This Week In Video Game Criticism: Jack Marston And Judging Indie Games

[This week, our partnership with game criticism site Critical Distance brings us picks from Ben Abraham on topics including the jerk-like nature of RDR's Jack Marston, judging indie games, and more.] Seems everyone’s sick but me, so I will be taking control of Critical Distance this weekend to bring you TWIVGB. MWUHAHAHAHAHAHA. Kirk Hamilton has been on fire recently. We don’t often link to reviews, but Kirk’s piece on L.A. Noire at Kill Screen isn’t the normal consumer review and goes the extra mile in expressing the existential dilemma the game made him feel. He also has a new column on Kotaku whose inaugural post compares the feel of playing a game to the rhythm of playing an instrument. The PopMatters crew is also on fire this week. G. Christopher Williams writes about the fatalism of the noir genre, its very American sensibilities and how it comes across in L.A. Noire. Our own Kris Ligman decides to talk about the first Dragon Age for a change to look at its presentation of class and how in the end everyone always ends up a white middle class male. And finally Scott Juster looks at one of his favorite games of last year, Vanquish and why he would apply the ‘f’ word to it: fun. Extra thoughts here. Daniel Golding at the Kill Your Darlings blog talks about his adverse reaction to telling people what he’s studying when asked:

Amanda Lange at her Second Truth blog takes a look at “What’s Social in ‘Social Games’?” She looks at the common complaints of the genre and see if they are true from the player’s standpoint. “How should we judge indie games?” asks Northernlion at the Saving Progress blog by checking out three titles and the criticisms lodged at theme by reviewers. Indiana Hamilton-Brown has a short interview with RPS critic and author Jon Rossignol about space and architecture in their roles in games. Michael “Brainy Gamer” Abbott works on a reading of games as an existential expression of the nonself or as being the self of someone else and what they can achieve. Unless you like philosophical wank war by an Objectivist, I’d avoid the comments. New game blogger Joel Jordon starts off The Game Manifesto blog with a big one. It’s on the theme of relationships in Portal 2. Adam Ruch takes a look at the concept of canon in the medium of video games and what it means, because binaries only exist as possibilities before you chose one. Or to put it another way:

Paul Haine says “Jack Marston is a Prick, But That’s Probably OK.” The wungergeek at Go Make Me A Sandwich blog weighs in that because Bayonetta is a fictional character you have to look at her creator because she can’t make any choices that many critics have ascribed her to making. Writing for Gamer Dork, Chris Green theorizes that the new Lara Croft game, however good its intentions are, may just be exchanging one set of stereotypes for worse ones. Here is a video of Chris Crawford talking to a class about “interactivity and the future of computing/games.” Mike Schiller on his blog takes a gander at the concept of home as presented by Dragon Age II. Leigh Alexander takes her turn at Rock Paper Shotgun’s Gaming Made Me series to take a look at one of earliest gaming experiences: Colossal Cave Adventure. It’s a lightly emotional read.

And lastly Destructoid’s knutaf creates a classification of multiplayer experiences. Don’t forget you can send suggestions every week to Ben through email or the Critical Distance twitter account.