Tag: video games

Hyper Light Drifter (Switch SE) Review – a masterclass in “show, don’t tell” design

By Angie | Backlog Crusader on May 21, 2019August 10, 2019

Hyper Light Drifter is the game that finally won me over on pixel graphics. For a long time I thought it was just a modern gaming fad (“Retro style is so cool, bro!”). I had a hard time empathizing with pixel characters due to the lack of facial feature details. I understood the difficulty of pixel art design, but I was unaware of the depth and nuance that could truly be achieved with this medium– Until I met the Drifter.

Posted in: entertainment, game, gamer girl, gaming, girl gamer, hyper light, Nintendo, Nintendo Switch, Review, rpg, video game, video games, videogames

Gamer Culture Serious

Community Collab: Video Game Literary Classics 101

By Angie | Backlog Crusader on May 21, 2019July 17, 2019

The Prompt

Students all over the world have to read certain classic literature in school such as: Hamlet, Lord of the Flies, The Great Gatsby, Homer’s Odyssey, etc. With that in mind…

Imagine it’s 2050 and you’re helping design a course for high school students called Video Game Literary Classics. You have been asked to suggest a culturally significant video game (or several) for students to academically analyze and discuss, as they would with classic literature. Which video game title(s) would you choose for literary study and why?

Posted in: culture, gamer, gamer girl, gaming, girl gamer, literature, school, teaching, video games

Gamer Culture Humor

Tales from Retail – Black Friday Edition

By Angie | Backlog Crusader on May 20, 2019July 3, 2019

Black Friday

The day all retail workers fear. The day the crazies come out. The day you work until you can’t stand and then work some more. One year I was on the long graveyard shift for Black Friday. I came in at 4AM and worked until 2PM. At 5AM, one of our point-of-sale computers freezes for no discernible reason. Aww jeez. We have a line out the door and around the corner, and the store is packed and sweltering. We really can’t afford to be down a register. No me gusta, amigos. Suddenly, another computer freezes. FULL RED ALERT!

Posted in: gamer, gamergirl, games, gamestop, gaming, girl gamer, retail, video games

Gamer Culture Serious

Gendered Careers – Where are the women in Pro Esports?

By Angie | Backlog Crusader on May 17, 2019April 9, 2021

There has been a notable lack of a female presence at the professional level of video game competition since the dawn of esports as a profitable industry. Despite well researched demographics indicating that around 10% of players are female in most leading esports titles like League of Legends, Dota 2, Overwatch, and Counter Strike: Global Offensive and nearly 30% of esports viewership is female, less than 1% of professional players in these games are women (Yee, 2017).

Where is this gender disparity coming from and what is preventing women from successfully breaking into the esports scene as professional gamers?

Posted in: console, entertainment, esports, gamer girl, games, gaming, girl gamer, industry, lgbtq, pc gaming, playstation, video games, women, xbox

Gamer Culture Serious Stories

How Video Games Influenced My Life and My Writing

By Angie | Backlog Crusader on May 14, 2019June 27, 2019

I have a long, involved history with video games. My childhood best friend and I bonded over Pokémon while others took to playing ball or drawing with chalk during recess. The first video game I ever owned was Pokémon Yellow. For the past twenty years I have been absolutely immersed in the world of video games, from the moment I got a Gameboy Color for Christmas when I was ten, to this past year when I finally caved and bought a Nintendo Switch.

Posted in: entertainment, gamer, gamer girl, gamergirl, gaming, girl gamer, guitar hero, gwent, multiplayer, pokemon, video games, videogames, world of warcraft

Gamer Culture Humor Serious

Video Games, Cleavage, and You – Player Agency in Character Customization

By Angie | Backlog Crusader on May 10, 2019July 17, 2019

Recently I was asked what my opinion was on large bust size of female video game characters and I thought that would be a great topic for a longer post. The short answer is: The size of a female character’s bust surprisingly does not matter. What does matter is whether that particular physical trait is forced on the player and if or how a character’s attire and animations (chest thrust, “come hither” expression, etc.) highlight it. Some gamers love to play seductive characters, while others prefer reserved or practical looks. Both are fine! The key factor is player agency.

Posted in: entertainment, gamer, gamergirl, gaming, girl gamer, guild wars 2, kickstarter, subverse, video games

kickstarter

Calico Kickstarter; “unapologetically feminine”, with so many animals (Fully funded!)

By Angie | Backlog Crusader on May 10, 2019June 27, 2019

I am a shameless Kickstarter junkie and I wanted to share a little info on Calico, which was successfully funded at 230% of their original goal about a week ago and is now in a brief late pledge period. This title is incredibly cute and worth a look!

Posted in: crowdfunding, gaming, girl gamer, kickstarter, Nintendo Switch, pc gaming, ps4, video games, xbox

Gamer Culture Humor

The Gamer Girl’s Comeback Playbook

By Angie | Backlog Crusader on May 6, 2019June 27, 2019

As a woman playing competitive online multiplayer games like Overwatch and CS:GO, it can be disappointingly common to encounter targeted, sexist harassment. For whatever reason, when certain types of players realize they are playing with or against a woman, they just kind of freak out –– aaaabsolutely cannot handle it at all. Yet somehow, harassers never expect spicy trash talk in response.

Posted in: gamer girl, gamergirl, gaming, girl gamer, harassment, multiplayer, online, pc gaming, playstation, video games, xbox

Nintendo Switch Review

Little Dragons Café Review (Switch) – a feel-good fairy tale for dragon lovers

By Angie | Backlog Crusader on May 4, 2019July 3, 2019

Little Dragons Café is much more polished than I was expecting, to be honest. It boasts a pleasant pallet of pastels and warm shades, with Wind Waker-ish cell shading that look as if drawn with colored pencil by a skilled artist. The inside of the café itself is a quaint, homey scene that could have been torn directly from a page in a children’s storybook tale, one of those picture books that both parents and kids adore.

Posted in: dragons, gamer girl, gaming, girl gamer, Nintendo Switch, pc gaming, Review, video games

Gamer Culture Serious

Why do female gamers tend to play support characters?

By Angie | Backlog Crusader on April 29, 2019July 18, 2019

Over a year ago I wrote a post about female support players on the Overwatch subreddit that hit the front page and generated a lot of buzz in the community at the time. It earned 9 Reddit Gold awards and over 14,000 up-votes, with nearly 4,000 comments. I was even reached out to by the head of player behavior at Blizzard whom had read it.

At the risk of sounding like a humble-bragger, I was absolutely blown away by the response to what started as a rambling rant to another post about Mercy players. I’ve revisited the original content and cleaned it up for posterity.

Posted in: entertainment, gamer girl, games, gaming, overwatch, pc gaming, technology, video games