#3 – Reflecting Reality

“We hear of games becoming ever more realistic, but maybe they’re just becoming more intricate fantasies. There’s a place in gaming for both documentary and drama, fact and fiction.”

Featured in Issue 3

Personal Computing: Desktop PCs have evolved from family tools to gaming behemoths, they’ve alienated some lifelong players in the process. Where did it go wrong and how can we fix it?
Second Hand Memories: Surfing the wave of technology is expensive, and for some players, the only option is to follow in its wake. Yet a ‘second hand’ relationship with games can be more enlightening than a first-hand one.
Patricia Tannis, Asperger, and Me: writer with Asperger’s disorder examines a character in Borderlands 2 with the same condition and sees a warped mirror of herself. Is Patricia Tannis merely a caricature, or a way to help us understand this condition?
Audio, Video, Disco: By emphasising visual effects at the expense of sounds, game developers have lost sight – or should that be lost hearing? – of the power of sound to affect and excite us. Music can be a game itself, and even broaden our musical tastes.
All the Mistakes I’ve Made: A player who has explored games through infographics and illustrations explores the diminishing appeal of these features through infographics and illustrations.

Reflecting Reality

Blood, Births and Backsides: If games are meant to provide escapist fantasy, what draws us to real-world simulations like The Sims?
Yokosuka, 1986: The 1999 role-playing game Shenmue has a pedantic fixation on realism, but instead of leading us into an uncanny valley, it helps us engage with its fiction.
The Documents of War: How do videogames contribute to the documentation of war and its culture, and are the effects desirable?
Kill the Pig: Why do we hesistate to kill animals in games, but not humans? A traumatic experience in Minecraft leads to a crisis of vegetarian faith.
The Stage of History: Videogames play loose with the historical record. What’s more important: accuracy, or authenticity?

Featuring articles by Cameron Kunzelman, Robbie Pickles, Jordan Erica Webber, Craig Wilson and Alan Williamson.

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