Emergent Gameplay: Narrative vs. Mechanics in 2014

I’m in the middle of playing three wildly different games at the moment. Dark Souls, Advance Wars, and 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors (now shortened to 999 for brevity’s sake) have been the titles I’ve gravitated towards during this summer. I find that all of them offer interesting variations on the potential of video games to provide narratological satisfaction.

Favorite Films of 2013

The first one should be obvious. The rest may surprise you...

BioShock Infinite: Burial At Sea Episode One Review

The story’s cool, but the game needed extra cooking.

The Last American Virgin - When Teen Movies Go Wrong

What’s the worst thing that happened to you as a teenager?

If you answer this question by saying “I watched The Last American Virgin,” then you are a frontrunner for the most worthy answer.

Blockbuster Memories - Final Thoughts and Further Analysis

I share more final thoughts about the shuttering of Ol' Blue & Yellow, why I'm so passionate about something I left so long ago, and send you to further online writings about the end of a business and an era. 

Angus Retro Review - An Atypical Teen Movie for the Quiet Normal Teen

Angus couldn’t be made as a wide release today, and it might have slipped away without the fanfare that it receives in this post. But that’s its true strength. Angus is something special in every sense of the word. While it’s a small story, the tale being told touches on universal concerns and strikes a powerful note for all that are traveling on its wavelength. The film is a small story about a minor triumph for a minor character. It’s quiet and shy, not a film that jumps out at you at your local Redbox, and that's the point of what makes it great. 

Goodbye Blockbuster

With the ultimate shutdown of Blockbuster Video, we lose another vanguard in our group consumer culture. This is a truly sad day for media junkies everywhere, and one more reminder that our culture is changing in ways that go beyond sets of doors closing and overhead lights fading for the last time.

Check out UI journalism teacher adds video game narrative writing course to Fall 2012 curriculum - The Daily Iowan

Check out UI journalism teacher adds video game narrative writing course to Fall 2012 curriculum - The Daily Iowan

Scapegoating, Holy Terror, and Catching Hell

This week brought the premiere of two mass media products that serve to enlighten how the past decade has created a very ugly society. The documentary Catching Hell and graphic novel Holy Terror come from people that are masters of their craft: Alex Gibney (Casino Jack and the United States of Money, Taxi to the Dark Side – all masterful documentaries) and Frank Miller (The Dark Knight Returns, Daredevil, Sin City, where hyperbole and control mix elegantly), respectively. However, what we’re looking at today is not the author, but rather the very artifact of people that cannot let go. By talking about scapegoats and creating a donkey on which people can pin the fears, despair and anger of a certain situation, we feel collectively better about ourselves.

And that’s messed up on several levels.

The Stagnation of Popular Culture By Intellectual Property

Have we reached the end of popular culture?

I’m not being facetious here, and I’m not (just) trying to do this for hits. I’m asking a simple question: What’s REALLY changed in popular culture in the past decade? And is anything honestly POPULAR at this point? I’m not so sure that our culture has moved to a point of differentiation from the films and products of a decade ago beyond surface aesthetics, and it saddens me to state this.

Guy Debord - The Society of the Spectacle

I can't recommend this man's writing enough. If you haven't seen it already, sit down with some pen and paper and watch this video. Note that his ideas have changed and become a large part of the culture, but this was pretty revolutionary in 1967.

Summer Movie Series - American Graffiti

“High School is closer to the core of the American experience than anything else I can think of” – Kurt Vonnegut

Limp Bizkit - Gold Cobra

Gold Cobra, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Holding Pattern


Okay, I knew that one day I’d have to face up to this, and I think it’s time to face facts. No more hiding that I too once did it all for the nookie (yeah!). No more hiding that I too once owned Jnco Jeans, a baseball cap that was turned backwards, and exercised my faculties with vulgarities while hearing detuned guitars in the background.


I was a teenage mook.

KRUI Appearance

Hello, it's been a while, hasn't it? While I wile away over piles of grading and composing graduate papers, there's been a marked lack of time that I've spent with you. However, I've found time to head over and guest DJ at KRUI on the University of Iowa's campus. If you're not already listening to their programming, click here to begin correcting that sad mistake. Myself, I was lucky to spin a two hour set tonight dedicated to summertime tracks and grooving, and I took full advantage of that opportunity to provide something close to a story. Okay, not really, but it was still gratifying to do this, and it won't be the last time. Keep listening as you wait for the next entry in the summer teen movie series and further music reviews; they're happening sooner than you think.

Here's last night's playlist. I think you'll find some excellent, acceptable songs here for your consumption.

Summer Scheduling & Music

Hey folks, I know that it's been a while since I last got onto this site and did anything with it, and for that I am sorry. This summer has turned out to be a much more hectic schedule than anticipated, and thus some things had to fall by the wayside. Unfortunately, the weeks of posting at least three times between Monday and Friday are gone, and it will likely be at least one week between posts. Thus, I have to make a decision, and I'm going to hold off on new album reviews for at least a week, and maybe longer. I may do something similar to the Rebecca Black "Friday" analysis where I take a track and see if it has secret meaning, but albums may be out of reach until mid-July. I will continue to do the summer film series and plan to have a couple of posts up before Sunday, but obviously my schedule of every Monday was too ambitious. In the meantime, let me know if there's something I should be paying attention to since I live by your suggestions. The long-gestating rap piece may finally see the light of day soon, along with other surprises. All I ask is that you be patient; no one is madder than me that I'm not adding information and pieces more often. Once things settle down, things will get as close to normal as they ever were.

My Morning Jacket - Circuital

If I could meet myself ten years ago, I’d give myself the advice that comes from disappointment, regret, and ultimately try to prepare myself for a world that didn’t prepare anyone for the future. I could imagine that there would be many surprises in store for past life Moodicarus, including the realization that all those CD’s I invested in would be worthless at this time (“But I bought the special translucent edition of SR-71! What do you mean the company that made those crappy Macintosh computers we use in school are the cutting edge?”). Finally, there would be the shock that the most interesting band in rock and roll in 2011 was a group of long-haired country-rock hippies that emerged from the streets of Louisville, Kentucky. I still can’t process this fact, and I’m writing the review for their latest album. 

Summer Movie Series - The Last Picture Show

“You wouldn’t believe how this country’s changed.” – Sam the Lion

Summer Music Mix

In between this summer film series and my music reviews, I’ve been compiling a huge list of songs that absolutely connote a mood of summer for me (and also as a token for not providing enough songs for you recently).  The majority of these songs are carefree, though some of them are bitterly aware of the transience of summer and the fact that the sun is an opiate of broken promises and hidden meanings.  In any case, the following songs are recommended for any lover of rock and pop music, particularly for a party.  I’d love any recommendations and additions for ones that I’ve forgotten or left off.  Be warned, there's a TON of links after the jump, but they're there for your perusal and enjoyment.

Lady Gaga - Born This Way

A typical day in this reviewer’s life goes something like this:  I wake up, find an album that I like or I figure I will enjoy, then try to listen as objectively and honestly as possible.  But not with Lady Gaga.  As a matter of fact, it may be the dumbest thing to have an album review of Born This Way now because practically every song has been blasted at you somehow.  There is no mystery as to what is next; you’ve heard these 14 tracks before, and you know by now whether you like this or not.  The hype machine behind LGaga has been impossible to ignore if you listened to pop radio or were invested in any facet of the culture industry in the United States – heck, the world – over the past year.  She’s popped up on television, Twitter, YouTube, social networking sites, Farmville, talk shows, and most recently Saturday Night Live to promote her new “pop masterpiece.”  The promotional campaign has been exhausting, with Hitfix’s Melinda Newman comparing it to a presidential campaign.

So congratulations, Lady Gaga: You’ve made it impossible to have an objective view on your brand of music. 

Summer Movie Series - Rebel Without a Cause

Over the past decade I have cultivated a love of movies about American teenagers and their experiences of going through life.  For some reason, the coming-of-age tale is so interesting to me because of the difference in the journey every film presents.  Writing is often a coming-of-age tale in itself, with a problem that one must confront (how to solve a problem and learn a lesson while making the article interesting to read), which means that some of the best writing ever done has come from looking at adolescence.  J.D. Salinger, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem…all of these men have written about the trials and tribulations that come with being a teenager, a fish out of water in the world.