New Game Plus

Hey all. I want to pick your brains.

I’m taking a class on intermedia theory, and I’m deciding what to write my final paper on. I’d like to focus on remediation, the theory that new media mimics old form (like ebooks mimicking the printed page). I’m curious if there are any texts out there that mimic videogames. I was thinking about writing about how one could play the novel House of Leaves, and then bring in the DS game Hotel Dusk to discuss a game mimicking the presentation of a book (holding the DS sideways) and genre conventions of a mystery novel. (I haven’t played Hotel Dusk, but it would give me an excuse to check out a new game.)

My question for you all: any other texts (books, movies, games, otherwise) I should check out for my project? PC games are harder for me to play since I’m a Mac user, but I have access to pretty much any DS game, and am willing to rent or buy Wii and PS2 games.

I pirate games. I’m a bit afraid to openly admit it on the internet because I don’t know if saying so incriminates myself in some way, and I’m not sure if I’ll be reprimanded by my readers. I wanted to open discussion and see how my fellow radical gamers feel about pirating. I don’t want to hurt my friends who work in the game industry, but I’m a cheap-ass, capitalism-loathing student and when I can remove myself from supporting multinational corporations. I’m also privileged and know it’s unlikely I’ll ever be punished for software piracy.

Where are you all at with pirating? What’s an anti-capitalist gamer to do?

I like videogame music. Big surprise, huh? I hear enough of it when I play games, so when I’m walking around with my headphones on or burning a nerdy dance mix, I go for fan remixes of the songs from my favorite games.

I always assume that every gamer knows about videogame remixes, but come to think of it, more gamer friends than not have never heard of OverClocked ReMix when I tell them my favorite genre of music.

No surprise, most of the remixers I know of are guys, but there are women out there remixing game soundtracks. My absolute favorite remixer is a pianist named BogusRed. Check out her mp3s. Like most remixes, they’re free. My personal favorite is “Beyond Midgar.”

I got Metroid Prime 3 for Christmas. I haven’t really played much of the old Metroid games, but I figure it’s about time I get into the series because folks I trust rave about it. And I admit I’m intrigued by Samus and want to join the conversation on her gender with a little bit more authority. I left my Wii in Bellingham (I’m at my parents house, visiting), but I’ll post my thoughts once I have a chance.

Christmas was fun. I was showered in all the material goods I could ever want! I saw I am Legend with my parents and brother, and go figure, I wrote a blog post about it like I always do when I step out into pop culture.

I’m at my parents’ house for the holidays, and actually have time to go online and catch up on the old blogs I used to read.

Jeff on Feminist Allies writes in What Men Can Do Wednesday: Avoid Being the Hero that the need to be rescued is a gendered act. (And illustrates his post with some lovely pictures of knights and LEGOS.)

We all need to be rescued, from time to time. That’s what friends, lovers and family are for, in part. Our social networks are also, to some degree, our rescuers, our safety nets. There’s no shame in wanting to help people, or needing some help, gender be damned. However, men are trained from boyhood that they not only need to tend to their own needs, but they must rescue those women who need saving.

The “white knight syndrome” is replayed in videogames, where I, the player, embody the white knight in so many of the games I love, Legend of Zelda, the most of last ten years of Final Fantasy games, even Paper Mario. Growing up, living in stories through gaming in a way I couldn’t through reading books or watching films that replayed the same white male heroic trope, no wonder I expected it when I went into videogame communities as a confused and depressed teenager. As I recently wrote about in Cerise, the guys there were more than willing to step up, in a very gendered and possessive way, and be my fucked-up hero. And I wanted it.

And what’s it do to my gender identity, my self esteem, my confidence in my agency, being the hero when I game, and then entering a community of folks who share my hobby and becoming the one that needs to be rescued?

I finally updated my antispam plugins. I guess I never thought to, and just kept deleting the 40-60 spam comments and trackbacks that got through. Do the machines advertising the FF10 hentai know this is a gamer site, or throw that stuff all over the internets?’

Meanwhile, in real life, I made it through my first quarter of grad school and teaching unscathed. (I’m studying English.) The first quarter is supposed to be the hardest, but I still had time to join my university’s cycling team, keep volunteering at the foodbank, and maintain my extroverted lifestyle. I did, however, completely miss the passing of NG+’s two year anniversary. Oops.

I have no idea what’s going on in the world of gaming or game blogs. But at least I have been playing the darn things! (In the past I’ve been too busy writing about them.) As I’ve mentioned before, I’m playing Resident Evil 4 again with my copilot Meghann, this time on the Wii. We’re almost done and get to play the Assignment Ada mission soon. (We played RE4 on GameCube the first time, which left it out for some reason.)

I also borrowed Super Mario Galaxy from one of my classmates. I’m going to write a review for Cerise, but a preview: it’s an even more innovative stoner game that Katamari, but hella boring to play alone. My roommates and I have been working together on the same save file. Great bonding, and the second player even gets some action with the Wii remote.

Meghann and I put a few more hours into Resident Evil 4: Wii edition today, and I was thinking: Ashley’s really not that bad. It’s a lot easier to take her seriously now that we’re not playing through in her special outfit. (We took that picture with my digital camera because we couldn’t find a picture online.)

I haven’t played the other games in the series, but yeah, the whole premise of RE4 seems kind of petty. Like Diego Luna points out in his article Shotgun vs. Skirt: Gender in Resident Evil 4, Ashley’s helplessness is a sharp contrast to Leon’s manly manliness. But seriously, for a college student constantly shot at, kidnapped, and pawed on by zombies, she really keeps it together and does what Leon asks instead of panicking and running off. Her shrill cries for “Leon!” are reasonable enough–but what I find less reasonable is what a huge part of this game is a young woman being shot at, kidnapped, and grabbed.

There are a lot of scenes in which Ashley grunts and turns a crank, or the camera follows her as she crawls under tables. I don’t get if she’s supposed to be fanservice or what. Some of the searches that lead folks to my blog are trying to find Ashley porn. I really don’t think she’s very pretty. What is it–the school-girl outfit and big boobs?

For some reason, we still love RE4 anyways. Maybe there’s just something campy about how rediculous the story is. Gives us something to laugh about in between being terrified of the scary, scary monsters.

Remember when New Game Plus was just a new little bloggling? My friend and occasionally guest blogger, Meghann, and I played Resident Evil 4 as if we really could spare to spend 20 hours a week on that game. Well, almost two years later, we’ve both graduated and live in different cities, but we’ve picked up our RE4 (and pizza!) obsession again to play the game again on the Wii. Damn, Resident Evil 4 is still fun. Ashley is still annoying, too, but at least this time we didn’t accidently select her special pop sensation outfit. (No joke!)

I’ve also been playing Super Paper Mario. Not a lot to report there, ‘cept it’s fun enough. I like playing a level here and there, and Peach is actually playable and stands up for herself, but it’s no Thousand Year Door.

Hey all! I’ve got a darn good reason for not posting all month–I started grad school! I’m going to the same university as I did for my undergrad, but this time around I’m working on my MA in English Studies. As a part of my program, I just started teaching English 101 this week, which is an introduction to college composition course. I’ve spent the last two weeks getting ready for it.

My actual grad school classes start today, so we’ll see how it goes. And don’t worry, blogging and Cerise are still going to be a part of my life.

Hey everyone, Meghann here.

I think most of us know how huge the Harry Potter books and movies are and the widespread mania over each of them. It took me a couple years, but I finally surrendered and read all the books (available at the time) about a year and a half ago. With my induction into the world of Pottermania, I was excited when I found out there were Harry Potter games. I had played the first one with some kids I babysat, but beyond that I hadn’t experienced much else. To my delight, I found Harry Potter and the POA (Prisoner of Azkaban) at blockbuster for an unbeatedly low price. Being the cheap and frugal person that I am, I hurriedly bought it and brought it back to school with me.

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