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the year of games So this semester I'm teaching a writing course at Boston University, WR 150, on the theme of "What We Talk About When We Talk About Video Games." It's the second half of a two-course sequence: I've taught the first half before (as long-time readers of this blog might remember) but this is the first time that I've taught the second half. (The second half is more research-oriented than the first half, so that'll be interesting.) I'm also running two lab sections at Northeastern University, accompanying Brian Sullivan's "Games and Society" course there. My role in these labs is essentially to teach a new game to students each week, and then to essentially moderate as they play through the games. That's right: I am getting paid to play games with college students. It is maybe the best job ever. The combination of these two courses means that I am thinking about games pretty much every day. (I would probably be doing this anyway, given that in my spare time I'm also running a game company, and my living quarters are packed full of inventory.) I've also been trying to play more games. Last fall I was gifted a nice chunk of change by my parents and I invested it in a MacBook Pro, which means that for the first time in a long time I've been able to run some of the more graphically-intensive computer games. I joined up with Steam and downloaded Valve's Orange Box as well as the Humble Indie Bundle, so that's something like a dozen games to work my way through. I'll try to record some perceptions here before too long. Related: I'm still a little embarrassed by the fact that I haven't done much (any?) gaming in the online co-op / PVP space. I still think of video games as a localized, solitary pursuit, even though that's increasingly the exception to the rule. Anyone want to get me up to speed on Left 4 Dead II? Labels: game_commentary, personal

Friday, February 04, 2011 2:00 PM   Comments: Post a Comment