Moving Pixels

Parent-Child Bonding: Video Games that Bridge the Generation Gap

[6.Nov.09] :. Can Gen X parents bond with the newest generation of gamers given the ways that cooperative gameplay has changed over the years?
 

Tools for the Job: Asserting Femininity in Super Metroid

[6.Oct.09] :. Super Metroid is unique in that it is the only game in the series that addresses something distinctly female about Samus besides her looks: motherhood.
 

The Art of Atmosphere: From Bioshock to Wolfenstein

[17.Sep.09] :. Williams considers how the release of Bioshock has affected the way that apprehension and terror are evoked through the little details in video games.
 

TIE Fighter: A Post 9/11 Parable

[11.Aug.09] :. As the only Star Wars game that has you serving under the Empire without remorse, TIE Fighter lets you experience being a servant to a massive government just after a terrorist attack.
 

The Mask of the Deviant: Understanding Our Role in Killer 7

[10.Jul.09] :. Williams considers the often strange roles that masks serve in Suda51's games and how they implicate us as players of video games.
 

King’s Quest VI

[28.May.09] :. Sixteen years after its release, King's Quest VI it is still one of the high water marks of the adventure game genre.
 

Like Movies—with Buttons

[1.May.09] :. Like Edwin S. Porter realizing that a series of shots was how you structured a film, games have to abandon the presumption that they need to obey a linear narrative or controlled message and just let the player loose.
 

Far Cry 2: The Heart of Darkness Game

[2.Apr.09] :. This is a game that is incessantly hostile. It is constantly pushing the player to become more efficient at destruction.
 

Half Life 2:  Giant Ants, Head Crabs and Barnacle Creatures

[5.Mar.09] :. The world of Half-Life 2 depicts the aliens, most of them still unintelligent, overtaking our planet and destroying the norms of civilization.
 

The Campbellian Myth of Monkey Island

[10.Dec.08] :. The Secret of Monkey Island is one of the '90s' best examples of interactive fiction, and it accomplishes this by using a variety of narrative and game design techniques to deliver a Joseph Campbell experience.
 

Retro-ing Games

[11.Nov.08] :. The disparity in the approaches Capcom took to Mega Man 9 and Bionic Commando beg the question: what do we want out of a "retro" experience?
 

But Where is the Art?

[17.Sep.08] :. They might make you think, they might make you cringe, they might inspire revulsion or admiration, but are they "art"? A look at some borderline videogames.
 

Just as Fun to Watch

[9.Jul.08] :. L.B. Jeffries talks to "Boner", a gamer who has managed to build a following simply by allowing an internet audience to watch him play.
 

Zarathustra-speak

[3.Jun.08] :. Let's set aside judging a game purely by the game play or plot, and analyze the actual experience of the game, instead.
 

The Game World / Real World Interface

[1.May.08] :. "Interfacing" is Moving Pixels' way of taking a look at the tenuous relationship between the gaming world and the real world, and the awkwardness and enlightenment that the intersections between the two can achieve.