Game Reviews
Gears of War Documentaries...
The first Gears of War documentary that I produced was connected to my Masters internship work. That work focused on cinematic cut-scenes in the Gears games. I then produced two other documentaries, one looked at the nature of glitching-out of maps in Gears 2, and the other looked at the representation of women in Gears games.
Gears of War - Cinematics and Representation
Examining Epic Games and their top game franchise - Gears of War. It was made in anticipation of the release of Gears of War 4 for Xbox One. I believed that it is important to examine what has gone wrong with the series up to this point. There are still more players on Gears of War 2 than Gears of War Judgment. How do cinematics in video games inform an understanding of pipelines in game development? How do cut-scene stylistics and editing systems influence player engagement and immersion?
You can find more on this topic including an annotated bibliography in the Critical Writing section.
You can find more on this topic including an annotated bibliography in the Critical Writing section.
Gears of War - Endogamic Game Culture
Examining the representation of women in the Gears of War game franchise, with close attention to the proliferation of presentations of women in Gears of War 3 but the somewhat disingenuous representation of those same female figures. What does this say about the game culture of the games? The hermetically-sealed culture of Triple A game studios?
N.B. The narration was ad lib after I had edited the footage together.
N.B. The narration was ad lib after I had edited the footage together.
Gears of War - Traumatic Spaces
This is a brief overview for the broken code of Gears of War 2. The game developer, Epic Games, intentionally kept the code for the game "buggy", but one must seriously consider the detriment this presents for the psychology of many gamers. The glitched-out area of game maps are a "schizophrenic" region of space that can only be accessed through violating the intended mechanics and gameplay of the game and thus traumatizing the psychology of the player. The "reality" of the rules experience an overlay of a fantasy region where sometimes it seems that anything is possible.
