Read Sam Machkovech‘s post at the Atlantic titled “LIMBO: A Video Game Explores Living With Loss.” Here is an excerpt:

That stark brevity fits the game’s understood purpose: to present a boy in search of a lost sibling, a boy who’s desperate, quiet, and willing to proceed left-to-right without any plot or outright provocation. As such, we too follow along without asking questions. We solve puzzles and brave confusing foes because we “have” to. The wordless inspiration, and the game’s overt nod to it, rises above the game’s astonishing qualities—its beauty, its economy of sound, its puzzles, its fluid control, even its never-too-hard difficulty—to make this 2010′s best video game so far.

(Limbo. Also read a post by Morgan Meis at The Smart Set titled “Art of the Game: Video games come of critical age” and reviews of this game.)

The Daily Mail has a post titled “THIRD of children have seen online porn by the time they are 10, shocking study reveals.” Here is an excerpt:

A third of children have accessed online pornography by the time they are ten years old, a disturbing survey has revealed.

And more than eight in ten children aged 14 to 16 say they regularly access hardcore photographs and footage on their home computers, while two-thirds watch it on their mobile phones.

Yet 70 per cent admit they have never been physically intimate with someone – meaning their first experience of sex is watching often violent scenes online.

Parents appear to be unaware of the risk to their children as three-quarters of the children surveyed confirmed their families had never discussed online porn with them.

In many cases, parents are simply unable to keep up with their computer-literate kids and have no idea how to install parental internet controls or to stop their children getting around them.

Experts warned the flood of extreme sexual imagery was creating a time bomb for young people who would have problems with romantic relationships when they were older and were more likely to commit rape.

(Find the image above in the Vancouver Sun article titled “Sex, videos, friends, games hot with kids online: Norton.”)

Roger Ebert revisits his own post from a few months ago “Video games can never be art” in his post “Okay, kids, play on my lawn.” Here is an excerpt from the first post:

Having once made the statement above, I have declined all opportunities to enlarge upon it or defend it. That seemed to be a fool’s errand, especially given the volume of messages I receive urging me to play this game or that and recant the error of my ways. Nevertheless, I remain convinced that in principle, video games cannot be art. Perhaps it is foolish of me to say “never,” because never, as Rick Wakeman informs us, is a long, long time. Let me just say that no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form.

and an excerpt from the follow-up post:

I was a fool for mentioning video games in the first place. I would never express an opinion on a movie I hadn’t seen. Yet I declared as an axiom that video games can never be Art. I still believe this, but I should never have said so. Some opinions are best kept to yourself.

At this moment, 4,547 comments have rained down upon me for that blog entry. I’m informed by Wayne Hepner, who turned them into a text file: “It’s more than Anna Karenina, David Copperfield and The Brothers Karamazov.” I would rather have reread all three than vet that thread. Still, they were a good set of comments for the most part. Perhaps 300 supported my position. The rest were united in opposition.

If you assume I received a lot of cretinous comments from gamers, you would be wrong. I probably killed no more than a dozen. What you see now posted are almost all of the comments sent in. They are mostly intelligent, well-written, and right about one thing in particular:

I should not have written that entry without being more familiar with the actual experience of video games.

Checkout Jim Rossignol‘s book This Gaming Life: Travels in Three Cities for free. Here is an excerpt of a 2008 review of the book from Wired:

Equal parts primer for the uninitiated and call to arms for fans of our beleaguered hobby, the book moves beyond the well-worn tropes of corrupted youth and escapism to tackle larger issues concerning the form and function of videogames.

Approaching the subject as an actual gamer, Wired magazine contributor and Rock, Paper, Shotgun editor Rossignol sets aside statistics and focuses on instances that best illustrate the potential, for better or worse, of such a potent interactive medium. While on its own the book may not be capable of converting the unwashed masses, it’s a strong addition to any well-read enthusiast’s personal library, and a great recommendation for nonbelievers.

Most new media go through birth pangs. The old guard threw a hissy fit when teenage miscreants swayed lustily in front of jukeboxes, or first ogled comic books and were warped by crime dramas and stylized violence.

Fast forward to the 21st century: Second Life sex shops, Wii Fit fatties, Grand Theft Auto anything — mention videogames and every other politico with constituents or pundit with career ambitions clambers into the ring, roaring about moral decay, troubled kids and the impending collapse of civilized society. While that pesky First Amendment keeps Those Who Know Best from coating the entire planet in bubble wrap, repeated news briefs about murder simulators training toddlers to rape and carjack isn’t doing much to inform the unaware.

A book that follows up on the value and importance of video games and the gaming culture is Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter? by Tom Bissell. Slate has an article on this book titled “Are Video Games a Massive Waste of Time?” Here is an excerpt from it:

When he looks at video games from a critical distance, Bissell is concerned mainly with their lack of narrative meaning. Games ask us to save the princess, save the country, save the world, save ourselves—but no one plays games to achieve those ends. We play for the puzzle, for the physics, for the sense of being embedded in a fully realized world. Indeed, for me, the “story” usually seems like filler, even in games like Grand Theft Auto and RDR (Red Dead Redemption), whose stories are smarter than the rest of the video-game pack. RDR begins and ends every mission with cleverly scripted movielike “cut scenes” that provide some explanation for why your character is doing what he’s doing—but the game also lets you skip the scenes, which I usually elect to do. Thus I can’t really explain why my character is doing what he’s doing. The real answer is he’s doing it because I am making him do it, and I am making him do it only because I am having fun.

We have been contending that violent video game content can have some value and is not all bad for children. We also believe that the video game rating system helps parents distinguish what content is age appropriate for their child, advocating that it should be adhered to and that game play must be constantly supervised and managed in each household. Our bigger concern remains on the amount of time a child spends playing video games, taking away form other important activities, like homework, chores and of course exercise. On this note, the Huffington Post has a brief post tilted “Violent Video Games Touted As Learning Tool.”

Christine Rosen at in character has a must read post titled “The Death of Embarrassment.” Here is an excerpt:

Today, what used to cause embarrassment now elicits little more than a collective shrug. In our eagerness to broadcast our authentic experiences and have our individuality endorsed, we reject embarrassment as if it were some fusty trapping of a bygone age. But we haven’t eliminated embarrassment; we have only upped the ante. “Your slip is showing” used to be the most embarrassing sartorial faux pas a lady could commit. Now we regularly witness “nip slip” from female celebrities whose shirts mysteriously migrate south during public appearances – or during Super Bowl halftime shows. As the boundary between public and private has dissolved, so too has our ability to distinguish between embarrassing and appropriate public behavior. The result is a society often bewildered by attempts to impose any standards at all.

Unlike many other emotions, embarrassment must be learned. Infants know nothing of this emotion, and parents often use the threat of embarrassment to teach young children correct and incorrect behavior: “If you say that in public, you’ll embarrass yourself,” we say to the toddler with a penchant for scatological chitchat. Embarrassment is also a social emotion; its occurrence requires the real or imagined presence of others. Belch at a dinner party and you will likely feel embarrassed; do it while home alone and you’re unlikely to feel abashed. Because it is a learned behavior grounded in social relations, embarrassment is a kind of barometer for a society’s notions of civility.

(Find the photo above at the post titled “The Next Big Thing In Video Games Might Be Fear Of Embarrassment” from Kotaku.)

Video games are becoming as beautiful to look at as they are fun and challenging to play. My growing admiration for many of these games comes from their intricate weaving of narratives, images, myths, and psychology. In fact, our heroes and myths are being revisioned in this medium. On this note, Kyle Chayka at the Atlantic has a great post titled “Why Video Games Are Works of Art.” Here is an excerpt:

Sure, video games can be “won”, but “winning” a video game isn’t just earning the most points. Winning, in most single-player video games, involves completing the game’s narrative arc, reaching the end of the plot in a way very similar to a movie’s climax and denouement. Video games don’t just stop at the narrative resolution, though. “Winning” often gains the player the ability to explore and wander at will through the game, an experience driven by aesthetics alone. Beat Super Mario World and you’ll go back and play through levels simply because they’re as beautiful as Kandinsky’s Blaue Reiter paintings. Finish the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and head back to the mountains to look out over the world, to feel the virtual wind. Video games are, if anything, more experiential than films.

(Read reviews of the Alan Wake video game above at metacritic.)

The NYT has an interesting article worth noting titled “Feeling Warehoused in Army Trauma Care Units.” Here is an excerpt:

Created in the wake of the scandal in 2007 over serious shortcomings at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Warrior Transition Units were intended to be sheltering way stations where injured soldiers could recuperate and return to duty or gently process out of the Army. There are currently about 7,200 soldiers at 32 transition units across the Army, with about 465 soldiers at Fort Carson’s unit.

But interviews with more than a dozen soldiers and health care professionals from Fort Carson’s transition unit, along with reports from other posts, suggest that the units are far from being restful sanctuaries. For many soldiers, they have become warehouses of despair, where damaged men and women are kept out of sight, fed a diet of powerful prescription pills and treated harshly by noncommissioned officers. Because of their wounds, soldiers in Warrior Transition Units are particularly vulnerable to depression and addiction, but many soldiers from Fort Carson’s unit say their treatment there has made their suffering worse.

Some soldiers in the unit, and their families, described long hours alone in their rooms, or in homes off the base, aimlessly drinking or playing video games.

“In combat, you rely on people and you come out of it feeling good about everything,” said a specialist in the unit. “Here, you’re just floating. You’re not doing much. You feel worthless.”

At Fort Carson, many soldiers complained that doctors prescribed drugs too readily. As a result, some soldiers have become addicted to their medications or have turned to heroin. Medications are so abundant that some soldiers in the unit openly deal, buy or swap prescription pills.

(Find the image above here.)

You can read reviews of “Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction” video game at Metacritic. Here is an excerpt from a review of the game at Game Pro that describes a marked shift in the psychological nature and motivations of role playing games games (RPGs):

When last we saw Sam he was running for his life, on the lam for the murder of his friend and colleague Col. Irving Lambert, and dealing with the sudden death of his daughter Sarah. Hunted by Third Echelon, the organization that used to sign his checks, Sam retires from spy games and disappears. Upon learning that his daughter’s “accidental” death was actually a calculated personal attack, Sam — voiced again by actor Michael Ironside — decides to step out from the shadows to uncover the truth. The general theme of Conviction is absolute anger. While fans of the franchise will no doubt miss the methodical, almost robotic superspy of old, this incarnation of Sam Fisher is much more complex. He’s broken by grief and blinded by rage; as cliched as it may sound, this time, it really is personal.