Is God a Gamer?

Theology and popular culture is an ever-growing field with numerous implications for both the church and academia.  Churches and professors have embraced the theological/religious/spiritual implications of film, television, and popular culture.  However, one of the most popular components of popular culture, video games, have yet to come under exploration for their theological/religious/spiritual implications.  Until now.  In his latest book, Halos and Avatars:  Playing Video Games With God, Craig Detweiler has compiled a collection of essays that make it impossible to look at video games the same way again.  [Read more]

Virtual Dystopia

One of the most interesting parts of Conrad Ostwalt’s book, Secular Steeples, is his comparison of secular and sacred apocalyptic films.  One of the characteristics of secular apocalyptic films is that humans must and do overcome the apocalyptic threat before them through world unity, technological advancements, military might, etc.  Contrary to this, sacred apocalyptic films wait for God to act decisively while humans must endure the violence around them.  Lately, I have observed a string of video games that mirror Ostwalt’s secular apocalyptic criteria.  Games like Fallout 3 and Resistance 2 might just seem like re-hashed first person shooters, and while Mirror’s Edge abandons weapons for acrobatics, their worlds beg further analysis. [Read more]

Serious Handheld…

With the spring semester in full swing, my adventures in video gaming take a back seat, unfortunately, to much more, ahem, sophisticated endeavors. However, I still like to keep an eye on the screen to see what the latest news is from the consoles, aside from the countdown until the release of Grand Theft Auto IV. I found this interesting article about an independent Nintendo DS game that focuses on the Holocaust called Imagination is the Only Escape. Here are two articles about the game, one from the blogosphere’s boingboing.net and one from more traditional media fare, The New York Times.

When 25% of 17 year olds (out of 12oo polled) do not know who Adolf Hitler was, we have a serious problem on our hands. Perhaps putting this story in a hand-held context, might remedy that. Unfortunately, it seems like our unwillingness to publish the game will only contribute to this statistic. Gamers, hit the import market.

Indie Nintendo DS Game About a Jewish Boy in Nazi France Pushes Buttons

No Game About Nazis for Nintendo

Dispatches from AAR…Take 1

This year’s American Academy of Religion conference offered much in the way of religion and popular culture with session topics ranging from video games to Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I’ll provide some highlights from the sessions that I attended, starting with Born Digital and Born Again Digital: Religion in Virtual Gaming Worlds, sponsored by the Religion and Popular Culture Group and the Religion, Media, and Culture Group. [Read more]

Healthy Video Games?

With the overwhelming popularity of Nintendo’s new console, the Wii, more people are playing video games. From swinging a golf club, hopefully like Tiger Woods, to bowling in full motion, the Wii encourages players to get off the couch. However, the Wii is not the first video game require more player interaction as the popular arcade game Dance Dance Revolution hit home consoles well before the Wii launch. Check out this article on how schools are putting it to use.

P.E. Classes Turn to Video Game That Works Legs

Mind Games

Apparently our parents were wrong all along: video games do not rot your brain. In fact, some researchers are finding that one video game system does quite the opposite. Check out this interesting article from The San Francisco Chronicle:

PlayStation 3 taking a role in Alzheimer’s fight

As if I need another excuse to want a Playstation 3.