I'm in the second year of my Master's program in which I'm fortunate enough to get to study games with some really smart people (both professors and students). I had been stressing because I had spent all this time in the program and still had no idea what to write my thesis about. Obviously it was going to deal with games, but nothing was really jumping out at me. So I sat with a pad of paper and brainstormed all the topics I had been thinking about.  It included things like humor in games, the abstract avatar, the circle/sphere in gaming, and how to make engaging games about serious topics. None of those really excited me, though.

I thought back on a paper I wrote last semester on The Darkness and was reminded that my culminating seminar paper during my undergrad work dealt with the city in film noir. So I pitched the idea of doing research related to the city in the video game to my advisor and she encouraged me to roll with it. I'll kick things off with books on architecture and urban spaces while compiling a list of games I think are representative of the myriad of city-based titles. I hope to find out the following things: how cities are represented in games, how these representations reflect our culture, the influences of popular media on design, and the narrative and gameplay affordances of the city space. I'm starting off broadly so that I may find a more interesting question to turn into my thesis.

It's going to be a damn lot of work, but I'm up for the challenge. I may be drawing on the wisdom of crowds to help with my research so stay tuned!

Low Score Episode 04 "Kevin is Smug"

Hanging out at the Jersey shore, Bobby is joined by Kevin and Jimmy of the Virtual Fools to discuss their recent gaming habits and talk about their history with the boardwalks of New Jersey, including the trip they took that day to Seaside Heights to play classic arcade games.

Download it. | Subscribe to it.

Low Score Episode 05 "A Very Braidy Podcast"

J's back! And what does that mean? It means we get to discuss potato chips and beer. Oh, and some video games too, I suppose.

Newsflash: J LOVES POINTS. Tune in to hear him talk about his misadventures with Avatar: The Last Airbender and Madden 06.

Though we've played a few demos and some Geometry Wars 2, this week is really all about Braid. With about 40 minutes of the podcast dedicated to one game, we discuss both gameplay and narrative. Don't want spoilers because you're going to play Braid soon? That's okay! We give fair warning in the course of the podcast for when we're going to discuss potential spoilers for the rest of the show.

Download it. | Subscribe to it.

Low Score Episode 06 "Make it Work"

Not even the start of classes can stop Bobby from beating a game and buying three others. And now that he's finished with Mass Effect he and J can finally discuss it! Meanwhile J has an interesting cerebral response to Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare being that it's the first FPS he's played where he's really out to kill real looking humans in war. Is this an untapped area of game design and story?

But be not discouraged, for Bobby wants to go to war with everybody in Civilization Revolution and blast off to space where he can kill alien dudes in Galaga Legions.

J's come back around on Bionic Commando: Rearmed and explains why not liking the game probably means you're doing it wrong.

What other adventures await our heroes? No idea! But you should listen anyway.

Download it. | Subscribe to it.

So I started up a new game blog for both school and as a compliment to a project that has kind of fallen by the wayside. For my first post I talk about Galaga Legions and explain not only why I enjoy it but why it fits squarely in the Galaga tradition. Read it, won't you?

27 Years Later: How Galaga Legions Fits In