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I’m going to try something new this year and keep my reviews a bit more brief. That’s going to be a challenge since Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games has such a rich offering of essays about many kinds of games and experiences. The essays address issues of race, class, disability, gender, sexuality, capitalism, militarism, mental health, grief, and so on. It’s a great range of topics, if skewing a little too positively towards the video game industry.
There is a ton to discuss, but I’ll try to give just a brief overview of the essays and highlight just a few of my favourite essays along the way, which evoked a sense of connection and shared nostalgia over games from the past and thoughtfulness towards issues in the present.
Elissa Washuta, a Native author from the Cowlitz people of Washington State, writes about The Last Of Us in “I Struggled a Long Time with Surviving.” She offers an Indigenous reading of the ethics and apocalyptic framework of the game alongside a more personal narrative of her choice to be sterilized despite a long history of forced sterilization of Indigenous people in North America.
“This Kind of Animal” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah sings the praises of Disco Elysium as a literary masterpiece, compelling me to play deeper into that detective RPG game with over a million lines of dialogue. There’s again a personal touch of trying to figure out his troubled relationship with his deceased father.
Max Delsohn’s “Thinking like the Knight” contrasts the lesbian idealism he savoured in Undertale with the more calculated and complex maneuvering of Hollow Knight, where every choice matters and which has taught him how to maneuver the world without taking a hit.
Keith S. Wilson offers the essay “Mule Milk,” which is a strange and engaging collage of thoughts about race, the environment, the existence of mules, slavery, pigeons, and Final Fantasy VI. It was a compelling case for reading race into the pixelated nostalgia of Final Fantasy VI. The central character, Terra, from one of my favourite Final Fantasy games ever, is presented as Black-coded and Keith reading his race into non-Black characters problematizes the industry while finding a beautiful, if troubled, identification in popular media. It’s a deeply thoughtful and somewhat oblique piece, perfect for academics.
“Staying with the Trouble” by Octavia Bright is a narrativization of discovering (and cheating through the age-barrier quiz of) Leisure Suit Larry on her uncle’s computer. It’s a compelling read and it speaks to a special time of Sierra adventure games while also that temptation of the illicit. Ultimately, Bright turns to the profound loneliness of the hypersexed game and the rules imposed on masculinity, eventually contrasting the game with Stray. It was excellent and poignant.
“Narnia Made of Pixels” by Charlie Jane Anders offers an overview of portal-fantasy films with a video game focus with some commentary on the way that game films reproduce capitalist logics of ownership of the system. It also touches on the possibilities for trans experience in such gaming worlds.
Jamil Jan Kochai’s essay “Cathartic Warfare” is an excellent reflection of being brown and seeing the slaughter of Afghan insurgents in Call of Duty. The essay is an excellent reflection of the militarism of games told from the perspective of someone who is depicted as the enemy and compelled to kill himself via the American army. I’ll be giving this one to my students for sure.
“The Cocoon” by Ander Monson is a thorough catalogue of all the Alien and Predator (and Alien Vs. Predator) games. The essay reads as a little excessive, offering full bullet points for all fifty (or more) games in the franchise but then leads to a discussion of connection with others.
“Video Game Boss” is a brief autobiographical comic where Marinaomi depicts the misogyny of the game industry and weighing the pros and cons of leaving and the sense of responsibility towards women in general.
There’s a fascinating essay about white supremacy and the resurgence of Viking-based media, from Assassin’s Creed to Dragon Age: Inquisition, offered by Vanessa Villarreal’s “In the Shadow of the Wolf.” It’s challenging to summarize but it’s a very good grappling with how white supremacy draws on false histories of Vikings.
If you’re more interested in capitalism and the time-and-money-suck of mobile games, Tony Tulathimutte’s essay on Clash of Clans, “Clash Rules Everything Around Me.” It’s another excellent meditation on the value of time and consideration of what counts as a waste of time and waste of money. It’s an excellent discussion piece that I will also be giving my students.
“The Great Indoorsmen” by Eleanor Henderson is a touchingly personal essay about trying to buy a Playstation 5 for her sons and what gaming together means for connection, particularly with reference to teaching each other secrets in Super Mario Bros. There’s also a moment about “cheating” when creating a save state (rather than having to start all over), which I think would be a great concept to explore further.
“I Was a Transgender Supersoldier” by Nat Steele is a fascinating re-reading of Halo as a trans narrative. There’s also a great shout-out to Word Rescue for MS-DOS, and I loved that little slice of nostalgia. The narrative is compelling—what does it mean to embody a faceless character? I think this is another one that could enrich my students.
“Ninjas and Foxes” by Alexander Chee is an interesting reflection on Ninja Gaiden Black and Jade Empire, considering depictions of Asian culture. He comments on the way that Japanese made games depict Asian characters as more Western and problematizes that there seems to be more authentic Asian representation (Chinese, Indian, Japanese, etc.) in a Western-produced game and what it means for his personal identity.
“No Traces” by Stephen Sexton is about identification with a character when playing games alongside someone else. He talks about how he and his friend played Metal Gear Solid together and how key moments took place where he didn’t know whether he was playing or whether his friend was playing and how in some ways it does not matter. There’s also a narrative about his friend’s secret connection to the IRA and it felt cohesive.
“Status Effect” by Larissa Pham, at its core, is about being able to measure our pain. Referring to Genshin Impact as its core text, Pham thinks about buffs, debuffs, and status effects in RPG games. It’s an attempt to reconsider depression as a status effect that is measurable and can be remedied and managed.
“Ruined Ground” by J. Robert Lennon is an essay about Fallout 76, the pandemic, and familial connection. The most beautiful moment in the essay, though, almost crushing in its beauty and sorrow, is when the author is playing online and most people have their mics off. One couple is playing and accidentally left their mics on and Lennon reproduces the conversation they had; they were both sick and they were trying to figure out how to not go to work, but having to go to work. It is so powerfully human and so sad, especially in the context of the pandemic.
The final essay in the collection, “We’re More Ghosts Than People” by Hanif Abdurraqib, is a complete knockout of an essay. It is part religious reflection, part grappling with grief, part about choices. It’s an essay about Red Dead Redemption 2 and consideration of the morality of the game. The central conceit of the essay is that while the author does not necessarily believe in heaven, he still has to believe in heaven for others and to try to help others. I identified a lot with the author’s desire to do good—I hate when games force me into ethically questionable positions. As an aside, in Grand Theft Auto 5, also produced by Rockstar Games, you are asked to kidnap an actor and then leave him in the way of a train to be killed to death, or you can let him out when he pleads for his life. I wanted to let him out, but you only get a “Trophy” for killing him. I find such moments really troubling. Abdurraqib’s essay ends with him, and Arthur Morgan of Read Dead Redemption 2, watching digital sunsets before either of them dies, refusing to finish the game a second time. It’s absolutely stunning and the perfect ending for the collection:
In my own orbits, in the center of trying to wrestle with my own goodness or badness was another option: complete stillness. I was most stagnant in my youth when I was trying to prevent myself from pursuing my lesser angels. My self-control is only a little better now, and so I do welcome the idling world, no matter how it comes and no matter how it might end up going. I find a type of salvation in holding patterns. Not one heaven, but many small, disparate ones. I sit on my couch for an hour without moving, and make a man sit at the edge of a cliff without moving, both of us watching a fake sky drown in color, both of us not yet sure when we’re going to die or how much time we have left. There are probably better ways to attempt the playing of God, but there are certainly far worse. (220)
Already, my ambitions to be more brief in my reviews have been thwarted. Hopefully the overview of the book entices you to read more. There were so many moving moments in the text, so much nostalgia and longing, so much hope and opportunity. It’s a profoundly human work for profoundly digital people.
Time to hit reset. Time to start again.
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