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Critique – Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
There is a lot to like about Spider-Man 2. It is wonderful to play, looks visually stunning, and carries on with wonderfully realized versions of Spider-Man and company. Still, there is also something missing at the core of Spider-Man 2 that weakens it on the whole. It is a game bursting with ambition, but without… Read more
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Critique – Starfield
Starfield is the first game in a very long time that has just wholly enraptured me. It is a game defined by contradictions. Full of dated design language that undermines its ambition it still somehow lives up to the promise of a grand space adventure unlike any other. Bethesda just build these simulated worlds that… Read more
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Kehah
On September 25th, 2007 a litter of puppies was born in Holden, Utah. I was nine years old. Their mom was a Sheltie named Kaloa and their father an American Eskimo named Glacier. My understanding is that my grandparents hadn’t planned on them, but there they were. My grandmother, hoping to find a good home… Read more
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2021 Games of the Year
This list took me two years to write. I don’t even know. I still didn’t find time for everything. As for that list of games that I missed that I might, eventually, get around to trying. maybe: DISHONORABLE MENTIONS Twelve Minutes: I am compelled to write about this game, but I have nothing good to… Read more
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critique – The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Tears of the Kingdom is certainly an achievement. It accomplishes a level of freedom most games can only dream of. The sense of discovery and invention here is wonderful. Truly Tears of the Kingdom feels like the first open world game to properly capture player agency since Breath of the Wild. Still, Tears of the… Read more
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critique – Resident Evil 4 & Redfall
Resident Evil 4 This is going to be a brief one. After years of hearing about Resident Evil 4 as a genre defining title—not simply for survival horror but all third person shooters—expectations were set high for the remake, and it did not disappoint. What more can I really add to twenty years of praise?… Read more
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Critique – Ghostwire: Tokyo
Ghostwire: Tokyo feels like a game without direction. While the reasons for this are not public one might take a few guesses at the departure of game director Ikumi Nakamura and the Bethesda acquisition as playing some part. From start to finish Ghostwire spins its wheels on a broad ghost fighting concept that never truly… Read more
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critique – Atomic Heart
Atomic Heart is not for everyone. The convoluted open world design alone an issue that hampers a good portion of the games pacing and the moment-to-moment fun. Add to that story issues that are difficult to assign to any one point of failure it is difficult to tell someone to just put up with it… Read more
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My grandmother
My grandmother Francine Gayle Fawcett was born on October 2nd, 1934, in Reno, Nevada to Frank Albert Luwe and Rena Ethel Smith. She was the second of three children. She had an older brother Jack and younger sister Trena. Growing up, she played games with neighborhood children, raised hamsters, and spent days at her grandmother’s… Read more
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2020 Games of the Year
A bizarre year for video games, with the pandemic and everything else going on, the video games industry exploded in revenue as people stayed home. Games took on a new life as some embraced a role as a warm security blanket and others doused the blanket in gasoline. Can’t win them all. Still the face… Read more
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Critical Review: Whitewashed Adobe
Deverell, William. Whitewashed Adobe: The Rise of Los Angeles and the Remaking of Its Mexican Past. Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press, 2005. In the pages of Whitewashed Adobe’s introduction, author William Deverell sets his foundation explaining to readers the consequential nature of the racial and cultural conflicts found at the heart of… Read more
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Joe Biden elected President of the United States!
After the longest Tuesday of my life, Donald Trump won’t be president anymore and that alone is victory. The last several years have taken a very lot out of me. The arguments, and hysteria, and stress have all been numbing. Yet, here we are eking out a victory to tell this rat fuck to go… Read more
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no justice, no peace
America is at a breaking point and if you were ever more in need of evidence of that look at the news the last week. The George Floyd protests have captured the nation, and the world, so much so that the once in a lifetime pandemic feels like old news even though it still rages… Read more
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Perspectives on Reliance: Explorations of Native America’s Labor in the Fur Trade
Over the years, the historiography of the fur trade has reflected various perspectives on Native American importance. Individual scholars have developed differing insights into the contributions of Native peoples. Some see Native American contributions as secondary. Others see Natives as being crucial players who were necessary to support the existence of the trade. Still, others… Read more
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Critical Review: Custer Died for Your Sins and Survivance
Native American history tells a difficult story that ranges from the great heights of empires to the deep lows of extermination. Despite the toll it has taken, Native American communities have, nonetheless, survived to tell their stories. These stories are acts of survivance. Native Americans seek to not just hold the line on Native survival;… Read more
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Postmodernism, Postcolonialism, and Literary Theory in Orientalism by Edward Said
Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York City, NY: Vintage Books, 1979. Early in the 2003 preface of Orientalism, author Edward W. Said states that if it were not for the Orientalist dogma as he describes in the pages that follow, “there would have been no war” in Iraq or Afghanistan.[1] This statement sets a tone… Read more
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2019 Games of the Year
2019 has been a strange year for games on the whole. With the production of the final few blockbusters this generation wrap up and the next generations blockbusters begin 2019 has found itself stuck. Nonetheless, the games that did come out this year offered some promising glimpses of the next generation. Independent studios especially have… Read more
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2009 Games of the Year
Assassin’s Creed II – Assassin’s Creed as a series means a great deal to me. I have written about that previously, and Assassin’s Creed II is where the series really proved what the entire series could be. Ezio’s journey began here with a simple story about vengeance. His father and brothers are killed in front… Read more
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My grandfather
This year will mark four years since the death of my grandfather Stanley A. Fawcett. He was 84 and dementia had taken a great toll on him before his passing. I didn’t go to his funeral, I regret that now. I still think about him now and then. He had such a profound influence on… Read more
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Martha A. Sandweiss’ Passing Strange: What It Tells Us About Privilege and Race In Nineteenth-Century America
Martha Sandweiss’ Passing Strange is a fascinating personal portrait of a man and woman who, by all accounts, defy our expectations of ending up together. Sandweiss’ retelling of this story has many historical roots in America’s past social and racial divides. These roots overlap and intersect coming together to form the circumstances that would lead… Read more
Read More Martha A. Sandweiss’ Passing Strange: What It Tells Us About Privilege and Race In Nineteenth-Century America
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