Feminist Moments in Games–Some Additional Writing

I was happy to work with my friend, the feminist pop culture critic Anita Sarkeesian, on this snappy list of five feminist moments in games for Matter. 

Unfortunately I haven’t had much occasion to write about Beyond Good & Evil or Thomas Was Alone, but I wanted to highlight the things I’ve written about the other games on that list.

First, Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery. Here is the video version of my review for GameSpot:

and the text review. I wrote then and still believe that S&S is “a beautiful and enthralling adventure that feels both archetypal and unique." 

(Music is a huge part of S&S, so here’s the track "Little Furnace” by Jim Guthrie. I think it stands on its own, but because of what it accompanies in the game, it gives me chills every time I hear it.)

Next, there’s The Last of Us: Left Behind, which won GameSpot’s Game of the Month in February of this year. I wrote the piece accompanying the announcement. The game is also prominently featured on my personal list of this year’s best games, where I wrote: 

The bond between Ellie and Riley isn’t just developed in cutscenes. The game takes mechanics that we’ve previously associated with fear and dread and brutality and recontextualizes them as the stuff of play, letting us participate in the moments they share. But the exceptional writing is also essential to our investment in these characters. Like real people, Ellie and Riley are scared and guarded, yearning to reveal things to each other but also terrified to ask for what they want. And when the two finally kiss, in a moment of honesty that Left Behind carefully builds up to and earns for its characters, the emotional release is extraordinary.

Left Behind is a beautiful and heartwrenching story about loss, and about the things that stay with you. It’s also a wonderful example of how AAA games can tell different kinds of stories, if they really want to.

And finally, there’s Gone Home. I reviewed the game for GameSpot. Here is the video review:

and the text review.

I also put the game at the top of my personal list of the best games of 2013, in which I wrote: 

In subtle ways, it reminds me of other games I’ve played. Myst, for instance, and Dark Souls, games whose environments I loved being in because I could feel the story they had to tell emanating from every surface. In Gone Home, that kind of environmental detail is done better than any game has done it. The house is empty, but it thrums with the energy of its inhabitants.

I love that Gone Home demonstrates that just as players of all genders can often find things to relate to in game narratives that focus on men, players of all genders–provided they’re open to it–can find things to relate to in stories that focus on women. Gone Home gives all of its characters, women and men, the gifts of humanity and complexity.

For me, 1995 and 2013 belong to Sam and Lonnie.

I continued to write about the game this year, in this post called back to the house on arbor hill, and in this post, perhaps my favorite thing I’ve written about the game, in which I discuss how the game’s structure contributes to its meaning and power.

Gone Home is a memory of love. Not so much a traditional love story that takes place (or pretends to take place) in the moment, it is about the significance of what happens in the moment after the moment has already passed. It is about how you can feel the past in the present, especially in certain places and in certain things. This is a huge part of why, like a part of my own past, it has stayed with me so much.

Gone Home is a living memory, a memory you can step into and walk around in, like many of our own memories. It is memories within memories within memories.