritual predecessor Red Dead Revolver all came first—was the first Western video game to have such a significant cultural impact. Continue Reading →

First Person Podcast Episode 32

Romance in Gaming

Lia Black and Sarah Stang

This month on the First Person Podcast, we sit down with Lia Black, and Sarah Stang for Valentine’s Day to discuss their hot takes on romance in gaming. What are their video game crushes? What makes for a good romance narrative? What should we be seeing more of in our romance titles? All these questions and more will be answered on this episode of the podcast. Continue Reading →

To Bloom New Possibilities

Atlus's Hypocritical Portrayals of LGBTQ+ Narratives in Catherine: Full Body

Anne Ladyem McDivitt

While there was hope that Catherine: Full Body could fix the narrative issues from the original, it does the exact opposite. Catherine (either version), in essence, is a game where you play as a character who is -phobic and misogynistic, surrounding himself with others who mostly think like him. Vincent is sleazy, but we are encouraged to support his quest since he is the “hero” of the game. However, Vincent rarely learns that his behavior is abhorrent—the only time he has repercussions for his actions are in the “bad” endings of the game, and even then, there is no indication that Vincent would change anything about his behaviors. Continue Reading →

Educational Board Gaming and Counter Politics

A Short History of the Election Game

Anton Oehmsen-Clark

The election simulator, borrowing nearly all of its mechanical traits from the Eurogame, is primarily about indirect player competition. The primary difference between these two genres is the election simulator’s simulation of voter manipulation. Regardless of why this genre has received so little attention, it is my contention that critical game scholars should include this genre as a part of the discourse on educational and historiographical game designs. What follows is a brief history of the intersection between educational board gaming and the election simulator with a discussion of the game Shasn as a case study. Continue Reading →

Where Are the Disabled Sims?

Danielle M. Marascalchi

I am talking about disabilities. In a game franchise that is centered around simulated living, the creation of a universe intended to mimic the real world in which players can be and do and create whatever they wish, the utter lack of disabilities seems at best odd and at worst a willful neglect of a community that already sees a lack of representation in modern media. One in four adults live with a disability in the United States – 61 million people (CDC, 2018). The Sims has never been more inclusive to its player-base; this is why the exclusion of a major population seems so abrasive. Continue Reading →

Interview: Melos Han Tani

Christopher B. Patterson

Melos Han Tani (formerly Sean Han Tani) is a game designer from Chicago of Taiwanese, Japanese and Irish descent, currently living in Tokyo. He created the game All Our Asias (2018), and is one of the two members of his game studio Analgesic Productions, which made Anodyne (2013), Even the Ocean (2016) and Anodyne 2: Return to Dust (2019). From 2016-2019 Sean was a game design and game music lecturer at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Continue Reading →

First Person Podcast Episode 31: 2019 Game of the Year

Chris Lawrence, Lia Black, and Patrick Dolan

This month on the First Person Podcast, we sit down with Chris Lawrence, Lia Black, and Patrick Dolan to discuss their all time favourite games of 2019. How have these games impacted the genre? What function do their narratives play through social commentary? We also talk about prospective games on our list for 2020. Continue Reading →