Walking in Two Worlds by Wab Kinew

  Well-known politicians often write books, usually about their career trajectories, the laws they passed, and / or shooting the beloved family dog. Two years before Wab Kinew was elected as premier of Manitoba, he published Walking in Two Worlds, a young adult fiction novel that I’m considering teaching in grade 9 English.

The big appeal of teaching Walking in Two Worlds is its relatability for a range of teenage experiences. Our main character, Bagonegiizhigok Holiday (Bugz) is an Indigenous girl who is a pro gamer and streamer for a virtual reality game called the Floraverse. I like the gaming aspect of the novel because it also provides the opportunity for some fantasy battles that I think would appeal to young people craving action scenes. Conversely, Bugz’ brother is a dancer at pow wows and impresses the folks on the reservation. With two worlds in the book, it gives a broader range of students the opportunity to connect—though the ‘real world’ sections are more prominent.

There’s another storyline, too. There’s a boy named Feng, a Uyghur sent from China to live on reserve with his aunt. He and Bugz develop a connection, despite Feng being part of an online gaming clan called Clan:LESS that targets Bugz. Indeed, the book starts with Clan:LESS teaming up against Bugz only for her to dominate them. The Clan:LESS group is essentially a group of white supremacist misogynists that want to take out the Indigenous girl and can’t stand that she’s better than them.

I like the idea of the online game being a focus, though it isn’t without some question marks. Number one: it is both a full-immersion virtual reality and a real-world crossover. The details are a little unclear on how it works. When you’re not in the game, it seems to play for you. Also, if you die in the game you have to start over again, and it takes real money to develop your player. It’s a little hazy when Bugz is streaming and hearing and seeing all kinds of comments from her fans where those actually appear if she’s experiencing the game. It’s also a little implausible when Bugz takes out groups of opponents at once and, repeatedly, “hundreds of gamer tags went floating up.” It feels implausible, but we have to just sort of accept it because Bugz has access to a magical resource, a sanctuary that exists in the real world as an Indigenous sacred site, that doubles as a special site in the game.

I think the game is the more engaging of the storylines in the text, though it gets a little less attention as the book goes on. There’s some tension with The Alpha (Clan:LESS’ leader) and Feng, a measly underling trying to earn his place among this misogynist horde. It also seems a little implausible that he’d be friends with Bugz in real life, although maybe I’m just naive to think that young men can resist the temptation of the manosphere.

The book is a little bit on the nose and spells things out for the audience, but I suppose that’s okay for a young adult novel. There’s no ambiguity that Clan:LESS is in the wrong and that Feng needs to abandon the oppressive mindsets to reconcile with his real-world friend. There are a few things that grate on me as being both on-the-nose and stereotypical, but again, maybe that’s just speaking to the adolescent experience. Bugz, for instance, has a number of concerns about her weight; in the real-world, she’s a little overweight, while she made her avatar a hot badass girl with a thin waist. There’s also a sequence in which Bugz considers suicide, indeed goes so far as hanging the noose, and I feel a little uncomfortable with how direct the planning and execution are depicted in the book. The discussion of the Uyghurs and Chinese Islamophobia is also a bit direct, but helps to build a framework for broader issues in the world. The depictions of China and its government might not be entirely “fair and balanced” but maybe it will start a conversation.

The ‘real world’ storyline is a little less gripping to me. There are some interactions with mean girls, her budding romance with Feng, her anxieties about her weight, and so on. More importantly, Bugz’ brother has some health concerns and it’s revealed that he has cancer. The prognosis is not great. The support Bugz and her brother have for one another, though, helps to drive the story forward and leads to some moments of magical realism where they save each others’ lives.

The book touches on a number of key themes I hope to emphasize in the grade 9 English course: identity, community, and voice. It’s the story of a girl who finds herself through and in relation to her community and uses her voice to make a change in online spaces. The book drags a little in places, and the ending is a bit of a flop—we never see the big battle after Bugz’ resurrection—but overall the story is reasonably engaging. I think students would probably like it, but we’ll see how they feel about reading this one soon.

Happy reading!

Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle That Defined a Generation

        I have a vague recollection of commercials when I was a kid that repeated the line “Sega does what Nintendon’t” and the frantic discordant shouts of “SEGA!”. Blake J. Harris’ Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle That Defined a Generation explores that moment in pop culture, approaching the story from the context of journalism and historical analysis. It’s a nice companion to Jason Schreier’s Blood, Sweat and Pixels or Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry. The books collectively explore the ups and downs, the rivalries and tribulations of a burgeoning industry, recreating the drama of the era.

Console Wars in particular explores the key figures in the rivalry between Nintendo and Sega, documenting all the underhanded plays (mainly by Sega) to tackle the industry giant. Nintendo presented a more wholesome and family-fun image to Sega’s more irreverent and wildly juvenile approach. The tactics are pretty entertaining, and if you’re interested in advertising and marketing I imagine that the two of them present a case study replete with do’s and don’ts.

What is most surprising about Console Wars is how precisely it recounts the conversations for key figures. In that respect, the book is novelistic. For instance, the book opens with an account of Tom Kalinske on vacation at the beach with his family when Hayao Nakayama, the president of Sega Enterprises, approached him and asked him to fly back to Japan with him. Harris reproduces the conversation Tom had with his daughter and future colleague in its full tenderness and drama.

In fact, the book follows that approach consistently. It feels like every business meeting, sales pitch, public outburst, resignation, promotion, marriage proposals, etc. is provided with a word-for-word reproduction—so much so that at times it feels outright unbelievable. How would anyone possibly remember the exact words they shared in the heat of a conflict? Perhaps it speaks to the thoroughness of Harris’ research and creativity in style. Some details, I imagine, are recorded in official records—recorded speeches at E3, for example—while others would only be verifiable through multiple corroborative interviews. If a bit implausible, Harris’ approach is nonetheless compelling as a narrative.

In terms of the details, the ground Harris treads isn’t exactly new. A number of people have given their accounts of the famed console wars—it’s kind of amazing that the whole book spans only about 6 years in real life; a whole career seems to be crammed into a short half-decade. The strength of the work is in its depth. Harris covers a lot of detail, including specific campaigns and movements. The book documents the highlights of different generations of consoles and the public response. From Super Mario to Donkey Kong Country to Sonic the Hedgehog to Night Trap to Mortal Kombat, the book runs the gamut of gaming landmarks. Harris documents the drama of developing a Sonic sequel and the internal conflicts between Sega of America and Sega of Japan, with the latter sandbagging the marketing gimmicks to the frustration of poor Tom Kalinske.

The book uses the console wars as a jumping off point to examine broader industry movements, including the legalities of violence in games and the push to create the ESRB rating system. It also documents the formation of Nintendo Power and the inaugural E3 conference. It’s compelling to see how the strife of the time period led to creation and flourishing of an industry, despite these rivals essentially trying to ruin the market share of one another.

Overall, the book isn’t anything groundbreaking. It doesn’t revolutionize the way I think about gaming, exactly, but the colourful cast of characters and the novelistic approach is very engaging as a story. It’s light, fun, and pretty informative. It hits the nostalgia buttons but also pulls back the curtain on how cutthroat and wild these fun colourful pastimes really were amongst adults while kids picked up the controller and demanded another try.

Happy reading and happy gaming, whichever side of the console war you fought for.

Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGs in the West by Aidan Moher

I experienced some of my first RPGs as a child: specifically, I adored Earthbound and Super Mario RPG as Super Nintendo classics. A little later, when the world of emulation opened my world, I think I first got drawn into the vibrant colour of Final Fantasy V and the joy of job changes, which changed the look of the sprites in fun and engaging ways. I think I got distracted partway through the game and started Final Fantasy VI and was literally astounded by its gorgeous artistry and lively cast of characters. In grade 8, I bought Final Fantasy VII and joined the ranks of the kids that became obsessed.

I’m in good company with Aidan Moher, who sounds like he had a similar experience as a Canadian teenage boy wrapped up in the world of RPGs and punk rock. Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGs in the West is a love letter to that experience. Part of what makes the project work is that Moher takes a few paths when describing these games, allowing personal memory and experiences parallel to reviews, historical notes, and commentary. Drawing from both his voice and the voices of others gives the text a well-rounded and complete view of the history of RPGs—or at least as complete as a survey can be.

There’s an episode of The Simpsons in which the children have a diorama competition. Principal Skinner reveals Ralph Wiggum’s diorama, which is a collection of in-package Star Wars figures. He exclaims: “Why, it’s Luke! And Obi-Wan! And my favourite: Chewie!” The enthusiasm in his voice is palpable and reading Fight, Magic, Items was a little like that for me: “Why, it’s Chrono Trigger! It’s Terranigma! It’s Eternal Sonata!” Even lesser-known titles get a place in his history. For the games I played, I felt that swell of nostalgia. For the games I hadn’t, I felt a curiosity to see how it fit in with the trajectory of the genre.

When it comes to describing this trajectory, Moher goes through a few threads that give the text a richness of detail. In describing the entries into the genre, Moher sometimes goes into detail about the development of technology to explain why games took the shape they did. Simultaneously, Moher includes details about the features or mechanics of games themselves and how they fit into, pushed, evolved, or revolutionized the genre. The title of the book highlights the rise of Japanese RPGs in the West, and I would say the book partly delivers on its promise to explain why cultural shifts empowered the Japanese aesthetic to ‘go global.’ It serves as a pretty compelling social and cultural history, so even if you’re not interested in JRPGs in particular, if you’re interested in video games there’s probably still enough here to latch onto—heck, even if you’re into anime, there’s some explanation of how it helped to push for Japanese culture in the West.

Like the journalist and author Jason Schreier, who is cited several times in the book, Moher weaves some pretty compelling narratives by drawing on particular figures in the world of game development. Moher provides brief profiles of game developers and tells some interesting anecdotes of their ups and downs. The creators of Dragon Quest and Suikoden and Fantasian Neo Dimension and Kingdom Hearts all get their due. Also, here’s a weird and wild fact that somehow makes perfect sense: author Haruki Murakami is connected to Earthbound because the creator of Earthbound Shigesato Itoi co-authored a short story collection with Murakami. The book is full of fun little tidbits like that.

Moher’s book does critique very well. He has a knack for highlighting what is best in these games. He explains why different games work—or, when the games are sub-par, at least aspects of why they work or what makes them significant. He comments on tone, characterization, plot, mechanics, immersion, music, and other hallmarks of good game design. For games that flopped, Moher identifies some reasons that they failed but still finds some reasons for praise. He’s got a generous, appreciator’s eye.

If there’s an area I’d like more of, it’s the analysis and interpretation of games. Granted, that’s not really what this book is. We’re dealing with history here, not philosophy or criticism. Still, when discussing Nier Automata’s multiple endings, repetition, and humanity, I would have loved to have gone more in-depth with the philosophical implications. There is some social commentary, like when discussing the all-male party of Final Fantasy XV and, rather than bemoaning the lack of representation of women in gaming, takes a moment to appreciate a game that shows male friendship, vulnerability, and connection. It’s maybe a bit generous, but nonetheless it gives some considerations for the impact of different game features.

Fight, Magic, Items is a gentle, informative non-fiction read. I’m tempted to think of it as a beach read, even. It inspires the nostalgia of childhood and a curiosity for the games I’ve missed. It gives me an appreciation for the underdog story JRPGs have had in the West and makes me really appreciate the diversity of the genre that’s out there. Guess I gotta get gaming.

Happy reading gaming reading!

Super Nintendo: The Game-Changing Company that Unlocked the Power of Play by Keza MacDonald

  Some of my fondest video game memories are with the Super NIntendo Entertainment System: from Contra 3 to Super Mario RPG to Earthbound, the system had so many memorable experiences. With that in mind, I thought I would check out Keza MacDonald’s Super Nintendo: The Game-Changing Company that Unlocked the Power of Play. In all honesty, I expected the book to be more focused on the SNES, but the book is more of a retrospective of some of Nintendo’s landmark franchises across times and consoles, including Donkey Kong, Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, Pokemon, Kirby, Wii Sports, Animal Crossing, Super Smash Bros, and Splatoon.

Towards the end of the book, MacDonald makes a comment about the book being more descriptive than analytical, which I think is accurate. I would have appreciated some more exploration of the significance of particular games or analysis of their core themes. In the conversation about Animal Crossing, MacDonald does discuss the historical factors that made the game explode. It had been a franchise that faced a lot of skepticism and only really made a name for itself when Covid hit and the cozy game industry exploded, allowing people to connect even when in isolation. More historical and cultural commentary on the games would help me to connect with the overall narrative for what Nintendo is accomplishing as a company.

One thing I will say is that the book does prove inspiring for some of the franchises I’m less familiar with. The discussion of Metroid makes me want to revisit the series in more depth and the history of Kirby’s genesis is a lighthearted and joyful experience. MacDonald focuses mainly on NIntendo-driven franchises and acknowledges that there were so many innovative and interesting games (including Earthbound) that got no mention; there are a series of brief descriptions of some landmark games made by third parties and I’d love to delve more into some of those.

Super Nintendo: The Game-Changing Company that Unlocked the Power of Play essentially presents a thesis that Nintendo as a company has continuously been an innovator and that fun always comes first. They run themselves like a toy company rather than a games company and have continued to grow by allowing ideas to flourish. MacDonald does, however, express some skepticism about the ongoing success of the company. Essentially, the concern is that Nintendo will commit too much to extant franchises without pushing the boundaries. There is an element of risk that they need to lean into in order to stay relevant.

MacDonald’s book is a casual read that is a nice stroll through memory lane with some insight into why Nintendo has been successful. It’s a fun, if light, experience that makes me want to go back to the good old days of waking up at 7 a.m. on the weekend to play a game I’d rented before having to return it.

Happy reading!

Good Game, No Rematch: A Life Made of Video Games by Mike Drucker

  I continue to find myself compelled to read books about video games and people reflecting on their experiences. As such, I’ve most recently read Good Game, No Rematch: A Life Made of Video Games by Mike Drucker. The book is exactly as it professes: it’s a collection of Drucker’s memories and experiences of games.

The tone is mostly light and jokey—Drucker is a comedian, after all—as Drucker recounts anecdotes like showing up to his crush’s house in a homemade Super Mario 3 costume. There are some overtly comedic interludes, like a series of bad summaries of famous games or mock Steam reviews. There are also some moments of surprising tenderness, too. In one chapter, Drucker tells the story of his sister having a party at their house and his video games being stolen. His dad, at this point in the book, had been continually described as distant and uncomprehending to his son’s passion for games. When Drucker cried over his stolen copy of Street Fighter 2, his dad drove him around town and spoke to store employees, putting his pride on the line and asking or begging for a discount to replace his crying son’s game.

The most powerful chapter, in my view, is the one that got the most serious. Perhaps it’s because so much of the book is written in an overtly comedic tone that when Drucker describes the loss of his friend and their connection over the game Nier Automata, it hits hard. His friend was in a horrific car accident that killed her boyfriend and left her with serious challenges for the rest of her life. She developed other health complications and passed away. Drucker juxtaposes the story of their friendship and the loss of her alongside the existential themes of Nier Automata, a game that has 26 endings and, if you get the best of them, asks you to delete your save file. It’s a game about loss that serves as a tragic partner to Drucker’s memoir.

Granted, books like this are partially nostalgia bait. When I hear Megaman, my ears perk up, when someone references Silent Hill 2 I feel that special kind of magic that brings me back to my attic bedroom in Kingston, navigating the unsettling foggy streets. I recognize that my extant interest in games draws me to books like this and it’s okay to read a bit of fluff once in a while, right?

What was kind of cool is that Mike Drucker was unknown to me before I started the book, but has actually had a pretty prolific career. It was kind of cool to hear about how his writing career took off. He wrote for Saturday Night Live, he worked for Nintendo doing localization work (so cool!), he did reviews for IGN, did stand-up comedy, worked on a few other shows, including Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and others. A surprising side effect reading about video games was getting to hear a bit more about the process of developing a career in both comedy writing and video games.

I don’t really have a ton of commentary for this one. Good Game, No Rematch is a collection of accessible, generally humorous, stories. It felt like a light read and it was a nice trip down memory lane for myself while learning about Drucker, too.

Happy reading! Insert coins to continue.

Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry by Jason Schreier

  This is not my first Jason Schreier book and I hope it won’t be my last. Making a name for himself with Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, Schreier now offers a compelling follow-up to the volatility of the market with Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry. Each chapter focuses on a studio or developer and how the forces within the industry that led to their rises and falls.

What really stands out to me about the book is that Schreier really knows how to tell a story. Going beyond the scope of regular reportage, every interview and board meeting and game release is imbued with a sense of high drama. On occasion, I was familiar with the games being discussed (Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite get particular attention; XCOM and the Firaxis team is a particularly tragic tale). Schreier’s ability to balance first hand accounts, raw data, and narration makes the stories riveting and dynamic. These could be presented as timelines or dry nodes on a path to a bigger picture, but Schreier’s voice engages readers far beyond the facts.

I’ll have to admit that I don’t remember most of the details from each of the chapters. I was along for the ride, but my memory is pretty faulty when I don’t take notes. Some of the trends that emerged across contexts were conflicts between executives and developers, budget adjustments and restructuring, teams working on projects piecemeal, and other kinds of corporate challenges. Schreier really exposes the challenges of being a game developer—beyond the regular effects of crunch and burnout, the number of times that developers find themselves unemployed is wild. Studios get closed and employees get reshuffled. Employees get jobs and move across the country for a year or two only to watch projects fall apart. Employees finish a project they’ve worked on for years and find the next day that they’ve been laid off. Teams get collapsed or rejigged and people get lost in the shuffle. It’s intense and it’s unpredictable. The book tells stories of individuals in the broader context of an industry that is routinely exploitative, exploitative as a matter of course. Hopefully this book serves as the impetus for widespread unionization, but I’m not holding my breath for now. 

Unfortunately, I don’t have many notes to extend this conversation. All I can say is that Press Reset was a wild ride that was both informative and entertaining. Since Schreier has a knack for finding the emotional core of the story; the ‘angle’ he finds and the way he digs in makes something as commonplace as turning on a video game console into an epic tale of betrayal, desperation, and empowerment.

It’s definitely worth a shot.

Happy reading!

Kill the Overseer! The Gamification of Slave Resistance by Sarah Juliet Lauro

    Video games offer a unique space to engage in social commentary and discourse. While video games are often seen as passive, they are one of the only artistic mediums that literally force the audience to engage in an active way by applying their skills or exploring or solving puzzles and so forth. This creates a space that proliferates meaning and interpretations, especially when games offer multiple paths for players. Moreover, video games offer a strange space wherein you are both yourself-as-audience and yourself-as-character, which leads to issues of representation and ethics.

    Enter Sarah Juliet Lauro and her short collection of essays Kill the Overseer! The Gamification of Slave Resistance. She takes a look at the power of video games to represent slave revolts in particular and considers the ethics of commodifying the experience of enslaved people for the purposes of entertainment. The collection is a pretty cool exercise in close reading the formal elements of a series of games while offering insights about race, racism, history, commodification, and appropriation. Juliet Lauro offers a particularly engaging exploration of the constraints and limitations that frustrate gameplay while simultaneously preventing the over-identification of players with enslaved avatars, maintaining a critical distance and ensuring that the unfathomable horror of slavery is not rendered palatable as an entertainment product.

    In the earlier chapters of the book, Juliet Lauro looks in particular at educational video games targeted towards school children and how they engage with narratives of slave revolts. An interesting detail is that some estimates reflect that one out of ten slave ships were subject to violent uprisings from their human cargo, which seems to get dismissed in discourses about slavery. Then, when educational games emulate slave resistance, they prioritize nonviolent means of escape. In discussing the game Freedom!, an Oregon Trail-like game, she notes that “There are hints that the playable character [...] may be able to fight back against the slavecatcher, and he or she can obtain a butcher knife from a house-slave in the first level, but I personally have had little success initiating any play that didn’t involve running or hiding” (13). She generalizes that educational games “may enumerate various resistive strategies, but they privilege the nonviolent option of flight from the plantation as the player’s central quest” (13). She points to a moment in the game The Underground Railroad: Escape from Slavery in which Nat Turner’s picture is shown and it alludes to the face that some slaves resisted with force, burnt crops, or poisoned their masters, but all without naming Nat Turner explicitly.

    Juliet Lauro makes the case that our understanding of the history of slave resistance is limited by the fact that documents were written by their biased oppressors. The central problem, then, is “how to study these histories without repeating the violence of the reduction of people to statistics” and the author acknowledges that “it is equally imperative that we find a way to represent these histories without further commoditizing historically enslaved people by either reducing them to an object of play or an empathy exercise” (87).

    As we progress through the text, the essays shift from education to entertainment and from point-and-click exploration to increased level of interactivity. We also get into an interesting dilemma wherein it is acceptable to recreate narratives about slavery but the value of depicting these narratives is by frustrating the audience’s expectations of agency. This appears in educational games where escape seems nearly impossible or cyclical where the game restarts ad infinitum and where there is frequent switching between first, second, and third person perspectives, to serve as reminder that the enslaved character is not the person playing. Juliet Lauro brings in discussions of cutscenes, dialogue options, alienating language, different costumes, unwinnable situations, glitches, and so on, that all frustrate the players of slave resistance. The argument is that these conditions force the player into a situation wherein choices are impossible or that their outcomes fundamentally fraught, replicating aspects of the experience of those fleeing slavery. The final pages of the book offer a clear summary of the central argument. I offer two passages here that summarize the central claims of the book.

By withholding the subject position of the rebel slave from the player in important ways, such as interrupted immersion, the form of the videogame can acknowledge the broader insufficiency of the historical record. This might be achieved, in other media, by making use of the white space of the canvas, or the blank page, or aural silence, or a narrative gap, or a breakdown in meaning. But here, the medium can underscore the player’s separation from the historical subject through its use of false or limited interactivity. I would like to suggest that the videogame is an apt space in which to acknowledge the epistemological gap concerning the historical reality of slave resistance; it points to the insurmountable distance between the historical person and the player. (88).

In this study, we’ve examined various formal devices, such as limited interactivity and operationalized weakness, disorienting uses of perspective, and the illusion of choice. We’ve interrogated the playable character’s shifting abilities, the uses of untranslated language in videogames, and aspects of the game that are beyond either the player’s or the developer’s control, like glitches and fanshared rumors. We’ve looked at educational games intended for use in the classroom, mainstream video games that aim to entertain, and an incomplete video game that lives only online in demos and the articles that anticipated its ever-deferred release. This last example may be the best embodiment of the digital narrative that withholds itself from the player, stillborn. Just as the historical rebel slave resisted her own commodification, these games (over and above the intentions of the developers) productively refuse to allow the player mastery of the subject.

With these passages, Juliet Lauro offers a clear and accessible review of her central arguments. I find the close reading of games particularly effective. As she examines the form of very different games, ranging from Oregon Trail to Assassin’s Creed, I find that she offers compelling and accessible observations to build a case. There are references throughout to other articles that also warrant more attention but this books stands alone as a tight collection of essays that model how to engage in cultural critique using video games. While the implications of identification with historical enslaved subjects could be further defined (why is this research necessary now?), if you take it on trust that issues of representation are important, than Kill the Overseer! Stands out as a really engaging manual for using video games as a form worthy of social critique and theoretical discussion.

Happy reading!

The Gaming Mind: A New Psychology of Videogames and the Power of Play by Alexander Kriss

  In 2023, I read Getting Gamers by Jamie Madigan, which uses psychological principles and experiments to explain why people who play video games play the way they do and how they engage with one another. I found it a really illuminating text and I’ve been looking for other texts that delve into analysis of video games, their impacts on player behaviour, and so on. To that end, I decided to read The Gaming Mind by Alexander Kriss. Kriss is a clinical psychology with an interest in video games, but his approach is largely the inverse of how Madigan approaches interpretations of gamer behaviour.

Rather than taking a look at how games influence our behaviour, Alexander Kriss holds up the mirror: how do our gaming behaviours reflect our other habits of mind? For instance, how does a woman’s obsession with Candy Crush speak to the lack of control she feels over her life? How does our relationship with violence impact how we engage with games?

The best part of the book—or at least the part I found most engaging—was the opening chapter: “Me, You, and Silent Hill 2.” The opening chapter establishes Kriss’ experience as a psychoanalyst and how he is made responsible for the “gamer kid” who needed help, and whose therapist-group-assigned moniker required deconstruction. Running parallel, Kriss establishes his own coming to terms with the “gamer” label for himself, beginning with his experience of playing Mist with his father, his coming into the Tomb Raider series and Ape Escape. While playing games, Kriss developed a friendship with another boy—one less interested in gaming—who later took his own life.

From there, the chapter discusses Silent Hill 2, which I already find deeply engrossing and rife with possibility for analysis. Kriss provides a beautiful account of the game’s haunting premise and analysis of the characters. What is really most compelling is Kriss’ discussion of the eight multiple endings of the game. To unlock different endings, there are different conditions, including inconsequential actions like how many times you inspect the photo of your deceased wife in your inventory. One of the endings is James, the main character, killing himself. To unlock that ending, you have to play the majority of the game at low health. Kriss explains how he could never play the game that way and never cope with the prospect of the central character killing himself at the end. It’s a stunning and sincere discussion of our relationship to depression and mental illness and the way our game behaviours can give a window into the player.

That first chapter wowed me. From there, the rest of the book was good but didn’t quite hit the same highs for me. Perhaps because the case studies are more focused on the patient rather than critique of games, or perhaps because the games referenced haven’t been part of my gaming repertoire. The chapters deal with violence, addiction, health, treatment of others in multiplayer games, and so on. There’s a lot to work with, but your enjoyment of the book will probably depend on what resonates with you at the personal level.

Either way: happy reading. Happy gaming!

Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games by Robert J. Lennon and Carmen Maria Machado

  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.