Binary Bomain
Binge Play: Mass Effect Series
Playing the Mass Effect series intermittently for the past six months [summer & winter of 2016]. I believe, collectively I put close to 250+ hours into the series and I’m still debating if I even like what I played. I know I liked the Mako, but I didn’t like using it on every planet [Mass Effect 1]. I know I hated scanning, but I liked the feeling of a cursory search in a galaxy I had a middling interest in. Maybe if I’d chosen Jennifer Hale instead of the dry delivery of Mark Meer to voice my caramel-skinned Commander Shepard -- maybe I’d care to play through this series again. Unfortunately, that won’t happen.
On The Subject of Comfort Levels
Okay, so I haven’t published a lot of my writing about games, or really anything, in recent months. The truth is, it’s really pretty rad. I’ve been able to dance and run more. I’ve been playing through my PS3/PS2 backlog. I built a gaming computer. Next month I’m hopping back into photography with a new fancy camera. Things have happened. Things are happening.
Tomb Raider And "Sensible Boobs"
I’ve beaten the reboot of Tomb Raider weeks ago and I’m still befuddled as to why I didn’t like it. On paper, everything is there: great voice acting, diverse looking cast, non-killing activities and beautiful locales. I even cringe as I say, “they even gave her sensible breasts!” I’m still parsing what that even means in my small hetero dude-brain. I’m also processing what Tomb Raider games have to be in order to be deemed successful. I’m still figuring out why this game is another brick in the wall of why, even the best big budget games, are equal parts off-putting in their over-reaching goals.
Max Payne 3: I Aggressively Hate This Game
Max Payne 3 turned out to be the game people wanted after they realized realistic gun violence needs a better soundtrack. I never was a Max Payne fan. I think this is a result of playing the PS2 games well after the Matrix hype died down. Shooting bullets at a slower rate of speed was cool. I mean “bullet time” became a known term because of Max Payne. What have you done for me lately Max Payne? Have you upheld all the current tropes in gaming? Yes, you have. This video game stars a white dude in a land of poor people of color. He shoots them and the developers made sure it felt mechanically great. This game is well liked in my friend group and I can see its charm, but outside of the dope soundtrack, Max Payne 3 a big budget fart of a game.
On the Failures Of Black Men Writers In Games Media
I want to preface this by saying I have hope for games writing. I have hope, because I see Evan Narcisse, Zolani Stewart, Sidney Fussell, Austin Walker and the great catalog of work they’ve built over the years. They, among other men of color in games writing, have worked without a shred of the recognition they truly deserve to get on platforms like Kotaku, Boingboing and Giantbomb where their voices grow stronger. There are a number of black writers and specifically black men who write critically about games, but these are my favorites to reference when delving into today’s topic. Honestly, they’re my favorites in general.
So, we kinda suck when it comes to writing about black women.
Breaking Dark Souls
It has taken me the better part of a month to write this and I’m not sure why. Writing about my 240-plus hour experience with Dark Souls may prove more difficult than playing the game. I didn’t have a bad time, I like Dark Souls. It does feel like I’m playing a different game all of my friends played years back. That part is cool. I kinda think this new age of patch updates and downloadable content means that someone who plays a game in 2009 is guaranteed to NOT have the same experience someone else has playing the game years later. This also means how we are challenged as players has to change with those times.
Choosing Your Own Misadventure
[I promise you I’m gonna climb out of my little writing depression, but give me a little time y’all. It’s taking me long periods to organize thoughts. Thank you for reading.]
So, I played The Walking Dead Season 2 and The Wolf Among Us within one week. Only, that week was about two months ago from the day of me writing this. In between that time I’d been thinking about how we choose our adventures with media -- and how that reflects our daily lives. Though I can’t predict how the average person who has a 9-to-5 plays games. I’ve just begun scraping the surface on how I decompress after a long day with games.
2014's "S**t That Was Cool And S**t That Wasn't" Awards