Moving Pixels Podcast: War Stories in Video Games, or Lovin’ the Battlefield

War? Love? What’s the difference?

Last week I mistakenly identified the topic for this second part of a six part series on storytelling as concerning love stories in video games. I’m just going to chalk up my confusion to my unmitigated faith in the philosopy of Pat Benatar. Thus, our focus will be on the battlefield this week and not so much on the love.

A focus on combat seems a reasonable enough one in beginning an exploration of the specific types of stories told in games. After all, given gaming’s tendency towards competitiveness rather than co-operation, many modern games find the battlefield an apt enough place to tell stories.

Once again, our host will be Rick Dakan, and he will be joined by several PopMatters and Moving Pixels contributors, including G. Christopher Williams, Nick Dinicola, and Thomas Cross, as we consider what kinds of stories are told through players’ experiences of warfare.

This episode is available for download or by clicking on the audio player below:

#2 War Stories [MP3]

     

This podcast is also available via iTunes.

Join us next week for the aforementioned discussion of love stories in gaming, be they between plumbers and princesses, women and monkeys, or pac-men and women.

Our podcast contributors:

G. Christopher Williams is the Multimedia Editor at PopMatters.com. You can find his weekly updates featured at the Neuromance blog.

Rick Dakan is a regular contributor to the Moving Pixels blog as well as to the Gamma Testing podcast.

Nick Dinicola is also a regular contributor to the Moving Pixels blog.

Thomas Cross contributes frequently to the Multimedia section at PopMatters.com, and he also pens the Diamond in the Rough column for GameSetWatch.