Yay for state sanctioned holidays!

This is more a reminder for myself that this place exists. Now that the holidays are here and I don't have to worry about anything for a week or so, I'll have the time to bang out my own review of Call of Duty 4 and Mass Effect. My focus will be on how these two games manipulate a player's expectations of player agency.

With apologies to the Academic Gamer

This space is just a place for me to perform close readings of current games outside the context of the various ludological and narratological debates that are raging throughout academia.
Also, the act of writing and publishing forces many academics/scholars to write on games that are essentially years old by the time they publish. When will a paper on Bioshock appear? Probably not for a while.
Finally, the problem with reviews now is the concern with spoilers, which makes for very surface and shallow readings of games. "The story is good" or "Great gameplay" are common phrases thrown around in reviews, but with very little explanation. Hopefully, by writing down my ideas, I can develop my own understanding of how games operate and other people can tell me how full of shit I am.

Onward ho!