“Press A to Shoot”

Pokémon Snap-Shots and Gamespace Ownership

Alexandra Orlando and Betsy Brey 2 Comments

Drawing from the international popularity of the Pokémon series, Snap repositions gameplay from the role-playing mechanics of earlier games. Due to its in-game mechanics and integrative real-world mechanisms, Snap shifts the definitions of digital subjects and photographers, illustrating the complex relationship of subject and shooter in digital photographic practices. Ultimately, the practices portrayed in Snap prove to be deeply imbalanced experiences in terms of power dynamics, complicated by the popularity of the Pokémon series which encouraged players to “catch ‘em all.” These competitive practices extended beyond digital spaces with the intersections of print and digital photography and the gamification of photographic practices as taught and presented by the game. Continue Reading →

Link Dons the Mask of Truth

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask’s Postmodern Critique

Chris Lawrence

It’s lonely at the top of the mountain. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has reigned supreme more or less uninterruptedly as the Greatest Game of all Time in popular culture for nearly two decades. Other challengers have periodically risen from the masses (The Last of Us, Journey, whatever GTA game came out last, etc.), but the conversation always finds its way back to Ocarina. Conversely, Nintendo has been accused of sitting on its creative laurels with nearly every Zelda game they’ve put out since Ocarina. It’s an unenviable position: how do you navigate the already precarious balance between convention and innovation when the foundational title you put out ten sequels ago remains such an enduring sacred cow? Continue Reading →

Intimate Publics

Towards Creating Supportive Spaces for Women in Games

Emma Vossen

You may have caught a piece we ran last week that discussed GamerGate broadly as a movement. This commentary is Part 2 of that piece and examines the divisions between people who play games from a more personal perspective. In this part, I illustrate my experiences as a member of the Games Institutes Janes (GI Janes) here at Uwaterloo as fodder. Furthermore, this piece also discusses the new direction we are taking the Commentaries here at FPS. Continue Reading →

The Legend of Zelda

Hyrule Historia

Emma Vossen 1 Comment

Nintendo’s recent release of Hyrule Historia has the internet abuzz about Zelda timelines and character sketches. This piece of ephemera is obviously worth picking up for a die hard Zelda fan, but its use value for a game scholar is more questionable. The text does contain pertinent “facts” about the Legend of Zelda universe but I am still unsure how much this information will change perceptions of the series, or the scholarship around it. This review will examine the many different sections of Hyrule Historia in order to discern what such an official piece of metatextual “history” can offer. Continue Reading →

Where’s the Sex?

The Walking Dead, Sex, & Parenting in the Zombie Apocalypse

Emma Vossen

Just over a month ago, Robert Kirkman sat down for an interview on BBC America to discuss what makes his series The Walking Dead a transmedia success. Amid groans and jokes from other men on set, Kirkman spoke about his series for what it is: a soap opera. He explained that “Twilight is to Dracula as The Walking Dead is to Romero movies. I’m the Stephanie Meyer of Zombies. I watched Romero movies and I was like, yeah, but what if they had more kissing?” (BBC). Kirkman agued that it isn’t the zombies that make his comics and show so popular, but rather the traditional soap opera elements such as romance, betrayal, and sex. The zombies are merely the backdrop, the fictional conditions which make the show and the comic socially acceptable to like. Continue Reading →