Carolyn was an editor for GameSpot.com for four years. She is now a freelancer covering video games. She lives in Berkeley.
By Carolyn Petit
Five Great Interactive Stories for At Home and On the Go This Summer
New Graphic Novel Questions Foundations of Gaming Culture
Let's Be Cops: Murder as Law Enforcement in 'Battlefield Hardline'
In Violent Video Games, the Gameplay Sends its Own Message
New Documentary 'Atari: Game Over' Digs Up Video Game History
Imagining Life in Neo-San Francisco for 'Read Only Memories'
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"content": "\u003cp>We often think of summer as a season for stories. A time to catch up on good books at the beach and to seek out the best offerings at the cineplex. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/series/summer-arts-guide-2015\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-10671038\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/SummerArtsGuide-2015-400x400-1-400x400.png\" alt=\"SummerArtsGuide-2015-400x400-1\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/SummerArtsGuide-2015-400x400-1.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/SummerArtsGuide-2015-400x400-1-32x32.png 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/SummerArtsGuide-2015-400x400-1-64x64.png 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/SummerArtsGuide-2015-400x400-1-96x96.png 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/SummerArtsGuide-2015-400x400-1-128x128.png 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/SummerArtsGuide-2015-400x400-1-75x75.png 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Traditionally, games don’t enter into our considerations when trying to decide which fiction might be most deserving of soaking up some of our summer hours, and there’s a good reason for that: games don’t always put much emphasis on story. Their narratives are often basically nonexistent (Pac-Man doesn’t need richly developed motivations to gobble up those ghosts) or something of a secondary concern, little more than an excuse for all the driving or shooting or whatever you’re doing in the game. Such stories aren’t typically very good and they don’t really need to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in the past few years, some games have started experimenting with ways in which interactive media can tell meaningful, worthwhile stories. Here are five games that involve you in stories that are worth experiencing, and with just one exception (\u003cem>The Last of Us: Left Behind\u003c/em>), they’re games that just about anyone can pick up and play and that don’t require any gaming experience or knowhow. The first two are mobile games you can play while soaking up some sun this summer; the latter three are for when you’ve had enough of being out and about and just want to relax at home for a while.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>80 Days\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inspired by Jules Verne’s classic novel of travel and adventure, \u003ci>Around the World in Eighty Days,\u003c/i> the game \u003ci>80 Days\u003c/i> puts you in the role of Passepartout, the French valet of Englishman Phileas Fogg, who wagers that he can circumnavigate the globe in 80 days or fewer. Full of elegant prose that’s very much in keeping with the spirit of Verne’s work, it also brings the people and places you encounter on your travels to life. Don’t expect Fogg’s penchant for the finer things in life to keep you insulated from real-world concerns, however; your journey is not always a smooth one, as political upheaval and tensions of brewing conflict between nations sometimes complicate your itinerary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/IMG_0210.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-10653723\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/IMG_0210-400x710.png\" alt=\"IMG_0210\" width=\"250\" height=\"444\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/IMG_0210-400x710.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/IMG_0210-338x600.png 338w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/IMG_0210.png 640w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\">\u003c/a>The game’s globe is geographically accurate but not historically so; the game’s 1872 is one in which automatons, airships and other technological marvels are becoming increasingly commonplace, and it’s a joy to share in Passepartout’s sense of wonder as he tells you of the amazing things he and Fogg find in each new city. You can make a real race of it, weighing all of your travel options in each city to determine which might get you around the globe the quickest, or you can savor the trip, taking detours to intriguing spots that are off the beaten path. Fogg has a lot of money riding on the wager, but in \u003ci>80 Days\u003c/i>, the journey is still far more important than the destination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(\u003ci>80 Days \u003c/i>is available for Apple devices, Android, and Kindle Fire.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Lifeline\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You get a message from someone named Taylor. “Hello? Is this thing working? Can anyone read me?” Taylor, whose gender is never specified, was an astronaut aboard a science vessel that has crash-landed on a moon, and you’re their only point of contact. You play \u003ci>Lifeline \u003c/i>by making a series of binary choices. Taylor is hoping against hope to find some way off of the moon, and looks to you for guidance. \u003ci>Lifeline \u003c/i>has only two things to work with–language and pacing–and it uses them both very well. Taylor paints a sometimes surreal, sometimes nerve-racking picture of the circumstances they find themselves in, and your communications happen in real time. If Taylor is sleeping, for instance, you won’t hear from them again for hours, and as your communications happen over the course of a few days, Taylor’s plight takes root in your mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/IMG_0207.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-10653724\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/IMG_0207-338x600.png\" alt=\"IMG_0207\" width=\"250\" height=\"444\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/IMG_0207-338x600.png 338w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/IMG_0207.png 360w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\">\u003c/a>It’s easy to feel as if Taylor is out there, stranded in space, while you go about your life. There’s no consequence for keeping Taylor waiting, but I found myself invested enough in their harrowing struggle for survival that I sometimes felt odd when I was ignoring notifications from my phone that Taylor was waiting for me because I was too busy talking to a friend. Where are my priorities?! Taylor is in danger!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As successful as \u003ci>Lifeline \u003c/i>is in making you feel invested in Taylor’s situation, it also feels limited by its format. There were times when the two responses available to me didn’t allow for the deeper expression of concern and compassion I would have liked. But even so, \u003ci>Lifeline \u003c/i>remains an effective example of interactive storytelling that might have your stomach twisting in knots worrying about the fate of someone who isn’t real, but who feels real.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(\u003ci>Lifeline \u003c/i>is available for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Gone Home\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Gone Home \u003c/i>is a game about place and time, and about what places can tell us about the people who occupy them. You play as Kaitlin Greenbriar, a 21-year-old college student who returns from a trip abroad to find her family’s Oregon home mysteriously empty. The only immediate clues about what might have gone wrong on this dark and stormy night are tearful, urgent messages on the answering machine (it’s 1995) from a young woman pleading to speak to your sister Sam. This may sound like the setup for a horror story, but \u003ci>Gone Home \u003c/i>only introduces such elements to subvert your expectations. What you actually piece together as you explore the house is a tale of love and self discovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Gone Home: Riot Grrrl Style Now\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/sqSbYsUalMQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The game is extraordinary not just for the story it tells but for how it’s told. It’s a game about memories, specifically Sam’s, and the memories of other members of the family, too. The Greenbriar household seems to thrum with the energy of those memories, because you come to understand the significance of the objects in each room, and through those objects you form an understanding of the family and their struggles. If you’re old enough to remember the 90s, then you might feel as if it’s about your memories, too; it evokes the period with such cultural precision that you may find your heart aching for twenty years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(\u003ci>Gone Home \u003c/i>is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Kentucky Route Zero\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Kentucky Route Zero \u003c/i>is a transcendent American road journey in five acts, though only the first three have been released thus far, with the remaining two expected within the next year or so. The narrative centers on Conway, a delivery truck driver for an antiques shop who is making his last delivery to an elusive address that requires him to locate and travel along the mysterious highway that gives the game its title. The America of \u003ci>Kentucky Route Zero \u003c/i>is recognizable as our own; it’s a place where capitalism has a human cost, where people live with crushing debt, and where changes brought about by new technology are leaving some people and their livelihoods behind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-10653725\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/Kentucky-Route-Zero-screenshot-4-1180x664.jpg\" alt=\"Kentucky-Route-Zero-screenshot-4\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/Kentucky-Route-Zero-screenshot-4-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/Kentucky-Route-Zero-screenshot-4-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/Kentucky-Route-Zero-screenshot-4-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/Kentucky-Route-Zero-screenshot-4-960x540.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/Kentucky-Route-Zero-screenshot-4.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\">But the game’s America is also one where the wondrous and magical can happen. Things occur on this journey that don’t make a literal kind of sense but that possess a dreamlogic that can take on shades of meaning in your head and heart that go beyond that which can be easily expressed or understood. This is a game full of people who are lost but still out there looking, and if you’ve ever been driving down a lonely highway late at night with a heaviness in your heart but you felt like there just might be something for you out there somewhere, then you’ll feel right at home on the Zero.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>The Last of Us: Left Behind\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few weeks ago, NPR blog contributor Adam Frank \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2015/04/29/why-video-games-matter/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">extolled\u003c/a> \u003ci>The Last of Us\u003c/i>, a harrowing and human 2013 blockbuster for PlayStation about an older man named Joel taking a teenager named Ellie across a near-future America in which a massive epidemic has brought about the collapse of society. \u003ci>The Last of Us \u003c/i>is a special game, a mainstream action hit that’s as concerned with character as it is with combat. But perhaps the best thing \u003ci>The Last of Us \u003c/i>has to offer is a roughly two-hour side story called \u003ci>The Last of Us: Left Behind\u003c/i>, which can now be downloaded and played on its own, without requiring you to own or play the original game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/left-behind.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-10653726\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/left-behind-400x225.jpg\" alt=\"left behind\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/left-behind-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/left-behind-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/left-behind-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/left-behind-960x540.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/left-behind.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In \u003ci>Left Behind\u003c/i>, you play as Ellie, and spend most of the game wandering an abandoned Boston mall with your friend Riley. Most games of this type are heavy on the action and use quiet moments of character interaction to break up the pace, but \u003ci>Left Behind \u003c/i>brilliantly inverts the balance, putting the connection between Ellie and Riley front and center. Rather than spending most of your time fighting off scavengers or infected humans in scenes of pulse-pounding danger, you spend most of your time playing with Riley — telling each other jokes, trying on masks in a Halloween costume shop, and taking silly pictures in an old photobooth. Though we only spend a short time with them, we get a full and complex picture of their relationship: they laugh together and play and argue, and like real people, they want things from each other that they don’t always know how to ask for. \u003ci>Left Behind \u003c/i>is a wonderful game in its own right, and also a thrilling example of how mainstream games can tell stories that put an emphasis on human connection, if they really want to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(\u003ci>The Last of Us: Left Behind \u003c/i>can be downloaded for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4.)\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>We often think of summer as a season for stories. A time to catch up on good books at the beach and to seek out the best offerings at the cineplex. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/series/summer-arts-guide-2015\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-10671038\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/SummerArtsGuide-2015-400x400-1-400x400.png\" alt=\"SummerArtsGuide-2015-400x400-1\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/SummerArtsGuide-2015-400x400-1.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/SummerArtsGuide-2015-400x400-1-32x32.png 32w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/SummerArtsGuide-2015-400x400-1-64x64.png 64w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/SummerArtsGuide-2015-400x400-1-96x96.png 96w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/SummerArtsGuide-2015-400x400-1-128x128.png 128w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/SummerArtsGuide-2015-400x400-1-75x75.png 75w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Traditionally, games don’t enter into our considerations when trying to decide which fiction might be most deserving of soaking up some of our summer hours, and there’s a good reason for that: games don’t always put much emphasis on story. Their narratives are often basically nonexistent (Pac-Man doesn’t need richly developed motivations to gobble up those ghosts) or something of a secondary concern, little more than an excuse for all the driving or shooting or whatever you’re doing in the game. Such stories aren’t typically very good and they don’t really need to be.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in the past few years, some games have started experimenting with ways in which interactive media can tell meaningful, worthwhile stories. Here are five games that involve you in stories that are worth experiencing, and with just one exception (\u003cem>The Last of Us: Left Behind\u003c/em>), they’re games that just about anyone can pick up and play and that don’t require any gaming experience or knowhow. The first two are mobile games you can play while soaking up some sun this summer; the latter three are for when you’ve had enough of being out and about and just want to relax at home for a while.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>80 Days\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Inspired by Jules Verne’s classic novel of travel and adventure, \u003ci>Around the World in Eighty Days,\u003c/i> the game \u003ci>80 Days\u003c/i> puts you in the role of Passepartout, the French valet of Englishman Phileas Fogg, who wagers that he can circumnavigate the globe in 80 days or fewer. Full of elegant prose that’s very much in keeping with the spirit of Verne’s work, it also brings the people and places you encounter on your travels to life. Don’t expect Fogg’s penchant for the finer things in life to keep you insulated from real-world concerns, however; your journey is not always a smooth one, as political upheaval and tensions of brewing conflict between nations sometimes complicate your itinerary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/IMG_0210.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-10653723\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/IMG_0210-400x710.png\" alt=\"IMG_0210\" width=\"250\" height=\"444\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/IMG_0210-400x710.png 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/IMG_0210-338x600.png 338w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/IMG_0210.png 640w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\">\u003c/a>The game’s globe is geographically accurate but not historically so; the game’s 1872 is one in which automatons, airships and other technological marvels are becoming increasingly commonplace, and it’s a joy to share in Passepartout’s sense of wonder as he tells you of the amazing things he and Fogg find in each new city. You can make a real race of it, weighing all of your travel options in each city to determine which might get you around the globe the quickest, or you can savor the trip, taking detours to intriguing spots that are off the beaten path. Fogg has a lot of money riding on the wager, but in \u003ci>80 Days\u003c/i>, the journey is still far more important than the destination.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(\u003ci>80 Days \u003c/i>is available for Apple devices, Android, and Kindle Fire.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Lifeline\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You get a message from someone named Taylor. “Hello? Is this thing working? Can anyone read me?” Taylor, whose gender is never specified, was an astronaut aboard a science vessel that has crash-landed on a moon, and you’re their only point of contact. You play \u003ci>Lifeline \u003c/i>by making a series of binary choices. Taylor is hoping against hope to find some way off of the moon, and looks to you for guidance. \u003ci>Lifeline \u003c/i>has only two things to work with–language and pacing–and it uses them both very well. Taylor paints a sometimes surreal, sometimes nerve-racking picture of the circumstances they find themselves in, and your communications happen in real time. If Taylor is sleeping, for instance, you won’t hear from them again for hours, and as your communications happen over the course of a few days, Taylor’s plight takes root in your mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/IMG_0207.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-10653724\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/IMG_0207-338x600.png\" alt=\"IMG_0207\" width=\"250\" height=\"444\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/IMG_0207-338x600.png 338w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/IMG_0207.png 360w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\">\u003c/a>It’s easy to feel as if Taylor is out there, stranded in space, while you go about your life. There’s no consequence for keeping Taylor waiting, but I found myself invested enough in their harrowing struggle for survival that I sometimes felt odd when I was ignoring notifications from my phone that Taylor was waiting for me because I was too busy talking to a friend. Where are my priorities?! Taylor is in danger!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As successful as \u003ci>Lifeline \u003c/i>is in making you feel invested in Taylor’s situation, it also feels limited by its format. There were times when the two responses available to me didn’t allow for the deeper expression of concern and compassion I would have liked. But even so, \u003ci>Lifeline \u003c/i>remains an effective example of interactive storytelling that might have your stomach twisting in knots worrying about the fate of someone who isn’t real, but who feels real.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(\u003ci>Lifeline \u003c/i>is available for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Gone Home\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Gone Home \u003c/i>is a game about place and time, and about what places can tell us about the people who occupy them. You play as Kaitlin Greenbriar, a 21-year-old college student who returns from a trip abroad to find her family’s Oregon home mysteriously empty. The only immediate clues about what might have gone wrong on this dark and stormy night are tearful, urgent messages on the answering machine (it’s 1995) from a young woman pleading to speak to your sister Sam. This may sound like the setup for a horror story, but \u003ci>Gone Home \u003c/i>only introduces such elements to subvert your expectations. What you actually piece together as you explore the house is a tale of love and self discovery.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Gone Home: Riot Grrrl Style Now\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/sqSbYsUalMQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The game is extraordinary not just for the story it tells but for how it’s told. It’s a game about memories, specifically Sam’s, and the memories of other members of the family, too. The Greenbriar household seems to thrum with the energy of those memories, because you come to understand the significance of the objects in each room, and through those objects you form an understanding of the family and their struggles. If you’re old enough to remember the 90s, then you might feel as if it’s about your memories, too; it evokes the period with such cultural precision that you may find your heart aching for twenty years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(\u003ci>Gone Home \u003c/i>is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>Kentucky Route Zero\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Kentucky Route Zero \u003c/i>is a transcendent American road journey in five acts, though only the first three have been released thus far, with the remaining two expected within the next year or so. The narrative centers on Conway, a delivery truck driver for an antiques shop who is making his last delivery to an elusive address that requires him to locate and travel along the mysterious highway that gives the game its title. The America of \u003ci>Kentucky Route Zero \u003c/i>is recognizable as our own; it’s a place where capitalism has a human cost, where people live with crushing debt, and where changes brought about by new technology are leaving some people and their livelihoods behind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-10653725\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/Kentucky-Route-Zero-screenshot-4-1180x664.jpg\" alt=\"Kentucky-Route-Zero-screenshot-4\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/Kentucky-Route-Zero-screenshot-4-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/Kentucky-Route-Zero-screenshot-4-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/Kentucky-Route-Zero-screenshot-4-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/Kentucky-Route-Zero-screenshot-4-960x540.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/Kentucky-Route-Zero-screenshot-4.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\">But the game’s America is also one where the wondrous and magical can happen. Things occur on this journey that don’t make a literal kind of sense but that possess a dreamlogic that can take on shades of meaning in your head and heart that go beyond that which can be easily expressed or understood. This is a game full of people who are lost but still out there looking, and if you’ve ever been driving down a lonely highway late at night with a heaviness in your heart but you felt like there just might be something for you out there somewhere, then you’ll feel right at home on the Zero.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>The Last of Us: Left Behind\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A few weeks ago, NPR blog contributor Adam Frank \u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2015/04/29/why-video-games-matter/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">extolled\u003c/a> \u003ci>The Last of Us\u003c/i>, a harrowing and human 2013 blockbuster for PlayStation about an older man named Joel taking a teenager named Ellie across a near-future America in which a massive epidemic has brought about the collapse of society. \u003ci>The Last of Us \u003c/i>is a special game, a mainstream action hit that’s as concerned with character as it is with combat. But perhaps the best thing \u003ci>The Last of Us \u003c/i>has to offer is a roughly two-hour side story called \u003ci>The Last of Us: Left Behind\u003c/i>, which can now be downloaded and played on its own, without requiring you to own or play the original game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/left-behind.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-10653726\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/left-behind-400x225.jpg\" alt=\"left behind\" width=\"400\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/left-behind-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/left-behind-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/left-behind-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/left-behind-960x540.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/left-behind.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In \u003ci>Left Behind\u003c/i>, you play as Ellie, and spend most of the game wandering an abandoned Boston mall with your friend Riley. Most games of this type are heavy on the action and use quiet moments of character interaction to break up the pace, but \u003ci>Left Behind \u003c/i>brilliantly inverts the balance, putting the connection between Ellie and Riley front and center. Rather than spending most of your time fighting off scavengers or infected humans in scenes of pulse-pounding danger, you spend most of your time playing with Riley — telling each other jokes, trying on masks in a Halloween costume shop, and taking silly pictures in an old photobooth. Though we only spend a short time with them, we get a full and complex picture of their relationship: they laugh together and play and argue, and like real people, they want things from each other that they don’t always know how to ask for. \u003ci>Left Behind \u003c/i>is a wonderful game in its own right, and also a thrilling example of how mainstream games can tell stories that put an emphasis on human connection, if they really want to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(\u003ci>The Last of Us: Left Behind \u003c/i>can be downloaded for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4.)\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>In the new video-game-inspired graphic novel \u003cem>Second Quest\u003c/em>, a young woman named Azalea who lives in a floating land with a mysterious history begins to see things most people don’t. Touching certain objects, she can glimpse their past, witnessing moments in the lives of other people who have also wielded those objects. But this ability also brings with it a different perspective on her world. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Knowing that not all is what it seems, Azalea starts questioning the conventional wisdom of her society, challenging the stories that say “this is why things are the way they are.” She has begun to suspect that maybe they don’t have to be that way, and that maybe the stories that say they do have to be that way are only told to convince people that this is the way things have to be. But as she dares to question the accepted truths of her world, she faces tremendous resistance. Challenging the status quo is a radical act, and not one that comes without a price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In October of 2013, the writer of \u003cem>Second Quest, \u003c/em>Tevis Thompson, suggested in a different way that maybe things don’t have to be the way they are. Earlier that year, the long-awaited, highly anticipated first-person shooter \u003ci>BioShock Infinite \u003c/i>was released to critical acclaim. It earned glowing reviews from every major gaming site, seemingly meeting or surpassing all expectations players might reasonably have for such a game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But what shapes our expectations for new games? Are our notions of what a game like \u003ci>BioShock Infinite \u003c/i>should or shouldn’t do shaped to some degree by game reviews that evaluate whether or not such games do or don’t do very specific things? Should we expect more? Can we even imagine games doing more?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10627480\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 270px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/sq2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10627480\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/sq2-270x600.jpg\" alt=\"Video games often present violence as the only viable option for confronting problems.\" width=\"270\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/sq2-270x600.jpg 270w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/sq2.jpg 330w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 270px) 100vw, 270px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Video games often present violence as the only viable option for confronting problems.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Thompson published a piece called \u003ca href=\"http://tevisthompson.com/on-videogame-reviews/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003ci>On Videogame Reviews\u003c/i>\u003c/a>, and in it, he used the critical reactions to \u003ci>BioShock Infinite \u003c/i>as a jumping-off point to challenge the entire state of mainstream video game criticism, and by extension, the larger gaming culture it simultaneously served and helped to sustain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The straight white male gamers so untroubled by \u003ci>BioShock Infinite\u003c/i>, whose ideology and privilege are in fact perfectly reflected in it, are just not up to the task of reviewing on their own. Their subjectivities betray complicity. It’s a dead end, the good old boys speaking to their bros, and only by diversifying in every way possible can the review community thrive,” Thompson wrote. “This means more women, more people of color, more queer and transgender folks, more reviewers from diverse social, economic, and cultural backgrounds that don’t neatly fit the lifelong gamer mold. Not simply because we need reviewers to match the shifting demographics of those playing games, but because diversity is of clear and obvious value to any community and any discourse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Given that I was working as an editor at a major video game website at the time, I read the piece with great interest, and not just because Thompson makes specific mention of my review of \u003cem>Grand Theft Auto V\u003c/em> and the reactions to that review. It was, for me, a challenging and exhilarating piece of work that illuminated new possibilities. It opened my eyes and encouraged me to ask questions about why we approach games in such a specific and predictable way. Thompson seemed to be pushing up against the established boundaries of video game criticism and video game culture, like a character in a video game pushing up against walls hoping to find a secret passage to a place that might offer a new perspective. The act struck me as an inherently hopeful one. He was saying: Things don’t have to be this way. There can be more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reading \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.secondquestcomic.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Second Quest\u003c/a> \u003c/em>some 18 months after the publication of \u003cem>On Videogame Reviews\u003c/em>, what struck me most is how, even though it’s a work of fantasy fiction and not a piece of criticism, in its pages you can still sense Thompson pushing up against the established norms, encouraging us to question the accepted conventions of game design and the assumptions that shape our perception of the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The book’s title is a nod to the 1986 game \u003ci>The Legend of Zelda\u003c/i>, which featured a second, more difficult quest that made enemies tougher and significantly changed the layouts of the game’s dungeons and the locations of important items. It’s a fitting title, not just because echoes of the Zelda mythos reverberate throughout \u003ci>Second Quest\u003c/i>’s story, but also because it is a story about the kind of new beginning that happens when you realize that things aren’t quite the way you expected them to be, and you start to see the world through fresh eyes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10627481\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 785px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/sq3.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10627481\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/sq3.jpg\" alt=\"Seeing the possibility of a new and different world can be scary.\" width=\"785\" height=\"385\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/sq3.jpg 785w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/sq3-400x196.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 785px) 100vw, 785px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Seeing the possibility of a new and different world can be scary.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Second Quest\u003c/i> is not set in the universe of Nintendo’s Zelda games, nor does it require any familiarity with those games or any other games to be understood and enjoyed. But the way it weaves elements from the Zelda games into its story of a young woman who starts to question the fundamental truths of her culture makes it clear that Thompson and his collaborator, artist David Hellman, are interested in encouraging gamers to question elements of gaming culture as well. Why do we simply accept that so many games present violence as the only way to solve a problem? Why do we accept so many narratives about brave heroes fighting evil and rescuing the girl without ever questioning how the narratives are constructed precisely to leave us with no room to ask questions about whether the bad guys are really so bad or whether what we’re doing is really so good? What is the effect of being told, over and over again, that we’re the hero, the good guy, the chosen one, and that those people over there are evil, and that this is just the way the world is, and that violence is your only option?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, as the passage I quoted earlier from \u003ci>On Videogame Reviews \u003c/i>indicates, gaming culture and our wider culture are hardly entirely separate from each other, and therefore, challenging one often involves challenging the other. \u003ci>Second Quest \u003c/i>doesn’t need to be interpreted through the lens of video games; it works just as well as a metaphor for a kind of feminist awakening–the sometimes scary but exciting process of starting to perceive and push back against the patriarchal systems and power structures that shape our society. And I don’t want to give away the ending of \u003ci>Second Quest\u003c/i>, but I will say that, like \u003ci>On Videogame Reviews\u003c/i>, in the end it left me both hopeful and excited. It seemed to say that if we’re willing to not just ask the big questions but follow through to where the answers lead us, things can be so much different, and so much better, than they are now.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>In the new video-game-inspired graphic novel \u003cem>Second Quest\u003c/em>, a young woman named Azalea who lives in a floating land with a mysterious history begins to see things most people don’t. Touching certain objects, she can glimpse their past, witnessing moments in the lives of other people who have also wielded those objects. But this ability also brings with it a different perspective on her world. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Knowing that not all is what it seems, Azalea starts questioning the conventional wisdom of her society, challenging the stories that say “this is why things are the way they are.” She has begun to suspect that maybe they don’t have to be that way, and that maybe the stories that say they do have to be that way are only told to convince people that this is the way things have to be. But as she dares to question the accepted truths of her world, she faces tremendous resistance. Challenging the status quo is a radical act, and not one that comes without a price.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In October of 2013, the writer of \u003cem>Second Quest, \u003c/em>Tevis Thompson, suggested in a different way that maybe things don’t have to be the way they are. Earlier that year, the long-awaited, highly anticipated first-person shooter \u003ci>BioShock Infinite \u003c/i>was released to critical acclaim. It earned glowing reviews from every major gaming site, seemingly meeting or surpassing all expectations players might reasonably have for such a game.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But what shapes our expectations for new games? Are our notions of what a game like \u003ci>BioShock Infinite \u003c/i>should or shouldn’t do shaped to some degree by game reviews that evaluate whether or not such games do or don’t do very specific things? Should we expect more? Can we even imagine games doing more?\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10627480\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 270px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/sq2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10627480\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/sq2-270x600.jpg\" alt=\"Video games often present violence as the only viable option for confronting problems.\" width=\"270\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/sq2-270x600.jpg 270w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/sq2.jpg 330w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 270px) 100vw, 270px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Video games often present violence as the only viable option for confronting problems.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Thompson published a piece called \u003ca href=\"http://tevisthompson.com/on-videogame-reviews/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003ci>On Videogame Reviews\u003c/i>\u003c/a>, and in it, he used the critical reactions to \u003ci>BioShock Infinite \u003c/i>as a jumping-off point to challenge the entire state of mainstream video game criticism, and by extension, the larger gaming culture it simultaneously served and helped to sustain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The straight white male gamers so untroubled by \u003ci>BioShock Infinite\u003c/i>, whose ideology and privilege are in fact perfectly reflected in it, are just not up to the task of reviewing on their own. Their subjectivities betray complicity. It’s a dead end, the good old boys speaking to their bros, and only by diversifying in every way possible can the review community thrive,” Thompson wrote. “This means more women, more people of color, more queer and transgender folks, more reviewers from diverse social, economic, and cultural backgrounds that don’t neatly fit the lifelong gamer mold. Not simply because we need reviewers to match the shifting demographics of those playing games, but because diversity is of clear and obvious value to any community and any discourse.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Given that I was working as an editor at a major video game website at the time, I read the piece with great interest, and not just because Thompson makes specific mention of my review of \u003cem>Grand Theft Auto V\u003c/em> and the reactions to that review. It was, for me, a challenging and exhilarating piece of work that illuminated new possibilities. It opened my eyes and encouraged me to ask questions about why we approach games in such a specific and predictable way. Thompson seemed to be pushing up against the established boundaries of video game criticism and video game culture, like a character in a video game pushing up against walls hoping to find a secret passage to a place that might offer a new perspective. The act struck me as an inherently hopeful one. He was saying: Things don’t have to be this way. There can be more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reading \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://www.secondquestcomic.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Second Quest\u003c/a> \u003c/em>some 18 months after the publication of \u003cem>On Videogame Reviews\u003c/em>, what struck me most is how, even though it’s a work of fantasy fiction and not a piece of criticism, in its pages you can still sense Thompson pushing up against the established norms, encouraging us to question the accepted conventions of game design and the assumptions that shape our perception of the world.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The book’s title is a nod to the 1986 game \u003ci>The Legend of Zelda\u003c/i>, which featured a second, more difficult quest that made enemies tougher and significantly changed the layouts of the game’s dungeons and the locations of important items. It’s a fitting title, not just because echoes of the Zelda mythos reverberate throughout \u003ci>Second Quest\u003c/i>’s story, but also because it is a story about the kind of new beginning that happens when you realize that things aren’t quite the way you expected them to be, and you start to see the world through fresh eyes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10627481\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 785px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/sq3.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10627481\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/sq3.jpg\" alt=\"Seeing the possibility of a new and different world can be scary.\" width=\"785\" height=\"385\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/sq3.jpg 785w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/05/sq3-400x196.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 785px) 100vw, 785px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Seeing the possibility of a new and different world can be scary.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Second Quest\u003c/i> is not set in the universe of Nintendo’s Zelda games, nor does it require any familiarity with those games or any other games to be understood and enjoyed. But the way it weaves elements from the Zelda games into its story of a young woman who starts to question the fundamental truths of her culture makes it clear that Thompson and his collaborator, artist David Hellman, are interested in encouraging gamers to question elements of gaming culture as well. Why do we simply accept that so many games present violence as the only way to solve a problem? Why do we accept so many narratives about brave heroes fighting evil and rescuing the girl without ever questioning how the narratives are constructed precisely to leave us with no room to ask questions about whether the bad guys are really so bad or whether what we’re doing is really so good? What is the effect of being told, over and over again, that we’re the hero, the good guy, the chosen one, and that those people over there are evil, and that this is just the way the world is, and that violence is your only option?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, as the passage I quoted earlier from \u003ci>On Videogame Reviews \u003c/i>indicates, gaming culture and our wider culture are hardly entirely separate from each other, and therefore, challenging one often involves challenging the other. \u003ci>Second Quest \u003c/i>doesn’t need to be interpreted through the lens of video games; it works just as well as a metaphor for a kind of feminist awakening–the sometimes scary but exciting process of starting to perceive and push back against the patriarchal systems and power structures that shape our society. And I don’t want to give away the ending of \u003ci>Second Quest\u003c/i>, but I will say that, like \u003ci>On Videogame Reviews\u003c/i>, in the end it left me both hopeful and excited. It seemed to say that if we’re willing to not just ask the big questions but follow through to where the answers lead us, things can be so much different, and so much better, than they are now.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "lets-be-cops-murder-as-law-enforcement-in-battlefield-hardline",
"title": "Let's Be Cops: Murder as Law Enforcement in 'Battlefield Hardline'",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ci>Spoiler Alert: The ending of the video game is detailed in the last paragraph in this article.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I remember being a bit confused the first time I saw \u003ci>Die Hard\u003c/i> as a kid. I didn’t understand why John McClane had endangered his own life during his first encounter with one of the criminals who had taken over Nakatomi Plaza. The bad man and his friends had taken hostages, and I’d watched enough stories on the evening news to know that taking hostages was something terrorists did, and that terrorists were just about as bad as bad guys get.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d also played enough video games and seen enough movies to know that if you’re one of the good guys, it’s okay to kill the bad guys. And this particular bad guy had already tried to kill McClane with his machine gun. When McClane stops the criminal and tells him to drop his gun, the criminal says, “You won’t hurt me. Because you’re a policeman. There are rules for policemen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I asked my mom why McClane had to do this, and she patiently explained to me that police officers couldn’t just go around shooting people, even if those people were “bad guys,” because if they did, they’d be no better than the bad guys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10500518\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/hardline-official-site-image.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10500518 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/hardline-official-site-image-800x318.jpg\" alt=\"As this image from the game's official site indicates, in Hardline, being a cop is less about enforcing the law and more about jacking up your foes.\" width=\"800\" height=\"318\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/hardline-official-site-image-800x318.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/hardline-official-site-image-400x159.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/hardline-official-site-image-1180x469.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/hardline-official-site-image-768x305.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/hardline-official-site-image-320x127.jpg 320w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/hardline-official-site-image.jpg 1889w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">As this image from the game’s official site indicates, in Hardline, being a cop is less about enforcing the law and more about jacking up your foes.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Now, the latest game in the long-running Battlefield series, \u003ci>Battlefield Hardline\u003c/i>, transfers the franchise’s combat from military scenarios to conflicts between cops and criminals on American streets. Even before the tragedies of Eric Garner and Mike Brown and Tamir Rice — black male lives lost to unchecked police force — and the civil unrest that followed in the wake of these events, there was something deeply uncomfortable about the way \u003ci>Hardline\u003c/i>’s early marketing material fetishized the militarization of police equipment as a way of appealing to the game’s would-be players. Note the slow-motion shot of the molotov hitting the riot shield in this early teaser trailer for the game, the way the music kicks in, as if to say that as long as you’re the one with the power to withstand it and put it down, civil unrest is fun because it gives you a reason to employ and enjoy that power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Battlefield Hardline: Official Teaser\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/psegKIi_fm8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Hardline\u003c/i>’s single-player storyline has nothing to do with riots or civil unrest, but it is all about the enjoyment of unchecked police power. You play as Nick Mendoza, a Miami cop. And here, there are no “rules for policemen.” Handcuffed by the first-person shooter genre in which it exists and the expectations of players familiar with the genre and the Battlefield franchise, \u003ci>Hardline\u003c/i> must let you simply gun down enemies. This isn’t wartime and you’re not a soldier, but nonetheless, there are no consequences whatsoever for opening fire on criminals, for shooting first and asking questions never.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, the game’s mechanics encourage this approach by making the option to arrest criminals an exercise in tedium. In order to arrest criminals, you must sneak up on them, then flash your badge to freeze them in place, then click a button to handcuff them, an action which bizarrely also serves to render them unconscious (complete with little Z’s floating out of their heads), preventing them from calling out and revealing your presence to other criminals. Even if you submit to the tedium and try to progress through as much of the game as possible using this non-lethal approach, there are situations in which criminals are aware of your presence and gunning for you, and your only option is to slaughter them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Hardline\u003c/i>’s narrative is explicitly structured as a ten-episode cop drama, complete with Netflix-style countdowns when one episode ends and the next is about to begin. But its TV show aspirations only undermine the game; the gameplay suffers because of its need to function as a cop drama, and the cop drama suffers because of its need to function as a video game. Investigative police work is reduced to the most rudimentary of processes: a \u003ci>CSI\u003c/i>-style scanner vibrates whenever you are near evidence, and analyzing the evidence is done by holding a button. Technology does it all; the only thing you have to worry about is dealing with the bad guys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10500515\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield%E2%84%A2-Hardline_20150316223821.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10500515 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield%E2%84%A2-Hardline_20150316223821-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Battlefield™ Hardline_20150316223821\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150316223821-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150316223821-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150316223821-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150316223821-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150316223821-320x180.jpg 320w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150316223821.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hardline’s story really wants to convince you it’s a TV show you’re binge-watching.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the story succeeds at its low aim of mimicking the tone of a slick but goofy Jerry Bruckheimer-produced CBS crime show. \u003cem>Hardline\u003c/em>’s world is populated with wisecracking supporting characters and sinister villains who live in lavish L.A. mansions and appear on huge TV screens to spout monologues at you. This I can accept, if I must. But even the most ludicrous crime drama doesn’t involve cops opening fire on groups of criminals and leaving them all dead. Yet here, you can gun down a bunch of criminals, then watch a scene in which your character is presented as the reasonable, level-headed one in a department populated with hotheads and corrupt cops. It actively works to present your character, and by extension your actions, as normal, under the circumstances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Hardline\u003c/i>’s story doesn’t ignore the fact that you may have qualms about your actions as an officer of the law in modern-day Miami. Instead, it tries to dismiss them. After one bloodbath at a location called the Elmore Hotel, your captain says, “There’s going to be some complaints about the Elmore. Excessive force, etc. etc. Don’t worry about it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There you go. The game has acknowledged, addressed, and dismissed any concerns you might have had about the fact that you just gunned down a dozen or more people. This is how so many video game narratives are designed to work, justifying the use of violence as your primary or sole means of interacting with other characters and answering questions before they’re even asked: \u003cem>Of course I had to slaughter all those people. They would have slaughtered me otherwise.\u003c/em> How convenient. Applying this mindset to war is one thing. Applying it to law enforcement is something entirely different. There’s no divorcing a game that lets you play as a cop who can get away with murder, no matter how much it’s dressed up as a fantasy, from the political fabric of contemporary America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10500516\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield%E2%84%A2-Hardline_20150319231313.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10500516\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield%E2%84%A2-Hardline_20150319231313-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Turns out being a corrupt cop pays really, really well.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150319231313-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150319231313-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150319231313-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150319231313-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150319231313-320x180.jpg 320w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150319231313.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Turns out being a corrupt cop pays really, really well.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But hey, don’t worry; if your conscience still nags at you about using your position as a police officer to commit murder, well, in the end it turns out that the man who was ordering you to do these things was corrupt himself. Both you the player and your character Mendoza were but bumbling pawns in his schemes, and in the end, you get to take your sweet revenge. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re just like me, more criminal than cop,” the villain says. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You know what, you’re right,” Mendoza replies — before killing him in cold blood, the 50th or 100th or 250th person whose blood is on Mendoza’s hands. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You’re rewarded with unfathomable wealth and power, the keys to the dead man’s empire. This, the game says, is victory. Power corrupts, but as long as you’re the one with the power, that is awesome.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ci>Spoiler Alert: The ending of the video game is detailed in the last paragraph in this article.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I remember being a bit confused the first time I saw \u003ci>Die Hard\u003c/i> as a kid. I didn’t understand why John McClane had endangered his own life during his first encounter with one of the criminals who had taken over Nakatomi Plaza. The bad man and his friends had taken hostages, and I’d watched enough stories on the evening news to know that taking hostages was something terrorists did, and that terrorists were just about as bad as bad guys get.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I’d also played enough video games and seen enough movies to know that if you’re one of the good guys, it’s okay to kill the bad guys. And this particular bad guy had already tried to kill McClane with his machine gun. When McClane stops the criminal and tells him to drop his gun, the criminal says, “You won’t hurt me. Because you’re a policeman. There are rules for policemen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I asked my mom why McClane had to do this, and she patiently explained to me that police officers couldn’t just go around shooting people, even if those people were “bad guys,” because if they did, they’d be no better than the bad guys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10500518\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/hardline-official-site-image.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10500518 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/hardline-official-site-image-800x318.jpg\" alt=\"As this image from the game's official site indicates, in Hardline, being a cop is less about enforcing the law and more about jacking up your foes.\" width=\"800\" height=\"318\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/hardline-official-site-image-800x318.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/hardline-official-site-image-400x159.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/hardline-official-site-image-1180x469.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/hardline-official-site-image-768x305.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/hardline-official-site-image-320x127.jpg 320w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/hardline-official-site-image.jpg 1889w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">As this image from the game’s official site indicates, in Hardline, being a cop is less about enforcing the law and more about jacking up your foes.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Now, the latest game in the long-running Battlefield series, \u003ci>Battlefield Hardline\u003c/i>, transfers the franchise’s combat from military scenarios to conflicts between cops and criminals on American streets. Even before the tragedies of Eric Garner and Mike Brown and Tamir Rice — black male lives lost to unchecked police force — and the civil unrest that followed in the wake of these events, there was something deeply uncomfortable about the way \u003ci>Hardline\u003c/i>’s early marketing material fetishized the militarization of police equipment as a way of appealing to the game’s would-be players. Note the slow-motion shot of the molotov hitting the riot shield in this early teaser trailer for the game, the way the music kicks in, as if to say that as long as you’re the one with the power to withstand it and put it down, civil unrest is fun because it gives you a reason to employ and enjoy that power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Battlefield Hardline: Official Teaser\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/psegKIi_fm8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Hardline\u003c/i>’s single-player storyline has nothing to do with riots or civil unrest, but it is all about the enjoyment of unchecked police power. You play as Nick Mendoza, a Miami cop. And here, there are no “rules for policemen.” Handcuffed by the first-person shooter genre in which it exists and the expectations of players familiar with the genre and the Battlefield franchise, \u003ci>Hardline\u003c/i> must let you simply gun down enemies. This isn’t wartime and you’re not a soldier, but nonetheless, there are no consequences whatsoever for opening fire on criminals, for shooting first and asking questions never.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, the game’s mechanics encourage this approach by making the option to arrest criminals an exercise in tedium. In order to arrest criminals, you must sneak up on them, then flash your badge to freeze them in place, then click a button to handcuff them, an action which bizarrely also serves to render them unconscious (complete with little Z’s floating out of their heads), preventing them from calling out and revealing your presence to other criminals. Even if you submit to the tedium and try to progress through as much of the game as possible using this non-lethal approach, there are situations in which criminals are aware of your presence and gunning for you, and your only option is to slaughter them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Hardline\u003c/i>’s narrative is explicitly structured as a ten-episode cop drama, complete with Netflix-style countdowns when one episode ends and the next is about to begin. But its TV show aspirations only undermine the game; the gameplay suffers because of its need to function as a cop drama, and the cop drama suffers because of its need to function as a video game. Investigative police work is reduced to the most rudimentary of processes: a \u003ci>CSI\u003c/i>-style scanner vibrates whenever you are near evidence, and analyzing the evidence is done by holding a button. Technology does it all; the only thing you have to worry about is dealing with the bad guys.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10500515\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield%E2%84%A2-Hardline_20150316223821.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10500515 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield%E2%84%A2-Hardline_20150316223821-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Battlefield™ Hardline_20150316223821\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150316223821-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150316223821-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150316223821-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150316223821-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150316223821-320x180.jpg 320w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150316223821.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hardline’s story really wants to convince you it’s a TV show you’re binge-watching.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Meanwhile, the story succeeds at its low aim of mimicking the tone of a slick but goofy Jerry Bruckheimer-produced CBS crime show. \u003cem>Hardline\u003c/em>’s world is populated with wisecracking supporting characters and sinister villains who live in lavish L.A. mansions and appear on huge TV screens to spout monologues at you. This I can accept, if I must. But even the most ludicrous crime drama doesn’t involve cops opening fire on groups of criminals and leaving them all dead. Yet here, you can gun down a bunch of criminals, then watch a scene in which your character is presented as the reasonable, level-headed one in a department populated with hotheads and corrupt cops. It actively works to present your character, and by extension your actions, as normal, under the circumstances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>Hardline\u003c/i>’s story doesn’t ignore the fact that you may have qualms about your actions as an officer of the law in modern-day Miami. Instead, it tries to dismiss them. After one bloodbath at a location called the Elmore Hotel, your captain says, “There’s going to be some complaints about the Elmore. Excessive force, etc. etc. Don’t worry about it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There you go. The game has acknowledged, addressed, and dismissed any concerns you might have had about the fact that you just gunned down a dozen or more people. This is how so many video game narratives are designed to work, justifying the use of violence as your primary or sole means of interacting with other characters and answering questions before they’re even asked: \u003cem>Of course I had to slaughter all those people. They would have slaughtered me otherwise.\u003c/em> How convenient. Applying this mindset to war is one thing. Applying it to law enforcement is something entirely different. There’s no divorcing a game that lets you play as a cop who can get away with murder, no matter how much it’s dressed up as a fantasy, from the political fabric of contemporary America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10500516\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield%E2%84%A2-Hardline_20150319231313.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10500516\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield%E2%84%A2-Hardline_20150319231313-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Turns out being a corrupt cop pays really, really well.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150319231313-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150319231313-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150319231313-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150319231313-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150319231313-320x180.jpg 320w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/03/Battlefield™-Hardline_20150319231313.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Turns out being a corrupt cop pays really, really well.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But hey, don’t worry; if your conscience still nags at you about using your position as a police officer to commit murder, well, in the end it turns out that the man who was ordering you to do these things was corrupt himself. Both you the player and your character Mendoza were but bumbling pawns in his schemes, and in the end, you get to take your sweet revenge. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You’re just like me, more criminal than cop,” the villain says. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You know what, you’re right,” Mendoza replies — before killing him in cold blood, the 50th or 100th or 250th person whose blood is on Mendoza’s hands. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You’re rewarded with unfathomable wealth and power, the keys to the dead man’s empire. This, the game says, is victory. Power corrupts, but as long as you’re the one with the power, that is awesome.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>I loved \u003cem>Hotline Miami\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Hotline Miami\u003c/em> felt to me like the sort of game Michael Mann might have made in the early 80s, if he’d gone into designing video games instead of directing films like \u003ci>Thief \u003c/i>and producing TV shows like \u003ci>Miami Vice. \u003c/i>The neon visuals searing my retinas, the exceptional electronica soundtrack propelling me forward, I tore through its levels in an adrenaline-fueled rush. The presence of every individual enemy got my pulse racing to an almost uncomfortable degree, because in the blink of an eye, any one of them could end my life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was kill or be killed; each time I stepped out from behind cover to take a shot at one or to charge at one from behind, my body tensed up because of the huge risk I was taking, and each time I successfully shot or hacked or beat one of them into a bloody mess, I felt a little jolt of satisfaction as I stopped holding my breath for a moment before preparing myself for the next kill. With each mangled enemy corpse, I was one step closer to getting out of there alive. A lot of games are all about killing, but \u003cem>Hotline Miami\u003c/em>’s combination of stylish graphics, incredible music, twitchy, risk-heavy gameplay, and brutal violence added up to an experience that made killing in games feel newly exhilarating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10401011\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/2015-02-17_00010.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10401011\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/2015-02-17_00010-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Killing is thrilling in Hotline Miami.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/2015-02-17_00010-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/2015-02-17_00010-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/2015-02-17_00010-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/2015-02-17_00010.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Killing is thrilling in Hotline Miami.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At the time, I told myself that the intensity of the violence in \u003cem>Hotline Miami\u003c/em> was a good thing. When you kill the last enemy in a level, the music stops, and you’re left alone amid the carnage you’ve caused. You have to walk back through the levels to get to your car, and without the threat of instant death lurking around every corner, the adrenaline starts to dissipate and you’re confronted with the horror of your own actions. At least, this is what I told myself, as a way of perhaps making myself feel better about the fun I was having, or as a way of convincing myself that the game was operating on some deep, meaningful level. Then I went on to the next level and enjoyed the adrenaline rush that came from slaughtering the next bunch of gangsters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We like to think that games that feature violence as a core mechanic can be critical of violence, and in fact a piece was recently published on Paste Magazine called \u003ca href=\"http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/02/10-violent-games-that-comment-on-violence.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">10 Violent Games That Comment on Violence\u003c/a>. (\u003cem>Hotline Miami\u003c/em> is on the list.) But I no longer think it’s possible for a game that sets out to be fun and entertaining, in which violence is the primary way or the only way available to you of solving problems and interacting with the world, to do anything but glorify and celebrate that violence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, these games can establish concerns in their stories about the moral rightness or ambiguity of mowing down hundreds of enemies. But you don’t just watch a game; you play it. Gameplay mechanics make meaning as surely as stories do, and any narrative handwringing about whether or not violence is really all that great as a means of problem-solving is invariably drowned out by your moment-to-moment experience of actually using violence to solve your problems and to progress through the game. “Killing is fun,” the gameplay says, “and effective.” Violent games sometimes nudge you into contemplating what you’ve done. They almost never encourage you or even give you the option to stop doing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10401010\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/Grand-Theft-Auto-V_20141128233138.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10401010\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/Grand-Theft-Auto-V_20141128233138-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"The world of Grand Theft Auto V is beautiful when explored in first person. It's also inescapably violent.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/Grand-Theft-Auto-V_20141128233138-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/Grand-Theft-Auto-V_20141128233138-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/Grand-Theft-Auto-V_20141128233138-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/Grand-Theft-Auto-V_20141128233138.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The world of Grand Theft Auto V is beautiful when explored in first person. It’s also inescapably violent.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When \u003cem>Grand Theft Auto V\u003c/em> got an updated release on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 late last year, some critics praised the new first-person feature for changing the way that they felt about the acts of violence they committed in the game. For the first time, taking a life in GTA made them feel guilty, they said. But I don’t think it’s guilt at all. I think it’s just a more visceral reaction to the violence — perhaps slightly uncomfortable at first, but also more immediate, more intense and stimulating, and therefore more exciting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Guilt is not a feeling we typically seek out. When something makes us feel guilty, we stop doing it, or at least some part of us wants to stop. In \u003cem>GTA V\u003c/em>, if you actually felt anything akin to guilt about taking a life, you’d feel positively sick with guilt after taking the hundreds of lives you invariably have to take over the course of the game. But Grand Theft Auto doesn’t want to make you sick with guilt. It wants you to have a blast. That’s why so many people play it, and that’s why it makes so much money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10401009\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 639px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/sept-12.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10401009\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/sept-12.jpg\" alt=\"September 12th\" width=\"639\" height=\"477\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/sept-12.jpg 639w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/sept-12-400x299.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 639px) 100vw, 639px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">September 12th\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Perhaps the only game I’ve played in which violence is how you interact with the world that succeeds at being critical of violence is not an entertainment product. It is not fun, and it is not sold. It’s a browser-based game called \u003ca href=\"http://www.newsgaming.com/games/index12.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003ci>September 12th\u003c/i>\u003c/a>, and it presents you with a city filled with civilians and terrorists. If you choose to fire rockets at the terrorists, odds are you’ll kill some civilians too, and your actions will inevitably result in the creation of more terrorists. Violence here is not exhilarating or sensationalized, and it is not effective. It’s worse than futile. You cannot win \u003cem>September 12th\u003c/em>. You can only stop playing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s the thing. Many games acknowledge that violence breeds violence, but they present it as a tragic (but fun!) inevitable loop. Any game that wants to comment on violence in a meaningful and constructive way would encourage us to break the cycle, not to perpetuate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It should go without saying that this is not a call for censorship. I love lots of violent video games. I just think the only message most violent games can send about violence is this: Violence is good. Violence is fun. Violence can solve problems, and domination through violence is a normal core value for individuals and cultures. And maybe rather than telling ourselves that some of these games are functioning as a meaningful critique of violence, we should think critically about what the fact that we enjoy these games says about us, and about the world we live in.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>I loved \u003cem>Hotline Miami\u003c/em>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Hotline Miami\u003c/em> felt to me like the sort of game Michael Mann might have made in the early 80s, if he’d gone into designing video games instead of directing films like \u003ci>Thief \u003c/i>and producing TV shows like \u003ci>Miami Vice. \u003c/i>The neon visuals searing my retinas, the exceptional electronica soundtrack propelling me forward, I tore through its levels in an adrenaline-fueled rush. The presence of every individual enemy got my pulse racing to an almost uncomfortable degree, because in the blink of an eye, any one of them could end my life.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was kill or be killed; each time I stepped out from behind cover to take a shot at one or to charge at one from behind, my body tensed up because of the huge risk I was taking, and each time I successfully shot or hacked or beat one of them into a bloody mess, I felt a little jolt of satisfaction as I stopped holding my breath for a moment before preparing myself for the next kill. With each mangled enemy corpse, I was one step closer to getting out of there alive. A lot of games are all about killing, but \u003cem>Hotline Miami\u003c/em>’s combination of stylish graphics, incredible music, twitchy, risk-heavy gameplay, and brutal violence added up to an experience that made killing in games feel newly exhilarating.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10401011\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/2015-02-17_00010.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10401011\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/2015-02-17_00010-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Killing is thrilling in Hotline Miami.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/2015-02-17_00010-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/2015-02-17_00010-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/2015-02-17_00010-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/2015-02-17_00010.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Killing is thrilling in Hotline Miami.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At the time, I told myself that the intensity of the violence in \u003cem>Hotline Miami\u003c/em> was a good thing. When you kill the last enemy in a level, the music stops, and you’re left alone amid the carnage you’ve caused. You have to walk back through the levels to get to your car, and without the threat of instant death lurking around every corner, the adrenaline starts to dissipate and you’re confronted with the horror of your own actions. At least, this is what I told myself, as a way of perhaps making myself feel better about the fun I was having, or as a way of convincing myself that the game was operating on some deep, meaningful level. Then I went on to the next level and enjoyed the adrenaline rush that came from slaughtering the next bunch of gangsters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We like to think that games that feature violence as a core mechanic can be critical of violence, and in fact a piece was recently published on Paste Magazine called \u003ca href=\"http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2015/02/10-violent-games-that-comment-on-violence.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">10 Violent Games That Comment on Violence\u003c/a>. (\u003cem>Hotline Miami\u003c/em> is on the list.) But I no longer think it’s possible for a game that sets out to be fun and entertaining, in which violence is the primary way or the only way available to you of solving problems and interacting with the world, to do anything but glorify and celebrate that violence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, these games can establish concerns in their stories about the moral rightness or ambiguity of mowing down hundreds of enemies. But you don’t just watch a game; you play it. Gameplay mechanics make meaning as surely as stories do, and any narrative handwringing about whether or not violence is really all that great as a means of problem-solving is invariably drowned out by your moment-to-moment experience of actually using violence to solve your problems and to progress through the game. “Killing is fun,” the gameplay says, “and effective.” Violent games sometimes nudge you into contemplating what you’ve done. They almost never encourage you or even give you the option to stop doing it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10401010\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/Grand-Theft-Auto-V_20141128233138.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10401010\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/Grand-Theft-Auto-V_20141128233138-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"The world of Grand Theft Auto V is beautiful when explored in first person. It's also inescapably violent.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/Grand-Theft-Auto-V_20141128233138-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/Grand-Theft-Auto-V_20141128233138-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/Grand-Theft-Auto-V_20141128233138-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/Grand-Theft-Auto-V_20141128233138.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The world of Grand Theft Auto V is beautiful when explored in first person. It’s also inescapably violent.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>When \u003cem>Grand Theft Auto V\u003c/em> got an updated release on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 late last year, some critics praised the new first-person feature for changing the way that they felt about the acts of violence they committed in the game. For the first time, taking a life in GTA made them feel guilty, they said. But I don’t think it’s guilt at all. I think it’s just a more visceral reaction to the violence — perhaps slightly uncomfortable at first, but also more immediate, more intense and stimulating, and therefore more exciting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Guilt is not a feeling we typically seek out. When something makes us feel guilty, we stop doing it, or at least some part of us wants to stop. In \u003cem>GTA V\u003c/em>, if you actually felt anything akin to guilt about taking a life, you’d feel positively sick with guilt after taking the hundreds of lives you invariably have to take over the course of the game. But Grand Theft Auto doesn’t want to make you sick with guilt. It wants you to have a blast. That’s why so many people play it, and that’s why it makes so much money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10401009\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 639px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/sept-12.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10401009\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/sept-12.jpg\" alt=\"September 12th\" width=\"639\" height=\"477\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/sept-12.jpg 639w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/sept-12-400x299.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 639px) 100vw, 639px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">September 12th\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Perhaps the only game I’ve played in which violence is how you interact with the world that succeeds at being critical of violence is not an entertainment product. It is not fun, and it is not sold. It’s a browser-based game called \u003ca href=\"http://www.newsgaming.com/games/index12.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003ci>September 12th\u003c/i>\u003c/a>, and it presents you with a city filled with civilians and terrorists. If you choose to fire rockets at the terrorists, odds are you’ll kill some civilians too, and your actions will inevitably result in the creation of more terrorists. Violence here is not exhilarating or sensationalized, and it is not effective. It’s worse than futile. You cannot win \u003cem>September 12th\u003c/em>. You can only stop playing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And that’s the thing. Many games acknowledge that violence breeds violence, but they present it as a tragic (but fun!) inevitable loop. Any game that wants to comment on violence in a meaningful and constructive way would encourage us to break the cycle, not to perpetuate it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It should go without saying that this is not a call for censorship. I love lots of violent video games. I just think the only message most violent games can send about violence is this: Violence is good. Violence is fun. Violence can solve problems, and domination through violence is a normal core value for individuals and cultures. And maybe rather than telling ourselves that some of these games are functioning as a meaningful critique of violence, we should think critically about what the fact that we enjoy these games says about us, and about the world we live in.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "New Documentary 'Atari: Game Over' Digs Up Video Game History",
"headTitle": "New Documentary ‘Atari: Game Over’ Digs Up Video Game History | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>I was six years old when the Atari 2600 game \u003ci>E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial \u003c/i>was released. In the years since, the game has taken on an almost mythical quality in the hearts and minds of many Atari fans, not as something wonderful, but as something so awful (so the story goes) that it was largely responsible for the 1983 collapse of the video game industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This notion always bothered me, because to my six-year-old self, \u003ci>E.T. \u003c/i>had not been an awful game at all. Broken and frustrating, sure, but also distinctive, ambitious, and most of all, emotionally resonant in a way most games weren’t. You win the game by phoning home and boarding the ship back to E.T.’s home planet, but this victory always seemed bittersweet to me, because it meant saying goodbye to Elliott, who you would then see, in his home, alone. I’d played games that were exciting, or scary, or whimsical, but \u003ci>E.T. \u003c/i>was the first game I played that felt poignant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within a year of the game’s release, Atari was all but gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10363239\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-10-ET-screen.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10363239 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-10-ET-screen-800x500.jpg\" alt=\"ago 10 ET screen\" width=\"800\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-10-ET-screen-800x500.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-10-ET-screen-400x250.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-10-ET-screen-1180x737.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-10-ET-screen.jpg 1438w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Because of my fondness for \u003ci>E.T.\u003c/i> and my interest in Atari’s history, the documentary \u003ci>Atari: Game Over \u003c/i>is essentially made for me. Filmmaker Zak Penn, also a lifelong Atari fan, sets out to discover the story of \u003ci>E.T.\u003c/i>’s creation and find out just what role it played in causing the video game crash of 1983. While excavating the truth of Atari’s past, Penn also pursues a more literal excavation in the vast landfill of Alamogordo, New Mexico, where Atari was rumored to have buried perhaps millions of \u003ci>E.T. \u003c/i>cartridges it had produced but could never hope to sell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The film bounces back and forth between these two strands, but despite the tremendous symbolic power in the act of attempting to literally unearth the past of a once-massive and beloved company, the scenes focused on organizing the landfill dig sometimes get bogged down in talk of red tape and excavation equipment, making them feel like a detour from the real story. And some sequences, like one that follow Ernest Cline (author of the video-game-themed novel \u003ci>Ready Player One\u003c/i>) as he cruises in a DeLorean with a full-size E.T. figure in the passenger seat, are so self-indulgently geeky and packed with so many pop-culture references that they diminish the film, sending the message that you’re either in on the joke or that this story is not for you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10363240\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 652px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-9-family-playing-atari.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10363240 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-9-family-playing-atari-e1423107396994-652x600.jpg\" alt=\"There sure were some great promotional images for Atari games back in the day.\" width=\"652\" height=\"600\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">There sure were some great promotional images for Atari games back in the day.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And that’s too bad, because the story of Atari, and specifically of\u003ci> E.T.\u003c/i>’s designer and programmer Howard Warshaw, is a fascinating one that you don’t need an existing interest in video game history to appreciate. Warshaw comes across as a smart, complicated, likable man, and by focusing on him, Penn makes the story of Atari’s downfall a human story rather than just a story of reckless business decisions and massive financial shortfalls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The young Howard Warshaw, who we see talking about the craft of game design in Atari promotional materials from the early 1980s, has a bit of the young hotshot quality about him that I associate with Kevin Flynn, the fictional game designer played by Jeff Bridges in \u003ci>Tron\u003c/i>, and who can blame him? He was, after all, the programmer of some of Atari’s most massive hits. The fifty-something Warshaw, interviewed for the film, looks back on those days with the perspective only afforded by time. Talking about how he struggled in the years following Atari’s collapse, Warshaw says, “I never let go of the thought that my life could still be this or better. I just didn’t know how to do it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10363241\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-3-warshaw-2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10363241\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-3-warshaw-2-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Howard Warshaw, designer of some of Atari's biggest games.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-3-warshaw-2-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-3-warshaw-2-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-3-warshaw-2-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-3-warshaw-2.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Howard Warshaw, designer of some of Atari’s biggest games.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The film paints a lively picture of Atari at its heyday as a place where people partied at least as hard as they worked, a place where keggers were common and where things happened in the hot tub. Importantly, it also portrays game designers as artists of a sort who are doing genuinely creative work, and it illuminates, in terms that anyone can appreciate and understand, what makes a game like Warshaw’s Atari classic \u003ci>Yars’ Revenge \u003c/i>great.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unfortunately, it also uncritically presents an almost exclusively white male perspective on game design and Silicon Valley culture. Yes, the movers and shakers central to the story itself that Penn interviews—Warshaw, Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, and Warner executive Manny Gerard—are all white men; there’s no way around that, and they give illuminating interviews. But in selecting people to offer commentary on the events, Penn interviews novelists and screenwriters, collectors and scholars, all of whom have interesting things to say, but all of whom are also white men. Surely there are women and people of color with something to contribute to this conversation, but the film unwittingly perpetuates the idea \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_controversy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">held by many\u003c/a> that video games and geek culture exclude their input.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10363242\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-4-cline-Delorean.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10363242\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-4-cline-Delorean-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Geek singularity achieved.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-4-cline-Delorean-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-4-cline-Delorean-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-4-cline-Delorean-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-4-cline-Delorean.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Geek singularity achieved.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Still, there is an endearing generosity to \u003ci>Atari: Game Over\u003c/i>. The film challenges popular notions of Atari’s history and sets the record straight, clearing \u003ci>E.T. \u003c/i>and the man who created it of the charges of killing the video game industry. It’s a warmhearted look at the industry’s past that celebrates the impact pioneers of game design like Warshaw had on video games as we know them today. But because the film sometimes lays on the references and in-jokes a little thick rather than inviting everybody in, you’ll get more out of the film if you’re like me, and it’s digging up pieces of your past, as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Atari: Game Over’ is available for rental and purchase from fine video-on-demand sites everywhere.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "In 1983, the video game industry as we knew it collapsed. Was the Atari adaptation of \u003cem>E.T.\u003c/em> responsible? \u003cem>Atari: Game Over\u003c/em> unearths the facts.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>I was six years old when the Atari 2600 game \u003ci>E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial \u003c/i>was released. In the years since, the game has taken on an almost mythical quality in the hearts and minds of many Atari fans, not as something wonderful, but as something so awful (so the story goes) that it was largely responsible for the 1983 collapse of the video game industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This notion always bothered me, because to my six-year-old self, \u003ci>E.T. \u003c/i>had not been an awful game at all. Broken and frustrating, sure, but also distinctive, ambitious, and most of all, emotionally resonant in a way most games weren’t. You win the game by phoning home and boarding the ship back to E.T.’s home planet, but this victory always seemed bittersweet to me, because it meant saying goodbye to Elliott, who you would then see, in his home, alone. I’d played games that were exciting, or scary, or whimsical, but \u003ci>E.T. \u003c/i>was the first game I played that felt poignant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Within a year of the game’s release, Atari was all but gone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10363239\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-10-ET-screen.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10363239 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-10-ET-screen-800x500.jpg\" alt=\"ago 10 ET screen\" width=\"800\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-10-ET-screen-800x500.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-10-ET-screen-400x250.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-10-ET-screen-1180x737.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-10-ET-screen.jpg 1438w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for the Atari 2600.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Because of my fondness for \u003ci>E.T.\u003c/i> and my interest in Atari’s history, the documentary \u003ci>Atari: Game Over \u003c/i>is essentially made for me. Filmmaker Zak Penn, also a lifelong Atari fan, sets out to discover the story of \u003ci>E.T.\u003c/i>’s creation and find out just what role it played in causing the video game crash of 1983. While excavating the truth of Atari’s past, Penn also pursues a more literal excavation in the vast landfill of Alamogordo, New Mexico, where Atari was rumored to have buried perhaps millions of \u003ci>E.T. \u003c/i>cartridges it had produced but could never hope to sell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The film bounces back and forth between these two strands, but despite the tremendous symbolic power in the act of attempting to literally unearth the past of a once-massive and beloved company, the scenes focused on organizing the landfill dig sometimes get bogged down in talk of red tape and excavation equipment, making them feel like a detour from the real story. And some sequences, like one that follow Ernest Cline (author of the video-game-themed novel \u003ci>Ready Player One\u003c/i>) as he cruises in a DeLorean with a full-size E.T. figure in the passenger seat, are so self-indulgently geeky and packed with so many pop-culture references that they diminish the film, sending the message that you’re either in on the joke or that this story is not for you.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10363240\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 652px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-9-family-playing-atari.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10363240 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-9-family-playing-atari-e1423107396994-652x600.jpg\" alt=\"There sure were some great promotional images for Atari games back in the day.\" width=\"652\" height=\"600\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">There sure were some great promotional images for Atari games back in the day.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And that’s too bad, because the story of Atari, and specifically of\u003ci> E.T.\u003c/i>’s designer and programmer Howard Warshaw, is a fascinating one that you don’t need an existing interest in video game history to appreciate. Warshaw comes across as a smart, complicated, likable man, and by focusing on him, Penn makes the story of Atari’s downfall a human story rather than just a story of reckless business decisions and massive financial shortfalls.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The young Howard Warshaw, who we see talking about the craft of game design in Atari promotional materials from the early 1980s, has a bit of the young hotshot quality about him that I associate with Kevin Flynn, the fictional game designer played by Jeff Bridges in \u003ci>Tron\u003c/i>, and who can blame him? He was, after all, the programmer of some of Atari’s most massive hits. The fifty-something Warshaw, interviewed for the film, looks back on those days with the perspective only afforded by time. Talking about how he struggled in the years following Atari’s collapse, Warshaw says, “I never let go of the thought that my life could still be this or better. I just didn’t know how to do it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10363241\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-3-warshaw-2.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10363241\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-3-warshaw-2-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Howard Warshaw, designer of some of Atari's biggest games.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-3-warshaw-2-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-3-warshaw-2-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-3-warshaw-2-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-3-warshaw-2.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Howard Warshaw, designer of some of Atari’s biggest games.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The film paints a lively picture of Atari at its heyday as a place where people partied at least as hard as they worked, a place where keggers were common and where things happened in the hot tub. Importantly, it also portrays game designers as artists of a sort who are doing genuinely creative work, and it illuminates, in terms that anyone can appreciate and understand, what makes a game like Warshaw’s Atari classic \u003ci>Yars’ Revenge \u003c/i>great.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unfortunately, it also uncritically presents an almost exclusively white male perspective on game design and Silicon Valley culture. Yes, the movers and shakers central to the story itself that Penn interviews—Warshaw, Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, and Warner executive Manny Gerard—are all white men; there’s no way around that, and they give illuminating interviews. But in selecting people to offer commentary on the events, Penn interviews novelists and screenwriters, collectors and scholars, all of whom have interesting things to say, but all of whom are also white men. Surely there are women and people of color with something to contribute to this conversation, but the film unwittingly perpetuates the idea \u003ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamergate_controversy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">held by many\u003c/a> that video games and geek culture exclude their input.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10363242\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-4-cline-Delorean.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10363242\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-4-cline-Delorean-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Geek singularity achieved.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-4-cline-Delorean-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-4-cline-Delorean-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-4-cline-Delorean-1180x664.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/02/ago-4-cline-Delorean.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Geek singularity achieved.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Still, there is an endearing generosity to \u003ci>Atari: Game Over\u003c/i>. The film challenges popular notions of Atari’s history and sets the record straight, clearing \u003ci>E.T. \u003c/i>and the man who created it of the charges of killing the video game industry. It’s a warmhearted look at the industry’s past that celebrates the impact pioneers of game design like Warshaw had on video games as we know them today. But because the film sometimes lays on the references and in-jokes a little thick rather than inviting everybody in, you’ll get more out of the film if you’re like me, and it’s digging up pieces of your past, as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>‘Atari: Game Over’ is available for rental and purchase from fine video-on-demand sites everywhere.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Imagining Life in Neo-San Francisco for 'Read Only Memories'",
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"content": "\u003cp>From \u003ci>The Conversation \u003c/i>to \u003ci>Tales of the City, \u003c/i>San Francisco has been well-represented in film and literature. But as Matt Conn, producer of the upcoming adventure game \u003ca href=\"http://midboss.com/rom/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Read Only Memories\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, told me recently over coffee at Haus in the Mission, there are hardly any games that let you actually explore San Francisco and experience its history and culture in a meaningful way. A few racing games have been set in SF, but in these, the city serves as nothing more than a backdrop for \u003ci>Bullitt-\u003c/i>style car chases. With \u003cem>Read Only Memories\u003c/em> (or ROM for short), Conn is interested in giving players a richer experience of San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ROM, which was funded by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gaymercon/read-only-memories-a-tribute-to-90s-adventure-game\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a successful Kickstarter campaign\u003c/a>, is a game in the classic point-and-click adventure mold, a genre with a focus on storytelling and puzzle solving. Set in the Neo-San Francisco of 2064, ROM casts the player as a journalist—you get to specify the character’s name and gender, with both standard and genderqueer pronoun options available—who is enlisted by a robot named Turing to help find Turing’s creator, an old friend of the player’s character who has disappeared under mysterious circumstances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10307131\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-14-carousel.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10307131\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-14-carousel-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Turing sure knows a lot about San Francisco.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-14-carousel-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-14-carousel-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-14-carousel-1180x663.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-14-carousel.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Turing sure knows a lot about San Francisco.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At Haus, I ask Conn what he sees as the role of San Francisco in \u003cem>Read Only Memories\u003c/em>. Referring to a classic adventure game, Conn replies, “After playing \u003cem>Gabriel Knight\u003c/em>, I was really impressed with how the creators made New Orleans its own character. That game was really good at incorporating real history.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Read Only Memories\u003c/em> incorporates some real San Francisco history, too. Examine the carousel building in Golden Gate Park, for instance, and Turing will rattle off some facts about it. But while you might learn a thing or two from the game, \u003cem>Read Only Memories\u003c/em> doesn’t go out of its way to educate players about buildings and landmarks. The game is more concerned with capturing the spirit of San Francisco’s neighborhoods, and, most importantly, its people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conn’s primary goal in developing \u003cem>Read Only Memories\u003c/em> was to make a game that featured a diverse assortment of queer characters in prominent roles, but wouldn’t be aimed exclusively at queer audiences. Instead, it’s a game that should feel approachable to anyone, particularly fans of sci-fi and of classic point-and-click adventure games. In fact, Conn hopes that some players who are resistant to the idea of engaging with queer characters might find their perspectives challenged by their time in Neo-San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In a way, I do want it to be subversive,” Conn says. “You don’t have to like the queer characters, but you do have to interact with them and sometimes rely on them for help. And I think a lot of people don’t get that exposure. Speaking from a gay man’s perspective, growing up, I was desperate to play games that had gay characters.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10307133\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-8-Majid-boyfriend.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10307133 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-8-Majid-boyfriend-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Bartender and business owner Majid is one character whose personal life you can choose to delve into or ignore.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-8-Majid-boyfriend-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-8-Majid-boyfriend-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-8-Majid-boyfriend-1180x663.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-8-Majid-boyfriend.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bartender and business owner Majid is one character whose personal life you can choose to delve into or ignore.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Through conversation options, \u003cem>Read Only Memories\u003c/em> lets players determine just how much they learn about a given character’s personal life. Hence, many of the game’s themes of queer identity can be ignored or sidestepped, but Conn hopes that players will want to get to know these people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The player can skip past a lot of that stuff if they don’t want to talk about it,” Conn said, “but then they’re really not gonna get the full story. And also, this is only one part of who those characters are. So players won’t just look at Lexi and think, ‘She’s just a lesbian character,’ because she’s also a police officer. The characters have other facets that come before they introduce their sexuality or talk about their gender identity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Given San Francisco’s history as a bastion of queer culture, it only made sense to set the game here, and by setting it some 50 years in the future, Conn and his team have given themselves the freedom to imagine how the city might evolve culturally and technologically. The world of \u003cem>Read Only Memories\u003c/em> is less hostile to queer folks than our world is—in ROM’s world, people wouldn’t bat an eye at the idea of, say, a transgender police chief—but that doesn’t mean that it’s a utopia in which everyone is on more or less equal footing in society. There are still marginalized populations in the form of hybrids and androids, and there are still people in positions of power and privilege.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10307134\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-15-human-revolution.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10307134 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-15-human-revolution-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"The Human Revolution may resort to some extreme measures, but some players may be sympathetic to their cause.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-15-human-revolution-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-15-human-revolution-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-15-human-revolution-1180x663.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-15-human-revolution.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Human Revolution resorts to some extreme measures, but some players may be sympathetic to their cause.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We’re trying to talk about what we think San Francisco is gonna look like in the future,” Conn said, “and there’s a lot of interesting tensions here, like between the city’s inhabitants and the tech culture.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ROM is still in development and much of the story remains under wraps, but having played through the first act via the free public demo (which can be downloaded from \u003ca href=\"http://midboss.com/rom/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the official site\u003c/a>), I see some of these tensions manifesting in the form of a resistance group called Human Revolution, which opposes the tech companies’ work to fundamentally change what it means to be human. Conn isn’t willing to reveal much yet about what impact these tensions will have over the course of the game’s story, but he does say that he doesn’t want to paint the Human Revolution as purely evil, or to present a morally simplistic view of the conflict at the center of the game’s narrative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Read Only Memories\u003c/em> is billed as a cyberpunk game, and its world is far from idealistic, but what I like most about the San Francisco of \u003cem>ROM\u003c/em> is that it’s not a typical gloomy cyberpunk dystopia in the vein of \u003ci>Blade Runner\u003c/i>’s Los Angeles. Rather, it’s a vision of San Francisco’s future in which the beauty and the diversity of the city I know and love today are plainly visible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://midboss.com/rom/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Only Memories\u003c/a>\u003c/em> should be available by June of this year.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>From \u003ci>The Conversation \u003c/i>to \u003ci>Tales of the City, \u003c/i>San Francisco has been well-represented in film and literature. But as Matt Conn, producer of the upcoming adventure game \u003ca href=\"http://midboss.com/rom/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">\u003cem>Read Only Memories\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, told me recently over coffee at Haus in the Mission, there are hardly any games that let you actually explore San Francisco and experience its history and culture in a meaningful way. A few racing games have been set in SF, but in these, the city serves as nothing more than a backdrop for \u003ci>Bullitt-\u003c/i>style car chases. With \u003cem>Read Only Memories\u003c/em> (or ROM for short), Conn is interested in giving players a richer experience of San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ROM, which was funded by \u003ca href=\"https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gaymercon/read-only-memories-a-tribute-to-90s-adventure-game\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a successful Kickstarter campaign\u003c/a>, is a game in the classic point-and-click adventure mold, a genre with a focus on storytelling and puzzle solving. Set in the Neo-San Francisco of 2064, ROM casts the player as a journalist—you get to specify the character’s name and gender, with both standard and genderqueer pronoun options available—who is enlisted by a robot named Turing to help find Turing’s creator, an old friend of the player’s character who has disappeared under mysterious circumstances.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10307131\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-14-carousel.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10307131\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-14-carousel-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Turing sure knows a lot about San Francisco.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-14-carousel-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-14-carousel-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-14-carousel-1180x663.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-14-carousel.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Turing sure knows a lot about San Francisco.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At Haus, I ask Conn what he sees as the role of San Francisco in \u003cem>Read Only Memories\u003c/em>. Referring to a classic adventure game, Conn replies, “After playing \u003cem>Gabriel Knight\u003c/em>, I was really impressed with how the creators made New Orleans its own character. That game was really good at incorporating real history.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Read Only Memories\u003c/em> incorporates some real San Francisco history, too. Examine the carousel building in Golden Gate Park, for instance, and Turing will rattle off some facts about it. But while you might learn a thing or two from the game, \u003cem>Read Only Memories\u003c/em> doesn’t go out of its way to educate players about buildings and landmarks. The game is more concerned with capturing the spirit of San Francisco’s neighborhoods, and, most importantly, its people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conn’s primary goal in developing \u003cem>Read Only Memories\u003c/em> was to make a game that featured a diverse assortment of queer characters in prominent roles, but wouldn’t be aimed exclusively at queer audiences. Instead, it’s a game that should feel approachable to anyone, particularly fans of sci-fi and of classic point-and-click adventure games. In fact, Conn hopes that some players who are resistant to the idea of engaging with queer characters might find their perspectives challenged by their time in Neo-San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In a way, I do want it to be subversive,” Conn says. “You don’t have to like the queer characters, but you do have to interact with them and sometimes rely on them for help. And I think a lot of people don’t get that exposure. Speaking from a gay man’s perspective, growing up, I was desperate to play games that had gay characters.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10307133\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-8-Majid-boyfriend.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10307133 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-8-Majid-boyfriend-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"Bartender and business owner Majid is one character whose personal life you can choose to delve into or ignore.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-8-Majid-boyfriend-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-8-Majid-boyfriend-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-8-Majid-boyfriend-1180x663.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-8-Majid-boyfriend.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bartender and business owner Majid is one character whose personal life you can choose to delve into or ignore.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Through conversation options, \u003cem>Read Only Memories\u003c/em> lets players determine just how much they learn about a given character’s personal life. Hence, many of the game’s themes of queer identity can be ignored or sidestepped, but Conn hopes that players will want to get to know these people.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The player can skip past a lot of that stuff if they don’t want to talk about it,” Conn said, “but then they’re really not gonna get the full story. And also, this is only one part of who those characters are. So players won’t just look at Lexi and think, ‘She’s just a lesbian character,’ because she’s also a police officer. The characters have other facets that come before they introduce their sexuality or talk about their gender identity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Given San Francisco’s history as a bastion of queer culture, it only made sense to set the game here, and by setting it some 50 years in the future, Conn and his team have given themselves the freedom to imagine how the city might evolve culturally and technologically. The world of \u003cem>Read Only Memories\u003c/em> is less hostile to queer folks than our world is—in ROM’s world, people wouldn’t bat an eye at the idea of, say, a transgender police chief—but that doesn’t mean that it’s a utopia in which everyone is on more or less equal footing in society. There are still marginalized populations in the form of hybrids and androids, and there are still people in positions of power and privilege.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_10307134\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-15-human-revolution.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-10307134 size-medium\" src=\"http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-15-human-revolution-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"The Human Revolution may resort to some extreme measures, but some players may be sympathetic to their cause.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-15-human-revolution-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-15-human-revolution-400x225.jpg 400w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-15-human-revolution-1180x663.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/01/KROM-15-human-revolution.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Human Revolution resorts to some extreme measures, but some players may be sympathetic to their cause.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We’re trying to talk about what we think San Francisco is gonna look like in the future,” Conn said, “and there’s a lot of interesting tensions here, like between the city’s inhabitants and the tech culture.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>ROM is still in development and much of the story remains under wraps, but having played through the first act via the free public demo (which can be downloaded from \u003ca href=\"http://midboss.com/rom/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the official site\u003c/a>), I see some of these tensions manifesting in the form of a resistance group called Human Revolution, which opposes the tech companies’ work to fundamentally change what it means to be human. Conn isn’t willing to reveal much yet about what impact these tensions will have over the course of the game’s story, but he does say that he doesn’t want to paint the Human Revolution as purely evil, or to present a morally simplistic view of the conflict at the center of the game’s narrative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Read Only Memories\u003c/em> is billed as a cyberpunk game, and its world is far from idealistic, but what I like most about the San Francisco of \u003cem>ROM\u003c/em> is that it’s not a typical gloomy cyberpunk dystopia in the vein of \u003ci>Blade Runner\u003c/i>’s Los Angeles. Rather, it’s a vision of San Francisco’s future in which the beauty and the diversity of the city I know and love today are plainly visible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ca href=\"http://midboss.com/rom/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Only Memories\u003c/a>\u003c/em> should be available by June of this year.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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"mindshift": {
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"order": 12
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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"possible": {
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"pri-the-world": {
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"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
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"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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},
"reveal": {
"id": "reveal",
"title": "Reveal",
"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
"airtime": "SAT 4pm-5pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/reveal300px.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
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},
"rightnowish": {
"id": "rightnowish",
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