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Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures on the Internet

Reviewed by Laurie – Sun, 2008 – 03 – 23 18:26

Lisa Nakamura's Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures on the Internet focuses on race and the Internet within a contemporary frame where Internet usage has moved from niche interest to mainstream, everyday use. Digitizing Race uses visual culture studies as a method, explaining visual culture studies and then moving to focused critiques in each of the chapters. Using visual culture studies, Nakamura offers Digitizing Race as a book on "digital race formation, which would parse the ways that digital modes of cultural production and reception are complicit with this ongoing process" (14). As a whole, Digitizing Race is an excellent introduction to media and culture students and a needed work for its focus on race in relation to a post-Internet world. Not only does Nakamura examine the forms and their uses, but also the methods by which visual artifacts and cultures of the Internet are created, used, understood, and communicated across media and culture.

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review

Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narratives

Reviewed by Laurie – Sun, 2008 – 02 – 24 16:45

The other day a student asked me to explain what World of Warcraft was. We were talking about how universities are using Second Life for an article the student was writing and I referenced WoW as an easier, more familiar game. This is a minor anecdote like so many others that show that students don't always know as much as we think they know, but it points to a larger issues of a critical gaming literacy.

While "language arts" or "English" is taught in middle and high schools and includes literature, film, plays, and basic rhetoric (normally argument and debate in some form or another), gaming hasn't yet hit the mainstream curriculum, leaving more possibilities for literacy gaps. . . .

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review

Torrent Raiders - A Game about Intellectual Property

Reviewed by Zach Whalen – Mon, 2007 – 06 – 18 11:17

This game appears to have been released last month, but I've just recently come across it via Infosthetics. The game, Torrent Raiders is Aaron Meyers' MFA project at USC's Division of Interactive Media, and it's a space-themed shooter based on the real-time content of a torrent. In it, you play as a copyright mercenary, flying among the packets of a torrent and shooting them to gather evidence about the IP addresses it moves through. . . .

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review

The Marriage - A Review

Reviewed by Chico Queiroz – Mon, 2007 – 05 – 28 22:04
The Marriage, a game developed by Rod Humble, has ignited a very welcome discussion on games as art, and their capabilities to convey more complex and delicate matters. In case you are not familiar with the game, you can download it and read about its background, rules and interpretations on Rod's website. . . .

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All Reviews:


Aerobiz Supersonic [SNES] (1993) reviewed by Mat_Tschirgi on 15 December 2005
Bad Mojo Redux [0] (2004) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 22 November 2005
Beneath a Steel Sky [DOS] (1994) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 10 December 2005
Civilization IV [WIN] (2005) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 30 January 2006
Computers as Theatre (1991) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 25 August 2005
Dark Fall [WIN] (2003) reviewed by Mat_Tschirgi on 5 August 2005
Day of the Tentacle [DOS] (1993) reviewed by admin on 5 September 2005
F.E.A.R. [WIN] (2005) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 3 December 2005
Far Cry [WIN] (2004) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 10 February 2006
Façade [WIN] (2005) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 3 August 2005
Full Throttle [DOS] (1995) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 14 April 2006
Gamer Theory (2007) reviewed by Julian Kücklich on 7 May 2007
Grim Fandango [WIN] (1998) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 5 November 2005
Half Life [0] (1998) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 28 November 2005
I-Ninja [PS2] (2004) reviewed by Brendan Riley on 1 March 2005
Lure of the Temptress [DOS] (1992) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 12 December 2005
Maniac Mansion [C64] (1987) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 20 June 2005
Myst III: Exile [WIN] (2001) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 20 June 2005
Myst IV: Revelation [WIN] (2004) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 24 August 2005
Myst V: End of Ages [MAC] (2005) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 24 October 2005
Mystery House [MAC] (1982) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 1 August 2005
Obscura: the Shadow Blade [WIN] (2005) reviewed by Laurie on 30 October 2005
Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999) reviewed by Mat_Tschirgi on 29 March 2006
Quake 4 [0] (2005) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 20 November 2005
RHEM [WIN] (2003) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 15 August 2005
Riven [MAC] (1997) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 3 June 2005
Silent Hill (2006) reviewed by Mat_Tschirgi on 8 May 2006
Space Quest [0] (1986) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 24 November 2005
Syberia II [WIN] (2004) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 31 July 2005
Syberia [WIN] (2002) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 29 July 2005
The Dig [DOS] (1995) reviewed by mattbarton.exe on 16 December 2005
The Ethics Game [WIN] (2007) reviewed by Zach Whalen on 20 March 2007
The Marriage [WIN] (2007) reviewed by Chico Queiroz on 28 May 2007
Torrent Raiders [WIN] (2007) reviewed by Zach Whalen on 18 June 2007