Category Archives: Games and Gaming

Stagnation

Posted on April 3, 2013 by Timothy Burke

By now, I think everyone knows that the new Sim City is a flaming car wreck, the gaming equivalent of Ishtar or Hudson Hawk, the kind of misfire that raises serious questions about its corporate creator and the entire industry. … Continue reading →

Posted in Games and Gaming | 3 Comments

Hell Is Other Gamers (And Some Games)

Posted on August 2, 2012 by Timothy Burke

Game developers talking about “culture” are often deeply frustrating. Either they are overly credulous about how design directly and symmetrically can create a particular set of cultural practices and outlook within a game, as my friend Thomas Malaby has observed … Continue reading →

Posted in Digital Humanities, Games and Gaming, Oh Not Again He's Going to Tell Us It's a Complex System | 1 Comment

The Work of Criticism

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Timothy Burke

Jumping straight out of my Twitter feed about THATCamp Games, I want to work a bit more on a reaction I had to a morning panel on teaching games in a higher ed class. I heard a pretty strong strain … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Digital Humanities, Games and Gaming | 5 Comments

Move the Data Server-Side! Occupy Sanctuary!

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Timothy Burke

Three things about Occupy, two short, one long. 1) Occupy is already a success if the model is to provoke reaction from its chief targets. It’s hard to imagine pundits passing up the chance to comment on anything: the 24/7 … Continue reading →

Posted in Games and Gaming, Oh Not Again He's Going to Tell Us It's a Complex System, Politics | 7 Comments

Out, Out Damned Spot

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Timothy Burke

Is there anything more grating than an interpretation whose language slips and innocently anoints its analysis with the status of a fact? I’m sure I noticed this pattern in the letters to the editor in this week’s New York Times … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Games and Gaming, Popular Culture | 6 Comments

Blizzard Is CLU

Posted on January 13, 2011 by Timothy Burke

x-posted to Terra Nova I don’t understand why Tron: Legacy has come in for so much critical abuse. I like it as much as my colleague Bob Rehak does. Just taken as an action film, it’s considerably more entertaining and … Continue reading →

Posted in Games and Gaming, Popular Culture | 2 Comments

Mimesis and Interactivity

Posted on January 6, 2011 by Timothy Burke

Here comes a bunch of blogging! Fasten your seat belts. ================ So yes, we got a Kinect at our house. I am the very model of the modern gamer tech geek. As an incremental change to the wand-driven interface design … Continue reading →

Posted in Games and Gaming, Popular Culture | 3 Comments

The Gathering Twilight, Part the Second

Posted on January 13, 2010 by Timothy Burke

Gary Jones at Muck and Mystery takes on a piece about Jaron Lanier’s new book that caught my eye as well. My negative reaction to Lanier’s views wasn’t quite as strong as Gary’s was, but I had some similar feelings. … Continue reading →

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Dragon Age

Posted on January 12, 2010 by Timothy Burke

I finished a full run through Bioware’s Dragon Age. I’ve always liked Bioware’s approach to RPG design, and this is definitely their best to date. Not because of the setting, which is at times painfully generic or derivative. (The dwarven … Continue reading →

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I Had to Burn the Park to the Ground to Clean It

Posted on October 1, 2009 by Timothy Burke

So my daughter and I were playing Scribblenauts for the first time last night. Based on our experience, I think it’s one of those rare digital games that people who don’t often play or like games will like. (As well … Continue reading →

Posted in Games and Gaming | 4 Comments