The Game Tourist Episode 8: The Wanderer of the Wasteland and Bringer of Utopia

Fallout 4 (Bethesda Game Studies, 2015) involves the game tourist in a post-apocalyptic dystopian gameworld and in a multifarious experience of play and video game photography. It is a venture that is both terrifying and intriguing, perilous yet pleasurable. And confronts players with the utopian beauty of the environment and the regenerative appeal of a…

The Game Tourist Episode 7: Remembering the Cyperpunk Vigilante in Watch_Dogs

Reviews for the new Watch_Dogs 2 (2016) suggest that Ubisoft Montreal have learned their lesson and created an improved version of Watch_Dogs (2014) (the cyberpunk vigilante) with their newest iteration. But is this really so? When missions proceed according to the same, cumbersome routine, lacking checkpoints, which would have promoted creative play. But instead the player finds himself encapsulated…

The Game Tourist Episode 6: Hellblade and Senua’s descent into darkness

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (Ninja Theory, 2019) grants players access to the nightmarish visions of Senua, a Pict warrior who embarks of the journey of a heroine to cleanse her inner demons. Senua suffers from psychosis, a mental illness that developed in her childhood with the loss of her mother, Galena, (a trauma she has ever since…

The Game Tourist E05: Why Half-Life 2’s Beginning is Still One of the Best!

When Half-Life 2 (Valve) released in 2004, it modernised game and narrative design alike. Like its predecessor it refrains from telling its story through cut scenes and non-connected gameplay but rather sets players at the forefront of the action. This is thanks to use of scripted events and characters that players care about and with whom…

The Game Tourist E02: Enter the Metro

Metro 2033 (4A Games, 2011) is a nightmarish vision of a nuclear future to come as it is a depiction of humankind’s inability to evolve past vital shortcomings. The game involves players in a conflict between ideologies and several factions (the Reds, the Nazis, and so on) and asks the question how ethical can one…

Book Announcement: Playing Dystopia

Hi everyone, I want to draw attention to my newly published book—“Playing Dystopia: Nightmarish Worlds in Video Games and the Player’s Aesthetic Response”—which is now available (as a book and ebook) via Transcript and soon in the US/internationally through Colombia University Press. (You can read the introduction and table of contents following this link) In…

The Game Tourist E01: The Magical Ascent of Journey

The game tourist of Journey (Thatgamecompany 2012, 2015) comes to visit an extraordinary, magical world that is permeated by vibrant colours and alluring vistas. To travel this world not only means to participate in a plot scenario that has the player (and the unnamed character) move the way of life towards a final goal but also…

Video Game Tourism E08: Watch_Dogs 2 Selfies (Part I)

With 40H40min, Watch_Dogs 2 (Ubisoft Montreal, 2016) is finally over! This might seem a little harsh, but in the end I’m glad I finished the game. This is not to say that Watch_Dogs 2 is a bad game, that’s far from the truth—and I had some incredible moments with it. Unfortunately, though, many of the…