Critical hits : writers playing video games

Critical hits Writers playing video games

Book - 2023

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.

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Subjects
Video games > Psychological aspects.
Video games > Social aspects.
Video games > Philosophy.
LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Essays.
GAMES & ACTIVITIES / Video & Mobile.
Essays.
Genres
Essays
Published
Minneapolis, Minnesota : Graywolf Press [2023]
Language
English
Physical Description
xiv, 235 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN
9781644452615
  • Introduction
  • I Struggled a Long Time with Surviving
  • This Kind of Animal
  • Thinking like the Knight
  • Mule Milk
  • Staying with the Trouble
  • Narnia Made of Pixels
  • Cathartic Warfare
  • The Cocoon
  • Video Game Boss
  • In the Shadow of the Wolf
  • Clash Rules Everything around Me
  • The Great Indoorsmen
  • I Was a Teenage Transgender Supersoldier
  • Ninjas and Foxes
  • No Traces
  • Status Effect
  • Ruined Ground
  • We're More Ghosts Than People
  • Sources
  • About the Contributors
  • About the Editors
Review by Booklist Review

Though video games are a relatively new medium compared to television and literature, they've been a pillar of the media landscape for over 50 years. Editors Lennon and Machado have collected an ambitious set of essays to celebrate and scrutinize the impact of video games, with many of the pieces straddling the line between memoir and media criticism. The contributing writers come from an array of backgrounds: essayists, fiction writers, poets, comic book artists, and more. For the most part, each writer rests their essay on a particular game or franchise. Forgotten PC games of the 1980s are analyzed alongside contemporary hits like Undertale. The games serve as escapist fantasies during periods of illness, objects of scholarship, things that can be played with and played through, and as new frameworks for relationships and moral dilemmas. Whether they're casual gamers, lifelong fans, or simply curious, readers will come away with a deepened sense of appreciation for the medium.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In this insightful anthology, novelist Lennon (Subdivision) and memoirist and short story author Machado (In the Dream House) bring together reflections on video games from such writers as Hanif Abdurraqib, Alexander Chee, and Vanessa Villarreal. In "This Kind of Animal," novelist Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah discusses how selecting the personal qualities (e.g., composure, empathy, endurance) of the detective protagonist of 2019's Disco Elysium prompted him to consider the "pieces and parts that combine into what I and others think of as me." Memoirist Elissa Washuta likens her struggle to identify the cause of her medical condition to the plight of The Last of Us's Ellie, a 14-year-old who travels across the U.S. so doctors can unravel the medical mystery of why she's immune to a fungal virus that has turned infected humans into zombie-like creatures. Though most of the contributions praise the artistic merit of the games discussed, novelist Eleanor Henderson expresses ambivalence about the long hours her sons spend gaming instead of reading, while suggesting that their investment in the games connects "them to their most empathetic selves." The diverse entries highlight the ways in which the far out plots of video games can change how players understand themselves and the world around them. Gamers with a literary bent should take a look. (Nov.)

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