Video Games & Education

A retrospective on the surprising hit. In retrospect, 1997 was a phenomenal year for video games with the release of Final Fantasy VII, Mario Kart 64, Star Fox 64, Golden Eye 007, and Tomb Raider II. Notable franchises were launched with Grand Theft Auto, Fallout: A Post-Nuclear Role-Playing Game, Age of Empires (a personal favorite), and Everybody’s Golf. And, possibly, the first hunting game…

Have you ever felt the urge to peek into another person’s life? Many video games labeled as ‘walking simulators’ put players in a position to pry into the lives of others. This prying or snooping is usually in service to the overarching narrative and may involve piecing together a character’s past or determining when and why a character went missing. Walking simulators often present unique and…

Inventing Narratives as Gaming Practice

Video games provide space for the imagination When I was a teenager, I played a ton of Rollercoaster Tycoon. I was a theme park manager in charge of a slew of parks. It was my responsibility to keep the books in the green lest the stakeholders got antsy. This required planning for the future, considering the park’s design, and managing the experiences of my guests. There were a few times when my…

The Sphinx as Archetype: From Literature to Video Games

What is a screenshot? I could talk about technical definitions, like the one above, or I could take a more ‘fun’ route which may lead to a discussion of how I don’t believe in ghosts but Phasmophobia scared the crap out of me. It’s a Friday, and I believe in fun… screenshot: an image of the data displayed on the screen of a computer or mobile device. For me, the data displayed on a monitor or…

Press Start: Bringing AAA Games into the Classroom - In this post, I talk about engaging AAA games in the college classroom without requiring students to play these often expensive games. #gamesforlearning #digitalrhetoric

One of the greatest challenges of using video games in the college classroom is one of access. Games and the technology required to play them can be expensive, but issues of access go beyond the financial. What if some of my students don’t play games? What if Student A is only familiar with PC gaming but Student B only ever touches a keyboard with reluctance? When talking about video games and…

2018 in Games: What I’ve Played (so far)

With my time spent on summer vacation and the current E3 hype, I’ve had ample opportunity and reason to reflect on the games I’ve played this year along with the games I’m looking forward to starting. So I thought I’d write a bit about both today.

Games Played:

Sea of Thieves (Xbox One)

Sea of Thievesis one of those games I saw announced at E3 and thought, “that looks pretty awesome!” I’m of…

Two things happened within the past 24 hours which led me to this post: a conversation with a close friend and waking up this morning without guilt. I’ll get to both of those things, but first I want to explain the state of the blog.

Clearly, I haven’t been posting here as regularly as I did last year. I knew in the fall that I wouldn’t have as much time to play video games or to write about them…

30 Day Video Game Challenge: Day 13

Day 13 – Favorite Video Game Villain Far Cry 3‘s Vaas is, for me, the most memorable villain in the franchise. He’s a pirate lord. He’s volatile. And he’s intriguing. He’s more emotive than Far Cry 2‘s Jackal and more haunting than Far Cry 4‘s Pagan Min. On the surface, he appears to be psychotic—known for his definition of insanity. However, by the end of the game, players may see Vaas as a…

30 Day Video Game Challenge: Day 12

Day 12 – A Game You Hope Gets the Virtual Reality

Treatment Firewatch by Campo Santo is easily one of my favorite indie games, and I think it would make for an awesome VR experience. Firewatchis already such an immersive game with its carefully crafted characters, excellent dialogue/voice acting, and mysterious setting—I can imagine being drawn into the narrative and world even more through VR.…

30 Day Video Game Challenge: Day 11

Day 11 – A Game That Got You Through A Tough Time

I’ve talked about this a bit before, but The Elder Scrolls IV: Obliviongot me through some tough times. When I bought the game, I wasn’t feeling like I particularly belonged anywhere. I was an undergraduate student then and was struggling with some of my classes. My grandmother also passed away that fall—her death hit me especially hard. Being…

30 Day Video Game Challenge: Day 10

Day 10 – Game that Made You Pee Your Pixel Pants

You might not know this about me, but I find scary games, well, absolutely terrifying. Sometimes I enjoy being scared, but for the most part, I’d rather watch someone else tackle games like Outlast or watch a Let’s Play. The game that probably unnerved me the most is Resident Evil 7: VR. Of course my kind friend who owns PlayStation VR insisted…

30 Day Video Game Challenge: Day 9

Day 9: Favorite Handheld/Mobile Game Unlike some of the previous categories, this one was much easier to answer. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is one of my top games period, so it is easily my favorite handheld game. I played it on a well-worn and scratched Game Boy that technically belonged to one of my brothers. There was something about the tone of the game, the parallel worlds, that…

30 Day Video Game Challenge: Day 8

I had to really think about this one, and I’m still not certain about my answer. Was my earliest game Dr. Mario? Harvest Moon? Should I count Solitaire? In all seriousness, I think that Frogger and Centipede place in my earliest gaming memories. I can remember sitting in the living room, sometimes on the couch and sometimes on the floor with my legs crossed, playing on one of those handheld…

30 Day Video Game Challenge: Day 7

Harvest Moon released on the SNES in 1996. I’m not positive of exactly when I played it, but it must have been a few years after at my cousins’ house. Harvest Moon is one of those games I immediately connected with; it captured my heart and challenged what I thought video games could be. Having to step away from building up my farm and attempting to romance one of the townspeople when my mom said…

30 Day Video Game Challenge: Day 6

Day 6 – Game with Graphics/Art that Still Mesmerizes You I’ve never really played a game with art quite like Persona 5 and was immediately hooked by the style. The palette (featuring reds and black) is both bold and helps to portray the maturity of the game. Characters and settings are intricately designed and even the menus are distinctive in their style. And of course, due to the stylistic…

30 Day Video Game Challenge: Day 5

Day 5 – Favorite Retro Game Missile Command was released by Atari in 1980, a decade before I was born. Yet it is one of the oldest games I’ve experienced. I first played it on my grandmother’s computer. It’s funny to think now that my grandmother was a source of video games in my childhood, but in an unintentional way she was. She had one of those CD-ROM collections with something like 30+…