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Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games
A wide-ranging anthology of essays exploring one of the most vital art forms on the planet today
From the earliest computers to the smartphones in our pockets, video games have been on our screens and part of our lives for over fifty years. Critical Hits celebrates this sophisticated medium and considers its lasting impact on our culture and ourselves.
This collection of stylish, passionate, and searching essays opens with an introduction by Carmen Maria Machado, who edited the anthology alongside J. Robert Lennon. In these pages, writer-gamers find solace from illness and grief, test ideas about language, bodies, power, race, and technology, and see their experiences and identities reflected in―or complicated by―the interactive virtual worlds they inhabit. Elissa Washuta immerses herself in The Last of Us during the first summer of the pandemic. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah describes his last goodbye to his father with the help of Disco Elysium. Jamil Jan Kochai remembers being an Afghan American teenager killing Afghan insurgents in Call of Duty . Also included are a comic by MariNaomi about her time as a video game producer; a deep dive into “portal fantasy” movies about video games by Charlie Jane Anders; and new work by Alexander Chee, Hanif Abdurraqib, Larissa Pham, and many more.
From the earliest computers to the smartphones in our pockets, video games have been on our screens and part of our lives for over fifty years. Critical Hits celebrates this sophisticated medium and considers its lasting impact on our culture and ourselves.
This collection of stylish, passionate, and searching essays opens with an introduction by Carmen Maria Machado, who edited the anthology alongside J. Robert Lennon. In these pages, writer-gamers find solace from illness and grief, test ideas about language, bodies, power, race, and technology, and see their experiences and identities reflected in―or complicated by―the interactive virtual worlds they inhabit. Elissa Washuta immerses herself in The Last of Us during the first summer of the pandemic. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah describes his last goodbye to his father with the help of Disco Elysium. Jamil Jan Kochai remembers being an Afghan American teenager killing Afghan insurgents in Call of Duty . Also included are a comic by MariNaomi about her time as a video game producer; a deep dive into “portal fantasy” movies about video games by Charlie Jane Anders; and new work by Alexander Chee, Hanif Abdurraqib, Larissa Pham, and many more.
224 pages, Paperback
Published November 21, 2023
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4336 people want to read
About the author
J. Robert Lennon
43 books287 followersJ. Robert Lennon is the author of three story collections and ten novels, and is co-editor of CRITICAL HITS, an anthology of writing on video games. He lives in Ithaca, New York.
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July 23, 2024
‘There are probably better ways to attempt the playing of God, but there are certainly far worse.’
Truth be told, it was a video game in my childhood that first woke me up to the possibilities of storytelling and sent me on a lifelong path of wanting to better understand and analyze the implications of narratives. I recall being a kid and, compared to a hobby like reading, video games being something treated like candy—silly and fun but not a healthy habit to over indulge in. Yet I’ve always truly believed there is literary value to be had in video games and they are an artistic medium that, not unlike graphic novels, can tell a story in fascinating and unique ways. I’ve always been sort of on the outside of video game culture, but I really appreciate the genre and all the efforts that go into bringing a story to life. There have been moments that really shook me, the way Life Is Strange makes you consider the consequences of small choices and be so emotionally invested into extremely heavy moments, the devastating first and final sequences to The Last of Us. or just playing horror games like Dead Space in the dark with my old roommate, swapping who was playing when the anxiety became too great. Memories of scenes both of friends around the tv as much as the events on the screen that are as vivid as some favorite novels and films. Video games can be a community activity to bond with friends, an escape, a challenge to overcome, and, as we see in the essays collected here in Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games, a source for deep introspection on psychology and ethics in society and the self. Edited by Carmen Maria Machado and J. Robert Lennon, this lovely little anthology brings together a wonderful variety of critical theory, essays and memoir creating a discourse around video games as an art and social indicator. Featuring pieces from folks like Hanif Abdurraqib (who’s piece brought tears to my eyes), Charlie Jane Anders, Larissa Pham, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Alexander Chee, Vanessa Angélica Villarreal and more, this is an insightful collection for both casual and avid gamers, yet equally enjoyable for those who just like a great, thoughtful piece on how technology shapes our ideas of society and the self.
‘I feel like the ideal game does for me what an ideal novel does,’ writes editor J. Robert Lennon, ‘You feel yourself completely subsumed in the imagination of the writer or the world that the game developers have created.’ I will never forget waking up one January in middle school to discover we had a snow day. Instead of going back to bed I eagerly switched on my playstation to keep playing Final Fantasy VII, a game that would forever stick with me and change how I thought about stories. Because that morning was when I would finish the first act and witness the villain kill off a major character. Reader, I cried. But it struck me how a game could tell such an intricate story and pull of some incredible twists like nothing I’d previously experienced, and it all hit so much more deeply because of the emotional investment of active participation. In the essay Narnia Made of Pixels, Charlie Jane Anders discusses how this is sort of a portal fantasy the way we are pulled into the world and can participate (though there is also discussion on ideas of free will too), and even has an incredible discussion on ideas of embodiment and ties that into discussions on trans identity. Adding to that, in her essay Status Effect, Larissa Pham writes:
This attachment keeps us coming back for more. It is cathartic, it can make us feel like we are a hero, it can make us whoever we want to be, and sometimes it can be a much more complex emotional experience. In We’re More Ghosts Than People, Hanif Abdurraqib looks at ideas of redemption in his playthrough of Red Dead Redemption 2. Knowing that the character will succumb to tuberculosis no matter what, he still attempts to have the character always do the just and honorable thing as if maybe, just maybe he can offer him a redemption and realizes it might be related to an inner desire to redeem oneself for a past he’s still trying to make peace with. It’s a beautiful essay, one that ends with a description of having his cowboy always watch the sunset, hoping he’s giving what he knows deep down is a lifeless video game animation some sort of peace and hope before he dies while ‘trying to wrestle with my own goodness or badness.’ You can read the essay HERE and I highly recommend it.
It makes me think of how interactive storylines have become. How our choices matter. It breaks your heart when you realize, as I recently did playing Detroit Become Human, that I caused a character to die. No game has ever been a greater emotional rollercoaster for me though than Life Is Strange facing some truly dark and devastating moments, or frantically mashing buttons to try and reverse time as you watch a friend throw themselves to their death…a death you might be able to stop if you’ve made the right choices. I guess sometimes you can’t. That’s a lot to take in. Several writers here talk about the ethics of it all. How the deaths of nonplayable characters we let die in mass might erode our empathy. It makes me think of Ted Chiang’s novella The Lifecycle of Software Objects where digital pets develop their own personality and it is wondered if they truly do feel love, sadness, pain, and more. Though the violence can also reveal much more about who society deems worth living. In a particularly moving piece by Jamil Jan Kochai ‘the virtual dream of the game collapses onto me’ while playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 when he, an Afghan American, realized the violence of the game everyone was taking glee in was directed at people just like himself.
He notes that ‘cathartic violence envisioned is always directed toward a colonized figure,’ and the horror of realizing the game was propaganda upholding the mass movement of troops into Afghanistan. Vanessa Angélica Villarreal approaches an excellent look at race in storytelling, such as looking at how in fantasy stories such as The Lord of the Rings, a particular race can be coded as pure evil.
This sort of racist entrenchment plays out in awful ways, such as in anti-immigration political sentiments around the world. Villarreal looks at the use of Norse mythology in many games, like Assassins Creed Valhalla, and branches into a discussion on the darker side of video games found in online communities, such as the alt-right groups that rally around viking imagery in the US (she references several shooters who’s manifestos were steeped in Norse mythology references or idolized white supremacist Ragnar Redbeard). The New Zealand Christchurch shooter even live-streamed his assault in a style to mimic first-person shooter games. It is still in recent memory gross online harassment campaigns such as Gamergate that flooded online gaming with horrific misogyny, racism and mockery towards anyone who spoke against it, and worse still is the way this became a prototype for a lot of bad-faith actors and alt-right movements to this day. On the subject of misogyny, MariNaomi provides a comic discussing their career through the videogame industry and the extra difficulties faced by female-presenting individuals in a field dominated by men and where even the joy of a woman boss quickly evaporated under the weight of her internalized misogyny. For as much fun as video games can be, this collection does take a lot of really heavy looks into social issues and how they permeate the industry.
What makes this collection so wonderful, however, is the variety of stories. The COVID era is frequently mentioned—a time when many were able to be home and playing games more—and I appreciated pieces such as Elissa Washuta discussing the eeriness of playing The Last of Us during a pandemic. There is something for everyone here and I found a lot of these more memoir-esque pieces to be extremely moving (I can’t believe I got teary in an essay about playstation cowboys). A great little anthology for avid and casual gamers alike.
4/5
'When it was all over, I found myself laughing, alone on my couch. Despite myself, I’d once again fallen for the first trick I was ever taught: that on the other end of some vague and broad attempts at goodness, there might be something that saves me, that saves anyone I love.'
Truth be told, it was a video game in my childhood that first woke me up to the possibilities of storytelling and sent me on a lifelong path of wanting to better understand and analyze the implications of narratives. I recall being a kid and, compared to a hobby like reading, video games being something treated like candy—silly and fun but not a healthy habit to over indulge in. Yet I’ve always truly believed there is literary value to be had in video games and they are an artistic medium that, not unlike graphic novels, can tell a story in fascinating and unique ways. I’ve always been sort of on the outside of video game culture, but I really appreciate the genre and all the efforts that go into bringing a story to life. There have been moments that really shook me, the way Life Is Strange makes you consider the consequences of small choices and be so emotionally invested into extremely heavy moments, the devastating first and final sequences to The Last of Us. or just playing horror games like Dead Space in the dark with my old roommate, swapping who was playing when the anxiety became too great. Memories of scenes both of friends around the tv as much as the events on the screen that are as vivid as some favorite novels and films. Video games can be a community activity to bond with friends, an escape, a challenge to overcome, and, as we see in the essays collected here in Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games, a source for deep introspection on psychology and ethics in society and the self. Edited by Carmen Maria Machado and J. Robert Lennon, this lovely little anthology brings together a wonderful variety of critical theory, essays and memoir creating a discourse around video games as an art and social indicator. Featuring pieces from folks like Hanif Abdurraqib (who’s piece brought tears to my eyes), Charlie Jane Anders, Larissa Pham, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Alexander Chee, Vanessa Angélica Villarreal and more, this is an insightful collection for both casual and avid gamers, yet equally enjoyable for those who just like a great, thoughtful piece on how technology shapes our ideas of society and the self.
‘I feel like the ideal game does for me what an ideal novel does,’ writes editor J. Robert Lennon, ‘You feel yourself completely subsumed in the imagination of the writer or the world that the game developers have created.’ I will never forget waking up one January in middle school to discover we had a snow day. Instead of going back to bed I eagerly switched on my playstation to keep playing Final Fantasy VII, a game that would forever stick with me and change how I thought about stories. Because that morning was when I would finish the first act and witness the villain kill off a major character. Reader, I cried. But it struck me how a game could tell such an intricate story and pull of some incredible twists like nothing I’d previously experienced, and it all hit so much more deeply because of the emotional investment of active participation. In the essay Narnia Made of Pixels, Charlie Jane Anders discusses how this is sort of a portal fantasy the way we are pulled into the world and can participate (though there is also discussion on ideas of free will too), and even has an incredible discussion on ideas of embodiment and ties that into discussions on trans identity. Adding to that, in her essay Status Effect, Larissa Pham writes:
‘Here’s the beautiful separation games promise: You can become someone, even grow to love someone, a character that’s both the result of your efforts and not yourself.’
This attachment keeps us coming back for more. It is cathartic, it can make us feel like we are a hero, it can make us whoever we want to be, and sometimes it can be a much more complex emotional experience. In We’re More Ghosts Than People, Hanif Abdurraqib looks at ideas of redemption in his playthrough of Red Dead Redemption 2. Knowing that the character will succumb to tuberculosis no matter what, he still attempts to have the character always do the just and honorable thing as if maybe, just maybe he can offer him a redemption and realizes it might be related to an inner desire to redeem oneself for a past he’s still trying to make peace with. It’s a beautiful essay, one that ends with a description of having his cowboy always watch the sunset, hoping he’s giving what he knows deep down is a lifeless video game animation some sort of peace and hope before he dies while ‘trying to wrestle with my own goodness or badness.’ You can read the essay HERE and I highly recommend it.
It makes me think of how interactive storylines have become. How our choices matter. It breaks your heart when you realize, as I recently did playing Detroit Become Human, that I caused a character to die. No game has ever been a greater emotional rollercoaster for me though than Life Is Strange facing some truly dark and devastating moments, or frantically mashing buttons to try and reverse time as you watch a friend throw themselves to their death…a death you might be able to stop if you’ve made the right choices. I guess sometimes you can’t. That’s a lot to take in. Several writers here talk about the ethics of it all. How the deaths of nonplayable characters we let die in mass might erode our empathy. It makes me think of Ted Chiang’s novella The Lifecycle of Software Objects where digital pets develop their own personality and it is wondered if they truly do feel love, sadness, pain, and more. Though the violence can also reveal much more about who society deems worth living. In a particularly moving piece by Jamil Jan Kochai ‘the virtual dream of the game collapses onto me’ while playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 when he, an Afghan American, realized the violence of the game everyone was taking glee in was directed at people just like himself.
‘If I am to exist within the narrative dreams of America, I, as a subject, must destroy myself, as an object, forever. It is not a choice; it is a duty. I must wait for me in the killing fields of the American imagination.’
He notes that ‘cathartic violence envisioned is always directed toward a colonized figure,’ and the horror of realizing the game was propaganda upholding the mass movement of troops into Afghanistan. Vanessa Angélica Villarreal approaches an excellent look at race in storytelling, such as looking at how in fantasy stories such as The Lord of the Rings, a particular race can be coded as pure evil.
‘Done poorly, fantasy races merely replicate the racial logics of our world, entrenching stereotypes through the reenactment of oppressive narratives.’
This sort of racist entrenchment plays out in awful ways, such as in anti-immigration political sentiments around the world. Villarreal looks at the use of Norse mythology in many games, like Assassins Creed Valhalla, and branches into a discussion on the darker side of video games found in online communities, such as the alt-right groups that rally around viking imagery in the US (she references several shooters who’s manifestos were steeped in Norse mythology references or idolized white supremacist Ragnar Redbeard). The New Zealand Christchurch shooter even live-streamed his assault in a style to mimic first-person shooter games. It is still in recent memory gross online harassment campaigns such as Gamergate that flooded online gaming with horrific misogyny, racism and mockery towards anyone who spoke against it, and worse still is the way this became a prototype for a lot of bad-faith actors and alt-right movements to this day. On the subject of misogyny, MariNaomi provides a comic discussing their career through the videogame industry and the extra difficulties faced by female-presenting individuals in a field dominated by men and where even the joy of a woman boss quickly evaporated under the weight of her internalized misogyny. For as much fun as video games can be, this collection does take a lot of really heavy looks into social issues and how they permeate the industry.
What makes this collection so wonderful, however, is the variety of stories. The COVID era is frequently mentioned—a time when many were able to be home and playing games more—and I appreciated pieces such as Elissa Washuta discussing the eeriness of playing The Last of Us during a pandemic. There is something for everyone here and I found a lot of these more memoir-esque pieces to be extremely moving (I can’t believe I got teary in an essay about playstation cowboys). A great little anthology for avid and casual gamers alike.
4/5
'When it was all over, I found myself laughing, alone on my couch. Despite myself, I’d once again fallen for the first trick I was ever taught: that on the other end of some vague and broad attempts at goodness, there might be something that saves me, that saves anyone I love.'
December 24, 2023
Beautiful and exploratory and thoughtful and video games are books too.
December 22, 2023
I really wanted to love this and certain stories I did- but it got pedantic and covid heavy around the middle-end. Just wasn't that engaging. I wish they had picked between critical theory and memoir?
March 1, 2024
Es war so schön, mal Texte über etwas zu lesen, das die Schreibenden lieben. Schön, gar nichts über die Frage zu lesen, ob Computerspiele jetzt gut oder schlecht sind. Und schön, Texte von Intellektuellen zu lesen, in denen es kein bisschen um Wichtige Personen oder Statusgetue anhand des eigenen Kulturkonsums geht. Auch wenn ich es überraschend finde, wie wenig die Menschen, die die Spiele entwickelt haben, erwähnt werden – fast alle Texte lesen sich so, als seien die Spiele irgendwie einfach von allein entstanden. So hätte vielleicht Literaturkritik ausgesehen, wenn sie zur Zeit der ersten Romane schon existiert hätte.
July 18, 2024
Some great hits and some colossal misses. The essay about vikings and the alt right is a big standout. But it's clear from the writing some of these authors aren't into gaming all that much, which can be a really interesting perspective to have--that of the newcomer or observer (and this actually works really well in the essay about a mother being dismayed with the amount of time her sons spend gaming)--but for the most part it just feels like the writer and reader are on completely different pages and the writer is talking down to the reader (a presumed gamer). Glad that gaming is breaking into more literary spaces (even though other collections like this exist and there is a subsection of gaming/nerd lit community, I'd still say in the literary mainstream it still has more to go no matter how tired we all are of the "are games art?" discorse.
August 7, 2023
Some of todays most talented writers talking about the games that have shaped them? Sign me all the way up!
While Critical Hits felt tailormade for me, each of these essays work as resonant pieces apart from any knowledge the video games discussed. Adjei-Brenyah's essay on the grief of losing his father, Wushuta's delve into chronic illness and isolation, and Wilson's exploration of his own identity through the lens of Final Fantasy VI; all of these essays reveal the powerful way the right game at the right time can change you forever. Critical Hits, wonderfully edited by Carmen Maria Machado & J. Robert Lennon, has rocketed to one of my favorite books, not just of 2023, but of all time. If you have EVER enjoyed playing a video game, I can't recommend Critical Hits highly enough.
While Critical Hits felt tailormade for me, each of these essays work as resonant pieces apart from any knowledge the video games discussed. Adjei-Brenyah's essay on the grief of losing his father, Wushuta's delve into chronic illness and isolation, and Wilson's exploration of his own identity through the lens of Final Fantasy VI; all of these essays reveal the powerful way the right game at the right time can change you forever. Critical Hits, wonderfully edited by Carmen Maria Machado & J. Robert Lennon, has rocketed to one of my favorite books, not just of 2023, but of all time. If you have EVER enjoyed playing a video game, I can't recommend Critical Hits highly enough.
November 22, 2023
I’ve read so much writing on video games and this is truly some of the best. It covers a breadth of unexpected games with writers who both do and don’t consider themselves gamers, and those who do and don’t consider Art as the value of video games. Literary criticism, personal essays and even a biographical comic; just a perfectly edited collection in every way. Grateful we got to cover this on No Cartridge (wherever you listen to podcasts 😉). Thanks to Graywolf Press for ARCs!
January 26, 2024
Really very good. Prefer the pieces where they dive into how weird and insane games are as a storytelling device and not just “here’s what was going on in my life when I was playing this game that I connected with.”
Pieces worth reading: “Thinking like the knight,” “staying with the trouble,” “cocoon,” “the great indoors men,” “teenage transgender super soldier” and then a banger of a finale from hanif abdurraqib as per usual
Pieces worth reading: “Thinking like the knight,” “staying with the trouble,” “cocoon,” “the great indoors men,” “teenage transgender super soldier” and then a banger of a finale from hanif abdurraqib as per usual
April 16, 2024
There are a few games that I would consider to have been a large part of my life and that I have a lot of fondness for. Through this and growing up watching my brothers play video games (sometimes I say that I like watching people play video games more than I like playing them) I have a ton of respect for video games as a story telling platform and as art. I think it is an extremely unique way to tell a story and challenge your brain and is an overall immersive experience in ways that I don't think a lot of other things are (at least for me). Even through all of this I have a hard time considering myself as a "gamer". Not that I think you need that label to understand video games, I do think that having that label signals to people that you GET it when it comes to video games. I think this book described SO well how I feel about video games and was so well done and I doubt some of these people would consider themselves hard core gamers either. If you don't get the hype around video games I think you should read this book. If you do understand the hyper around video games I think you should read this book.
The last half of the book is where I really started feeling the essays in my bones. I think The Great Indoorsmen was my favorite (I sobbed) but there are so many others that I will think about for a long time as well.
The last half of the book is where I really started feeling the essays in my bones. I think The Great Indoorsmen was my favorite (I sobbed) but there are so many others that I will think about for a long time as well.
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July 16, 2024I kind of liked this and some stronger than others but I wish the genre of video games ranged more. I want to do mother version of this where I’m the editor lmao
April 29, 2025
A couple of the essays in here were fantastic (Anders Monson, and J. Robert Lennon, to be exact) and I enjoyed the prologue from Carmen Maria Machado, even though it devolved quickly into just a list of games she's played. Most of the essays were just... OK. A bit interesting perhaps, but nothing super moving or amazing in terms of perspective shift. One in particular I thought was absolute trash; like, not even well-researched (there were actual factual inaccuracies and fallacies of logic) and not about gaming at all, per se, just a vehicle to soapbox. Actually a lot of them were more about a political viewpoint than about gaming, or at least read like talking about gaming wasn't even interesting to the author so much as another lens to talk about their FAVORITE thing, the thing probably all of their essays are about - examining themselves. A couple of the essays felt to me like "Oh, I just really want to include this person in my book I'm editing because they are my friend, so we told them to go write an essay about gaming, even though they don't actually play games" and that shows. The first essay felt disjointed, like trying REALLY hard to weave two subjects together that just did not want to stick. Also, she basically recaps the entirety of The Last Of Us plot (spoilers!) but, like, exactly as it is in the TV series so I almost kinda doubted whether she really played it or if she just needed something gaming-related to stitch her other narrative to and that worked.... The Larissa Pham essay, similarly, was like, "Oh, I have never played games ever, but then I picked up a MOBILE PHONE GAME during 2020 so NOW I'm a gamer!" Um.... those are basically just dopamine dispensers for bored people/people who can't sit with their emotions. I wouldn't call them "video games" in any real way. The Charlie Jane Anders essay was like "I'm not going to listen to the directions at all; I won't be writing about video games played, but in some abstract way about movies where people go into video games..." and it just felt like that essay didn't even really belong in this collection. Anyway. I guess I should have loved that it was super queer, and inclusive, but I think I would have preferred just more from writers who were, like, hardcore gamers. It felt forced.
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February 18, 2024hard to rate this as a whole because it’s a collection of diff authors but goddamn they hit this out the park. they got such an insane list of writers for a book that desperately needed to exist. i’ve been looking for a book like this for years or any sort of writing like this — it’s hard to find and when i found stuff like jamil jan kochai’s metal gear essay (who luckily has another absolutely great piece in this book) i knew it was out there somewhere and i’d be searching for it harder sense.
faves were the ones by elissa washuta, nana kwame adjei-brenyah, jamil jan kochai, ander monson, tony tulathimutte, nat steele (def think i had read this one on its original polygon run, still fucking goes), stephen sexton, and of course, hanif abdurraqib.
faves were the ones by elissa washuta, nana kwame adjei-brenyah, jamil jan kochai, ander monson, tony tulathimutte, nat steele (def think i had read this one on its original polygon run, still fucking goes), stephen sexton, and of course, hanif abdurraqib.
January 2, 2024
Un très bon recueil de textes, souvent intimes, d'écrivain·es et leurs rapports aux jeux vidéo. Souvent axé autour d'un seul jeu vidéo (ou d'une franchise de jeu), les auteur·es de l'anthologie offre à la fois leurs souvenirs, leurs analyses, des tranches de vie, d'identité, de réflexion, de période collective (plusieurs textes autour de la pandémie).
Je suis quand même un peu surpris· par le fait que vraiment chaque texte est très distinct (même si certains très grands sujets comme la santé mentale, l'oppression, etc. reviennent, mais sous des formes très différentes dépendamment de la plume) et que pas un jeu ne revient d'un texte à l'autre (sous au détour d'une phrase, mais jamais un texte complet sur le même jeu).
Il y avait aussi plusieurs auteur·es que je connaissais, beaucoup que je ne connaissais pas (ou dont j'avais simplement entendu parlé) et c'est vraiment aussi une belle introduction à aller creuser davantage ou à relire certains jeux sous un nouvel angle (ou à aller jouer à certains d'entre-eux si on a les moyens :) ).
Un bel éventail de lecture qui clôt bien l'année 2023 pour moi sur des souvenirs, des réflexions, une diversité de perspective et aussi beaucoup d'amour pour des objets culturels.
Je suis quand même un peu surpris· par le fait que vraiment chaque texte est très distinct (même si certains très grands sujets comme la santé mentale, l'oppression, etc. reviennent, mais sous des formes très différentes dépendamment de la plume) et que pas un jeu ne revient d'un texte à l'autre (sous au détour d'une phrase, mais jamais un texte complet sur le même jeu).
Il y avait aussi plusieurs auteur·es que je connaissais, beaucoup que je ne connaissais pas (ou dont j'avais simplement entendu parlé) et c'est vraiment aussi une belle introduction à aller creuser davantage ou à relire certains jeux sous un nouvel angle (ou à aller jouer à certains d'entre-eux si on a les moyens :) ).
Un bel éventail de lecture qui clôt bien l'année 2023 pour moi sur des souvenirs, des réflexions, une diversité de perspective et aussi beaucoup d'amour pour des objets culturels.
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October 31, 2024Gamer tip #36 always stay gaming !!!
March 12, 2024
i see tlou and disco elysium, i click yes
(will update this review after i finish Undertale and Hollow Knight (hopefully before silksong releases))
I will never forget the first time I played Tomb Raider 9 back in high school, how speechless I was when after everything she's been through (well technically I've been through), Lara finally left Yamatai under the newborn sun after the cursed storm had finally dispersed. "A survivor is born." The game ended on this one note before the credits rolled. To this day, whenever I'm in a rough patch, I still think of Lara Croft crawling out of places worse than hell, half dead, muttering with laboured breath, "Just keep going". I played some video games before this due to my dad being an avid player, but it was only until TR9 did video games start to become part of me I couldn't let go. (not an aeon fan but iykyk.)
I play tons of video games every year, anticipating the newest releases and replaying the classic hits. I lost count of the walkthroughs I've completed on TLOUs alone even though they broke me in a good way (I'm at it again now that the tlou2 remastered is out yes I have a problem). I learned my history through AC. I got to be a cowboy for a whole month in RDR2 only to spend half the time playing Texas Hold'em. I played Resident Evil 2 Remake so many times that I could roam through the RPD with a blindfold on and I even did a presentation of its design in college. I spent over a thousand hours on Overwatch since 2016 and I'd never been this invested and dedicated to becoming better that I pushed myself practising aiming relentlessly and now the enemy teams call me "fu pharah/widow hack" and I take that as a compliment.
This anthology makes me feel seen. For so long, video games are often associated with addiction and indulgence, like they're a waste of time and only the people who have nothing better to do would spend hours on them. But through this collection, you know it's far from the truth. Though some of the writers don't really seem to be fans of video games, it's refreshing to see different people's personal experiences with it. There are moments during reading when I genuinely resonate with their words, and it grows tenfold when I played said game before as well because I was there too. I will say that it does irritate me a bit when some are still trying to debate whether video games should be considered a form of art, but overall this book has been an utter delight.
Nuff said, Baldur's Gate is calling.
(will update this review after i finish Undertale and Hollow Knight (hopefully before silksong releases))
I will never forget the first time I played Tomb Raider 9 back in high school, how speechless I was when after everything she's been through (well technically I've been through), Lara finally left Yamatai under the newborn sun after the cursed storm had finally dispersed. "A survivor is born." The game ended on this one note before the credits rolled. To this day, whenever I'm in a rough patch, I still think of Lara Croft crawling out of places worse than hell, half dead, muttering with laboured breath, "Just keep going". I played some video games before this due to my dad being an avid player, but it was only until TR9 did video games start to become part of me I couldn't let go. (not an aeon fan but iykyk.)
I play tons of video games every year, anticipating the newest releases and replaying the classic hits. I lost count of the walkthroughs I've completed on TLOUs alone even though they broke me in a good way (I'm at it again now that the tlou2 remastered is out yes I have a problem). I learned my history through AC. I got to be a cowboy for a whole month in RDR2 only to spend half the time playing Texas Hold'em. I played Resident Evil 2 Remake so many times that I could roam through the RPD with a blindfold on and I even did a presentation of its design in college. I spent over a thousand hours on Overwatch since 2016 and I'd never been this invested and dedicated to becoming better that I pushed myself practising aiming relentlessly and now the enemy teams call me "fu pharah/widow hack" and I take that as a compliment.
This anthology makes me feel seen. For so long, video games are often associated with addiction and indulgence, like they're a waste of time and only the people who have nothing better to do would spend hours on them. But through this collection, you know it's far from the truth. Though some of the writers don't really seem to be fans of video games, it's refreshing to see different people's personal experiences with it. There are moments during reading when I genuinely resonate with their words, and it grows tenfold when I played said game before as well because I was there too. I will say that it does irritate me a bit when some are still trying to debate whether video games should be considered a form of art, but overall this book has been an utter delight.
Nuff said, Baldur's Gate is calling.
October 22, 2023
I have intermittently played a few computer games throughout my life (mostly Diablo, Diablo II, The Sims and The Sims 4 - an interesting combination) but I've encountered them far more often in the pages of novels like Ready Player One, For The Win and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. Nevertheless, I'm absolutely fascinated by their storytelling potential and in people's emotional experiences with them, and, like all pop culture, how they weave themselves through our lives - and so I was excited by this collection of essays about digital gaming. In retrospect, Critical Hits starts so strongly that it was almost bound to be disappointing. Carmen Maria Machado's introduction is incredible, if nothing less than I would expect from the writer who dealt with pop culture so brilliantly in her memoir In The Dream House. (It also name-checks Animorphs - the first of TWO references in this collection! - and the computer game Titanic: Adventure Out Of Time which I played as a kid and have never heard anyone else mention until now.)
The first essay in this collection, Elissa Washuta's 'I Struggled A Long Time With Surviving', is also fantastic. She retells the story of The Last of Us so movingly that I was totally captivated despite knowing very little about the game, linking it to her own experiences of chronic illness. Coincidentally, I've just finished Washuta's full-length collection of essays, White Magic, which is equally wonderful - and features an essay on Red Dead Redemption 2 that could easily have fit into this anthology, 'In Him We Have Redemption Through This Blood'. And there are other strong essays in Critical Hits, although none quite so strong as these first two entries. I liked Andre Monson's 'The Cocoon' (despite a bizarre digression in the middle where he goes through every Alien game ever) because of the way he reflects on video games and memory, citing the Learning Games Initiative Research Archive, which argues that the best way to archive video games is to play them, rather than preserve them: the conclusion of this essay, when Monson plays video games with his daughter, is just beautiful.
Tony Tulathimutte's 'Clash Rules Everything Around Me' is great on how some things, like gaming, are ranked as 'a waste of time' because they are seen as 'something outside of the narrative of whatever you've called your real life, some menial and unproductive activity that doesn't amass wealth, deepen your relationships and quality of life, or improve you. Something that makes time pass without changing anything else.' Or in other words, a term that might encompass our deepest flow states and most important experiences, things that can't be captured in the logic of capitalism because they are unproductive. I also enjoyed Larissa Pham's 'Status Effect', about pain, Genshin Impact, and deep depression.
However, many of the other essays in this collection were forgettable and sometimes a bit frustrating: the writers are often content with pointing out problematic narratives in games without saying anything else, which is important work for reviews or articles, but I expect more from essays. And while some of the contributors manage to wonderfully interweave their own personal experiences with their experiences of gaming, others do this much more formulaically and schematically. Overall, while I enjoyed reading this, I think that only a few of the essays will stay with me; it could have been so much more.
I received a free proof copy of this collection from the publisher for review.
The first essay in this collection, Elissa Washuta's 'I Struggled A Long Time With Surviving', is also fantastic. She retells the story of The Last of Us so movingly that I was totally captivated despite knowing very little about the game, linking it to her own experiences of chronic illness. Coincidentally, I've just finished Washuta's full-length collection of essays, White Magic, which is equally wonderful - and features an essay on Red Dead Redemption 2 that could easily have fit into this anthology, 'In Him We Have Redemption Through This Blood'. And there are other strong essays in Critical Hits, although none quite so strong as these first two entries. I liked Andre Monson's 'The Cocoon' (despite a bizarre digression in the middle where he goes through every Alien game ever) because of the way he reflects on video games and memory, citing the Learning Games Initiative Research Archive, which argues that the best way to archive video games is to play them, rather than preserve them: the conclusion of this essay, when Monson plays video games with his daughter, is just beautiful.
Tony Tulathimutte's 'Clash Rules Everything Around Me' is great on how some things, like gaming, are ranked as 'a waste of time' because they are seen as 'something outside of the narrative of whatever you've called your real life, some menial and unproductive activity that doesn't amass wealth, deepen your relationships and quality of life, or improve you. Something that makes time pass without changing anything else.' Or in other words, a term that might encompass our deepest flow states and most important experiences, things that can't be captured in the logic of capitalism because they are unproductive. I also enjoyed Larissa Pham's 'Status Effect', about pain, Genshin Impact, and deep depression.
However, many of the other essays in this collection were forgettable and sometimes a bit frustrating: the writers are often content with pointing out problematic narratives in games without saying anything else, which is important work for reviews or articles, but I expect more from essays. And while some of the contributors manage to wonderfully interweave their own personal experiences with their experiences of gaming, others do this much more formulaically and schematically. Overall, while I enjoyed reading this, I think that only a few of the essays will stay with me; it could have been so much more.
I received a free proof copy of this collection from the publisher for review.
March 9, 2025
Of the about nineteen essays in this collection I liked pretty much all of them, more than that I only strenuously objected to one of them which as a certified bitch is nothing short of miraculous. This collection more than anything has convinced me of how much a editors of such collections can do amazing things.
In doing so it has made me think far less of other collections I’ve struggled through
In doing so it has made me think far less of other collections I’ve struggled through
November 27, 2023
A delightful collection of thoughtful and heartwarming essays from writers who play video games. (I know what game I would write about, of course I do.) Video games, not the devil some people want you to believe they are.
September 26, 2024
I liked some essays, loved others, didn't like some. But overall, reading about video games was very fun.
January 11, 2024
Expected more on video games and narrative theory. These are mostly personal essays about identity and experience through the lens of various video games. Decent.
April 1, 2025
I love video games, but funnily enough, when I think back on my first formative experiences with them, Nancy Drew for PC or Imagine Makeup Artist or Super Mario Bros or Animal Crossing or Kim Possible or Club Penguin or Poptropica or any of the others I picked up for myself aren’t the ones that cross my mind first.
Instead, it’s this: Sitting cross-legged in the cool basement of my parent’s house, watching my brother play Halo and Call of Duty, the spray of bullets and blood ringing out in the dark.
When I was a kid, even younger than this memory, my mom said I used to watch tv without blinking. I would cry, staring at the screen, afraid to miss a moment.
Because a life can end when you blink. When my brother was dodging bullets between buildings and shooting them back in game, I was scared—I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
It’s this: Nuketown in Call of Duty Black Ops, the bright 1950s shell town, the smiling mannequins sitting on the couch, empty eyes staring at an empty tv while zombies stumbled through the door. (I couldn’t put it into words then, but the sense of wrongness in the posed nuclear family scared me more than the zombies.)
It’s this: The time my brother thrust the controller in my hands and sent me into battle against man-eating aliens, laughing, while I fumbled the controls and ended up staring at the sky, the controller shaking furiously in my hand as blood collected in the corners of the screen before eventually blanking my whole field of vision in red.
It’s this: Rise Against’s “Like the Angel” playing in Tony Hawk’s Underground, one of the few games I could play by myself in Freeskate mode, cruising around the city in my white tank top and jeans. A tough girl making it on her own skateboard, some blood on her elbows, sure, but blood that felt like a victory, a little mark on the city that said, I lived here, I bled here, I moved on.
Because I think that’s what I was looking for, am still looking for, in video games: Freedom.
My brother and I were two Asian kids in a white world. I was looking for ways to escape, to move around the world outside of myself, to run and keep running, and maybe he was, too.
Now we live in different states. We don’t talk often. I don’t agree with a lot of his politics. He doesn’t agree with mine. But video games are one of the few things we still have in common. He’s still into FPS and shooters; I’m still pulled into life sims and story-driven RPGs. I don’t know if we’re both still running. But we’re both still gaming, and if that’s all we can share right now, then maybe that’s enough.
I love video games! I want to write about them more! Especially games like Persona 5 Royal that literally changed my life! But it’s hard to write about them and my experience as a player. How much do I explain to the reader? What context do they need? No matter what I say, I know I’ll never be able to capture the visceral sensation of sitting down with the controls in your hand, of fully embodying another world.
This collection helped me understand what works and what doesn’t when it comes to writing about video games. Some pieces were way too erudite and academic or social-focused. I wanted more of the pieces that tie games and personal experience/memoir together.
It also felt like some of the writers are casual gamers. It’s good to have those perspectives. But goddamn, video games have genuinely saved my life. And I wanted more of that gaming passion to come through.
Favorites:
- This Kind of Animal: I like how they tied the game themes to their relationship with their father and used actual gameplay elements in the writing with the stats and such. Note to self for Persona-writing?
“Who are you? Who are your dead?”
- Hollow Knight: The way that stories aren’t a substitute for a video game.
“A good story can’t substitute for an embodied sense of wonder. Stories can point to what’s possible, but they can’t get inside your hands and show you how to move.”
- The Cocoon: Probably the most interesting to me, in tying video games and memory together. The way Ander Monson writes about his experience playing Alien vs. Predator is how I felt playing P5R.
“Being put in a state of dread and mystery and wonder by a game so that even when I left it, it never left me. I’ve lost a lot of other stuff, but not that feeling. I remember that feeling better than any other feeling that year.”
“Research shows that every time I access a memory, I reexperience it and I rewrite it in the context of the current story I’m telling myself. This enriches it—makes it myth—and even though I feel as if by my writing about it I’m probably diminishing its truth a little, I can feel it growing in me. This is the point McAllister and Ruggill make: the game is preserved most strongly in the visceral, emotional memory of playing it.”
“My life was in solid shambles at the time, so maybe my memory is hazy on account of self-protection. I wasn’t who I used to be, and I wasn’t who I was becoming either. I was in self-gestation mode, both cocooning and being cocooned. Because Alien vs. Predator took me out of myself so fully, it makes sense that I remember more game than self that year.”
- No Traces: The experience of video games as a communal, shared activity. I think this is why I like watching streamers so much. Also, note to self/others to be kinder to chatters who backseat? They just might not know better :,)
“Video game consoles…put the experience of gaming into domestic spaces. It’s for this reason, I think, that they seem to possess a kind of inherent nostalgia: they are representative of the home, and the moments of childhood one rapidly outgrows.”
“The work of poetry, which often stretches into the early hours, is play. When it’s going well, I feel outside of myself, strange to myself, outside the usual flow of time. I don’t know how to get there, but for the briefest time, I sense that circuit—subject and object, writer and reader, player and icon—complete itself through me. It’s like catching your reflection in the glass of your front door as you reach for the handle, either leaving or coming home—you can’t, for the moment, tell which.”
- We’re More Ghosts Than People
I’ve been wanting to play Disco Elysium and Metal Gear, so it was cool to see these in this collection, too!
Instead, it’s this: Sitting cross-legged in the cool basement of my parent’s house, watching my brother play Halo and Call of Duty, the spray of bullets and blood ringing out in the dark.
When I was a kid, even younger than this memory, my mom said I used to watch tv without blinking. I would cry, staring at the screen, afraid to miss a moment.
Because a life can end when you blink. When my brother was dodging bullets between buildings and shooting them back in game, I was scared—I couldn’t tear my eyes away.
It’s this: Nuketown in Call of Duty Black Ops, the bright 1950s shell town, the smiling mannequins sitting on the couch, empty eyes staring at an empty tv while zombies stumbled through the door. (I couldn’t put it into words then, but the sense of wrongness in the posed nuclear family scared me more than the zombies.)
It’s this: The time my brother thrust the controller in my hands and sent me into battle against man-eating aliens, laughing, while I fumbled the controls and ended up staring at the sky, the controller shaking furiously in my hand as blood collected in the corners of the screen before eventually blanking my whole field of vision in red.
It’s this: Rise Against’s “Like the Angel” playing in Tony Hawk’s Underground, one of the few games I could play by myself in Freeskate mode, cruising around the city in my white tank top and jeans. A tough girl making it on her own skateboard, some blood on her elbows, sure, but blood that felt like a victory, a little mark on the city that said, I lived here, I bled here, I moved on.
Because I think that’s what I was looking for, am still looking for, in video games: Freedom.
My brother and I were two Asian kids in a white world. I was looking for ways to escape, to move around the world outside of myself, to run and keep running, and maybe he was, too.
Now we live in different states. We don’t talk often. I don’t agree with a lot of his politics. He doesn’t agree with mine. But video games are one of the few things we still have in common. He’s still into FPS and shooters; I’m still pulled into life sims and story-driven RPGs. I don’t know if we’re both still running. But we’re both still gaming, and if that’s all we can share right now, then maybe that’s enough.
I love video games! I want to write about them more! Especially games like Persona 5 Royal that literally changed my life! But it’s hard to write about them and my experience as a player. How much do I explain to the reader? What context do they need? No matter what I say, I know I’ll never be able to capture the visceral sensation of sitting down with the controls in your hand, of fully embodying another world.
This collection helped me understand what works and what doesn’t when it comes to writing about video games. Some pieces were way too erudite and academic or social-focused. I wanted more of the pieces that tie games and personal experience/memoir together.
It also felt like some of the writers are casual gamers. It’s good to have those perspectives. But goddamn, video games have genuinely saved my life. And I wanted more of that gaming passion to come through.
Favorites:
- This Kind of Animal: I like how they tied the game themes to their relationship with their father and used actual gameplay elements in the writing with the stats and such. Note to self for Persona-writing?
“Who are you? Who are your dead?”
- Hollow Knight: The way that stories aren’t a substitute for a video game.
“A good story can’t substitute for an embodied sense of wonder. Stories can point to what’s possible, but they can’t get inside your hands and show you how to move.”
- The Cocoon: Probably the most interesting to me, in tying video games and memory together. The way Ander Monson writes about his experience playing Alien vs. Predator is how I felt playing P5R.
“Being put in a state of dread and mystery and wonder by a game so that even when I left it, it never left me. I’ve lost a lot of other stuff, but not that feeling. I remember that feeling better than any other feeling that year.”
“Research shows that every time I access a memory, I reexperience it and I rewrite it in the context of the current story I’m telling myself. This enriches it—makes it myth—and even though I feel as if by my writing about it I’m probably diminishing its truth a little, I can feel it growing in me. This is the point McAllister and Ruggill make: the game is preserved most strongly in the visceral, emotional memory of playing it.”
“My life was in solid shambles at the time, so maybe my memory is hazy on account of self-protection. I wasn’t who I used to be, and I wasn’t who I was becoming either. I was in self-gestation mode, both cocooning and being cocooned. Because Alien vs. Predator took me out of myself so fully, it makes sense that I remember more game than self that year.”
- No Traces: The experience of video games as a communal, shared activity. I think this is why I like watching streamers so much. Also, note to self/others to be kinder to chatters who backseat? They just might not know better :,)
“Video game consoles…put the experience of gaming into domestic spaces. It’s for this reason, I think, that they seem to possess a kind of inherent nostalgia: they are representative of the home, and the moments of childhood one rapidly outgrows.”
“The work of poetry, which often stretches into the early hours, is play. When it’s going well, I feel outside of myself, strange to myself, outside the usual flow of time. I don’t know how to get there, but for the briefest time, I sense that circuit—subject and object, writer and reader, player and icon—complete itself through me. It’s like catching your reflection in the glass of your front door as you reach for the handle, either leaving or coming home—you can’t, for the moment, tell which.”
- We’re More Ghosts Than People
I’ve been wanting to play Disco Elysium and Metal Gear, so it was cool to see these in this collection, too!
June 21, 2025
I like thinking deeply about the video games I play, so I was delighted to see this at my library. This collection of essays includes literary theory and personal reflections that engage deeply with gaming. I really enjoyed it, especially Elissa Washuta's thoughts on chronic illness and The Last of us; Vanessa Villarreal's critique of racism, norse mythology, and depictions of elves in Dragon Age: Inquisition; and Eleanor Henderson's personal essay on having gamer children.
January 21, 2024
As I've gotten older, I've tried to reserve my 5 star rankings for books I feel changed my life in some way. By that qualification, this book deserves 5 stars without hesitation, and probably some on top of that. Reading perspectives on games I know very well (Dragon Age Inquisition) or games I didn't know at all (The Last of Us) or games that I haven't thought about since I was 10 years old (Halo) from writers who, while all incredibly diverse in terms of identity and style, are clearly masters of their craft, was a singular experience for someone like me who has been coming to view games as more of an art form than a source of entertainment. Going to wax philosophical below a bit, but suffice to say I got chills at multiple points throughout this collection, and would recommend it immediately to anyone interested in video games or just in the modern human experience.
~~
Games as a storytelling medium are at once more and less immersive than books, because while a book allows you to envision the world entirely to your own liking, in a game you are given a world to inhabit. In a book (at least, those that don't use first person perspective), you are imagining the main character, while in a game, you ARE the main character. Even in games with predefined protagonists (I've been playing a lot of Horizon Zero Dawn lately), it's incredibly difficult to divorce yourself from the character, since at the end of the day YOU are the one controlling them. And so, games are potentially our greatest tools to create empathy, namely *because* they provide the limiting factor that books do not: the game world exists with or without your input. You cannot determine the identities, the appearances, the voices and the quirks of various NPCs that you might meet. While you might imagine book characters as all looking like you, the characters in a game have already been imagined by someone else, and your responsibility as the player is to engage with them as they are.
All this to say, in a world where we are more and more inclined to highlight even minute differences between ourselves and others, video games are the perfect medium to rein in that fear of the other, by allowing us to *become* the other for a little while. Walking a mile in someone else's shoes is a lot easier when all you have to do is press a few buttons.
~~
Games as a storytelling medium are at once more and less immersive than books, because while a book allows you to envision the world entirely to your own liking, in a game you are given a world to inhabit. In a book (at least, those that don't use first person perspective), you are imagining the main character, while in a game, you ARE the main character. Even in games with predefined protagonists (I've been playing a lot of Horizon Zero Dawn lately), it's incredibly difficult to divorce yourself from the character, since at the end of the day YOU are the one controlling them. And so, games are potentially our greatest tools to create empathy, namely *because* they provide the limiting factor that books do not: the game world exists with or without your input. You cannot determine the identities, the appearances, the voices and the quirks of various NPCs that you might meet. While you might imagine book characters as all looking like you, the characters in a game have already been imagined by someone else, and your responsibility as the player is to engage with them as they are.
All this to say, in a world where we are more and more inclined to highlight even minute differences between ourselves and others, video games are the perfect medium to rein in that fear of the other, by allowing us to *become* the other for a little while. Walking a mile in someone else's shoes is a lot easier when all you have to do is press a few buttons.
Read
August 19, 2024In Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games, edited by J. Robert Lennon and Carmen Maria Machado, writers share superb personal essays about the power of video games and the impact of their stories, from Fallout 76 to The Last of Us to Clash of Clans. Writers talk about the power of embodiment, about what it means to live a life where the only way to go is forward, about problematic Aryan ideals sneaking into games, about Middle Eastern villains, about creating settlements and community and a home in a war-torn world, about health bars and redemption and escape.
My favorite essays spanned a wide range. "I Struggled a Long Time with Surviving" by Elissa Washuta talks about living with chronic illness, about an unsure diagnosis and medical dismissal and the in-game virus and its story twists of ambiguity and inevitability. In "I Was a Teenage Transgender Supersoldier," nat steele talks about what it meant to have a helmeted, anonymous protagonist in Halo, and how the unmasking took its power away. We talk about watching others play in Stephen Sexton's "No Traces," discuss debuffs and depression in Larissa Pham's "Status Effect," explore the comfort and productivity of a created home in J. Robert Lennon's "Ruined Ground," and close it all out with a superb essay by Hanif Abdurraqib on Red Dead Redemption, playing God, the afterlife, and what it means to be good.
The essays are strong, interesting, and appealing to video game superfans and fans of just good storytelling and its impact on people. Really great collection with some superb gems.
Content warnings for suicidal ideation, emotional/physical abuse, depression, death/grief.
My favorite essays spanned a wide range. "I Struggled a Long Time with Surviving" by Elissa Washuta talks about living with chronic illness, about an unsure diagnosis and medical dismissal and the in-game virus and its story twists of ambiguity and inevitability. In "I Was a Teenage Transgender Supersoldier," nat steele talks about what it meant to have a helmeted, anonymous protagonist in Halo, and how the unmasking took its power away. We talk about watching others play in Stephen Sexton's "No Traces," discuss debuffs and depression in Larissa Pham's "Status Effect," explore the comfort and productivity of a created home in J. Robert Lennon's "Ruined Ground," and close it all out with a superb essay by Hanif Abdurraqib on Red Dead Redemption, playing God, the afterlife, and what it means to be good.
The essays are strong, interesting, and appealing to video game superfans and fans of just good storytelling and its impact on people. Really great collection with some superb gems.
Content warnings for suicidal ideation, emotional/physical abuse, depression, death/grief.
August 29, 2024
went into this already knowing i loved reading essays with this sort of subject matter (my last semester of undergrad was spend taking a linguistics course on gaming, and in retrospect, i SO wish i had discovered this and been able to recommend it when i was in that course! the conversations we could have had!) and ended up being blown away. i’d planned to log this with favorites (if i have to force myself to choose, probably “in the shadow of the wolf” & “cathartic warfare”) but i think every single one of these is a banger.
if you’re generally interested in how games as an art form affect our emotions, empathy and perception of the world, as well as how we use them to reflect on race, identity, illness, etc…. i’d 100% recommend this. didn’t want it to end tbh! tons of great commentary
if you’re generally interested in how games as an art form affect our emotions, empathy and perception of the world, as well as how we use them to reflect on race, identity, illness, etc…. i’d 100% recommend this. didn’t want it to end tbh! tons of great commentary
April 23, 2024
Critical Hits is honestly a one of a kind essay collection - the essays here are far more personal, existential, melancholic and socially prevalent than I had expected - and the talent of all the writers selected is unbelievable.
My individual (quick reviews) of all the essays are below, but if you have even a passing interest in gaming, I would urge you to give this collection a go.
I Struggled A Long Time With Surviving / Elissa Washuta:
Focuses on TLOU, pandemics, chronic illness, survival. A standout & my favourite. I’d say this collection is worth reading just for this essay alone.
This Kind of Animal / Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah:
Focuses on Disco Elysium, grief, bodily autonomy, mourning. Another standout. This essay was the moment I realised this collection is something else, something special.
Thinking like the Knight / Max Delsohn:
Focuses on Undertale and Hollow Knight, on gender, sexuality, and the stories we tell about ourselves. Resonated a little less if only because I haven’t (yet) played Hollow Knight.
Mule Milk / Keith S. Wilson:
Focuses on Final Fantasy VI, race, power dynamics, and their existence (or not) in nature. Knocked it out once more.
Staying with the Trouble / Octavia Bright:
Focuses on Leisure Suit Larry, Stray, and women in video games. Not much to say on this one, personally didn't resonate (surprisingly), but I'm sure with others it would.
Narnia Made of Pixels / Charlie Jane Anders:
Focuses on portal fantasies, game-to-film adaptations, gender politics and exploration in games through player character's & capitalism. Overall this essay felt too short or too simple for the breadth of topics it was covering, but I appreciated it nonetheless.
Cathartic Warfare / Jamil Jan Kochai:
Focuses on Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare & Modern Warfare II, the american military-entertainment complex, and islamophobia / race politics in the modern shooter RPG & co-op. This was something I chewed over for a while, and even went away to discuss with others in my life that are big CoD fans. I'm not sure I agreed with all of the author's points, but it was interesting and important enough that I stewed on this essay for quite some time.
The Cocoon / Ander Monson:
Focuses on the Alien/Predator/Alien vs. Predator video game and film franchises, together and separately, as well as how planned obsolescence is eradicating games merely five or ten years old, let alone twenty or thirty years old, and if the archival of a video game has merit beyond nostalgia. It could've been another standout, but it did at times get so specific that it felt almost self-indulgent, and lost me at certain points - but I would say it's still definitely worth a read.
Video Game Boss / Marinaomi:
A graphic novel essay! HOW COOL! Was not expecting this!! A great way to break up the collection, loved the art style, and a brutal insight into the video game industry as a creative.
In the Shadow of the Wolf / Vanessa Villarreal:
Focuses on Dragon Age: Inquisition, Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, the recent popularity of nordic retellings & the general historical development of popular Western high fantasy alongside from viking mythology (thanks, Tolkien), and how this affects the race politics of mainstream gaming, both in-game and out of game. Didn't feel like a whole lot of new things were being said here, but doesn't mean it's not worth reiterating, and I largely enjoyed this essay as well due to my own personal & complex feelings regarding this, especially in the Dragon Age games.
Clash Rules Everything Around Me / Tony Tulathimutte:
Focuses on the Clash of Clans, capitalisation of games and gaming addiction, not just through money but also time. In all honesty, I did skim this one a bit, if only because the topic was too niche and out of my interest to hold me for long.
The Great Indoorsmen / Eleanor Henderson :
Focuses on the release of the PS5, nostalgia and connection through gaming. Short and sweet, not much else to say on it.
I Was a Teenage Transgender Supersoldier / Nat Steele:
Focuses on the Halo franchise, growing up trans, and depersonalisation through video games. Another absolute standout, I actually called my partner and read this whole thing out to them on the phone, and then we discussed it for about half an hour afterwards. So, 100% worth the read.
Ninjas and Foxes / Alexander Chee:
Focuses on Ninja Gaiden Black, Jade Empire, and the asian identity/representation in video games. Worth a read, but I don't have much more to say on it.
No Traces / Stephen Sexton:
Focuses on Metal Gear Solid, friendship, and socialisation through gaming. I haven't personally played this franchise, but the general argument and theme around it was ridiculously heartfelt, and I enjoyed this one more than I thought I would.
Status Effect / Larissa Pham:
Focuses on Genshin Impact, depression, grief and illness. Existential and impactful, and it doesn't land in an easy place, but an important one.
Ruined Ground / J. Robert Lennon:
Focuses on Fallout 76. In all honesty I don’t remember much about this one, except a vague sense of enjoyment.
We're More Ghosts Than People / Hanif Abdurraqib:
Focuses on Red Dead Redemption 2, existentialism, loss, martyrdom, capitalism and surviving in between. My favourite apart from the opening essay - absolutely breathtaking and gut wrenching way to round off this collection.
My individual (quick reviews) of all the essays are below, but if you have even a passing interest in gaming, I would urge you to give this collection a go.
I Struggled A Long Time With Surviving / Elissa Washuta:
Focuses on TLOU, pandemics, chronic illness, survival. A standout & my favourite. I’d say this collection is worth reading just for this essay alone.
This Kind of Animal / Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah:
Focuses on Disco Elysium, grief, bodily autonomy, mourning. Another standout. This essay was the moment I realised this collection is something else, something special.
Thinking like the Knight / Max Delsohn:
Focuses on Undertale and Hollow Knight, on gender, sexuality, and the stories we tell about ourselves. Resonated a little less if only because I haven’t (yet) played Hollow Knight.
Mule Milk / Keith S. Wilson:
Focuses on Final Fantasy VI, race, power dynamics, and their existence (or not) in nature. Knocked it out once more.
Staying with the Trouble / Octavia Bright:
Focuses on Leisure Suit Larry, Stray, and women in video games. Not much to say on this one, personally didn't resonate (surprisingly), but I'm sure with others it would.
Narnia Made of Pixels / Charlie Jane Anders:
Focuses on portal fantasies, game-to-film adaptations, gender politics and exploration in games through player character's & capitalism. Overall this essay felt too short or too simple for the breadth of topics it was covering, but I appreciated it nonetheless.
Cathartic Warfare / Jamil Jan Kochai:
Focuses on Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare & Modern Warfare II, the american military-entertainment complex, and islamophobia / race politics in the modern shooter RPG & co-op. This was something I chewed over for a while, and even went away to discuss with others in my life that are big CoD fans. I'm not sure I agreed with all of the author's points, but it was interesting and important enough that I stewed on this essay for quite some time.
The Cocoon / Ander Monson:
Focuses on the Alien/Predator/Alien vs. Predator video game and film franchises, together and separately, as well as how planned obsolescence is eradicating games merely five or ten years old, let alone twenty or thirty years old, and if the archival of a video game has merit beyond nostalgia. It could've been another standout, but it did at times get so specific that it felt almost self-indulgent, and lost me at certain points - but I would say it's still definitely worth a read.
Video Game Boss / Marinaomi:
A graphic novel essay! HOW COOL! Was not expecting this!! A great way to break up the collection, loved the art style, and a brutal insight into the video game industry as a creative.
In the Shadow of the Wolf / Vanessa Villarreal:
Focuses on Dragon Age: Inquisition, Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, the recent popularity of nordic retellings & the general historical development of popular Western high fantasy alongside from viking mythology (thanks, Tolkien), and how this affects the race politics of mainstream gaming, both in-game and out of game. Didn't feel like a whole lot of new things were being said here, but doesn't mean it's not worth reiterating, and I largely enjoyed this essay as well due to my own personal & complex feelings regarding this, especially in the Dragon Age games.
Clash Rules Everything Around Me / Tony Tulathimutte:
Focuses on the Clash of Clans, capitalisation of games and gaming addiction, not just through money but also time. In all honesty, I did skim this one a bit, if only because the topic was too niche and out of my interest to hold me for long.
The Great Indoorsmen / Eleanor Henderson :
Focuses on the release of the PS5, nostalgia and connection through gaming. Short and sweet, not much else to say on it.
I Was a Teenage Transgender Supersoldier / Nat Steele:
Focuses on the Halo franchise, growing up trans, and depersonalisation through video games. Another absolute standout, I actually called my partner and read this whole thing out to them on the phone, and then we discussed it for about half an hour afterwards. So, 100% worth the read.
Ninjas and Foxes / Alexander Chee:
Focuses on Ninja Gaiden Black, Jade Empire, and the asian identity/representation in video games. Worth a read, but I don't have much more to say on it.
No Traces / Stephen Sexton:
Focuses on Metal Gear Solid, friendship, and socialisation through gaming. I haven't personally played this franchise, but the general argument and theme around it was ridiculously heartfelt, and I enjoyed this one more than I thought I would.
Status Effect / Larissa Pham:
Focuses on Genshin Impact, depression, grief and illness. Existential and impactful, and it doesn't land in an easy place, but an important one.
Ruined Ground / J. Robert Lennon:
Focuses on Fallout 76. In all honesty I don’t remember much about this one, except a vague sense of enjoyment.
We're More Ghosts Than People / Hanif Abdurraqib:
Focuses on Red Dead Redemption 2, existentialism, loss, martyrdom, capitalism and surviving in between. My favourite apart from the opening essay - absolutely breathtaking and gut wrenching way to round off this collection.
January 7, 2024
I don't read much non fiction and this is probably the first book of essays I've even been remotely interested in, so it's already performed a bit of a feat. I was mostly interested in the personal experiences of the writers, their thoughts and feelings about the games they've played. Talking too much about the content of the games bored me because if I'd played it I knew already and if I hadn't I couldn't imagine it from a description.
December 9, 2024
A really interesting and thought-provoking collection of essays on how games have fit into their players’ lives. A super cool read if you love playing video games in your past time, it explores and links together a lot of political/social issues that you probably (at least I had not) thought about whilst consuming media like this :)
January 18, 2024
Rating this a solid 3.5-4 overall. Many of these stories are phenomenal, and I'll be thinking of them for a long time. Others weren't to my taste! I ended up not finishing a handful so I could spend more time on others.
February 28, 2024
This collection is incredible; certain essays taught me so much about intersectionality and gaming, others about the form of gaming as art. Absolutely worth the read if you are a gamer.
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