Recent Posts
God and Country Music: The Anatomy of a Country Song“There are many high profile musicians bastardizing the rich tradition and form of country music for commercial gain.”
Play in Process: A Facebook Game about Jesus Made Me Look Like a Silly Christian“This Christian Facebook game has become a kind of series of bumper stickers, automatically slapped on the back of your car anytime you do anything remotely noteworthy.”
Citizenship Confusion: Breaking the Shopping Habit“The practice of shopping as entertainment can have serious consequences for believers”
How Should Christians Think About Gay Marriage?“Our prayer is that political stances will never detract from the only message that truly matters.”
The Moviegoer: Lucky Life is Like This“Lucky Life deals with suffering, friendship, marriage, memory, death, and faith — communicated in an image-driven, poetic style.”
We Recommend:
Reviews of comics, graphic novels, and manga by Seth T. Hahne, CaPC’s new illustrator.
When Games Matter Column Archive
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When Games Matter: Playing against the Grain
Posted on March 6, 2012 | 1 Comment"My incredibly frustrating experience with Shadow illustrates how risky it is to put an interactive piece of art in the hands of players whose experiences can dramatically vary." -
When Games Matter: The Weight of Personal Stories
Posted on February 28, 2012 | No Comments"I know I will never save the world but I am reminded that my small actions and attempts at making a difference matter." -
When Games Matter: Why Games Aren’t About Story
Posted on January 31, 2012 | 22 Comments"The best games give us a sense that we are making our own story and our place in that story is absolutely essential." -
When Games Matter: The Art of Story in The Binding of Isaac
Posted on January 24, 2012 | 1 Comment"Isaac respresents a stellar achievement in storytelling by taking something as simple as "powerups" and using them to shed light on the troubling world in which a young boy lives." -
When Games Matter: For the Love of the Grind
Posted on January 10, 2012 | 1 Comment"The fact that Skyrim broke me of my anti-grinding ways is a tremendous compliment to the world that Todd Howard and his team at Bethesda have created." -
When Games Matter: Skyrim’s Personal Deities
Posted on January 3, 2012 | 31 Comments' . . . in this moment, Skyrim was working to encourage me to take this personally, to deal with the existence of a personal deity and determine how I would interact with it." -
When Games Matter: When Music Makes a Game
Posted on December 13, 2011 | No Comments"The goal behind each of these puzzles is literally to coax pixies out of their hiding places and release their magical power. . . . . The greatest achievement of S&S, however, is never making the player feel ridiculous for doing these things." -
When Games Matter: The Wonderful Lore of Skyrim
Posted on December 6, 2011 | 11 Comments"... the multitude of these details serves to do something rather rare in video games--it makes the game more about the world than it is about me." -
When Games Matter: Game Night as Means to Sanctification
Posted on November 29, 2011 | 1 Comment"Too often I refuse to apply the Bible to the "little things" in life--like card games." -
When Games Matter: Why I Passed on Modern Warfare 3
Posted on November 22, 2011 | 6 Comments"I understand the appeal of MW3, but at the end of the day it really is just another shooter that emphasizes putting other people in their place." -
When Games Matter: Skyrim as Religious Experience
Posted on November 15, 2011 | 5 Comments"Despite these inherent risks, Skyrim has been a worshipful experience. And every mountain stream, every cave, and every village is but a foretaste of the world to come." -
When Games Matter: The Anatomy of a Boss Fight
Posted on November 8, 2011 | 11 Comments"Arkham City treats us the way we all want to be treated—it's fair, honest, and consistent." -
When Games Matter: My Wife, Dance Central 2, and the Importance of Feedback
Posted on November 1, 2011 | 4 Comments"She has beaten me by 2 million points before—if you watched us dance you would agree that this is just." -
When Games Matter: PayDay: The Heist and Virtual Crime
Posted on October 25, 2011 | 10 Comments"If we were to replace PayDay's security guards and law enforcement officers with mindless zombies or hostile aliens or terrorists, I would not be writing this article, no one would be interested in this discussion, and the game would remain essentially the same." -
When Games Matter: What I Learned about Counseling from Sideway: New York
Posted on October 18, 2011 | 3 Comments"Such counsel overwhelms people and does more harm than good. . . . Believe it or not but a well designed videogame actually brought this to my attention." -
When Games Matter: Controlling Horror in the Rise of Nightmares
Posted on October 11, 2011 | 4 Comments". . . there is very little in our lives that we have complete control over and yet the consensus on control in games is that the gamer should always be in charge." -
When Games Matter: Leedmees, Kinect, and Creativity
Posted on October 4, 2011 | 2 Comments"Leedmees requires patience, foresight, balance, and teamwork. Its a game of both body and mind." -
When Games Matter: Kinect, Community, Ninjas, and Fruit
Posted on September 27, 2011 | No Comments"Cultivating community takes many shapes--I never would have thought it would involve furiously chopping digital fruits." -
When Games Matter: Deus Ex and Its Dirty Trick
Posted on September 20, 2011 | 5 Comments". . . the more heavily a game relies on story, the more careful that game should be in raising the bar when it comes to skill." -
When Games Matter: Civilians in War Games
Posted on September 13, 2011 | 9 Comments"... games like Battlefield play like just another shooter where war is fun. To me that is more tragic than what Battlefield is "shielding" the player from."