Reading between the lines: A look at Instructional Booklets

he written word: society lives by it, people relax with it and students learn to grow from it. As the saying goes, the pen truly is mightier than the sword.

Many of us will never forget some of the first words that taught us the beauty (and flaws) of all that language has to offer. For me, it all started with three fondly remembered words that spark joy for many classic JRPG fans:

"You Spoony Bard!" 

This blatant mistranslation made for a hilarious conversation starter that's still worthy of many Final Fantasy IV references to this day.

Books, novels, and magazines serve as a gateway to learning how to read and write over the years. And hell, we had some great reads in the classroom over the years compared to several other generations. I have fond memories of getting into titles such as Bunnicula, the Goosebumps series, and, eventually, George Orwell's 1984 (even if it's a bit real at times now). Not to mention that it would be criminal to forget anything by Beverly Cleary, who recently passed on at the age of 104.

Still, there's another outlet that I don't credit often enough for leading to my own expanded interests in the academic world: video games.

Click to read more ...

35 years of Super Mario on Game Boy: a hopeful Game Boy Collection

fter months upon months of rumors about their existence, Nintendo finally put the scuttlebutt to rest, and officially revealed the Super Mario 3D Collection, a compilation of Mario’s iconic three-dimensional outings spanning three generations of hardware, all packed into one convenient title.

 Aside from the glaring omission of Super Mario Galaxy 2 though, something else has been really bothering me; it’s something that seems to have been overlooked by a majority of the community, myself included, and only really came to me after a certain title was coincidentally teased in the last Nintendo direct prior to this Mario-centric one…

 Why aren’t there any special curative efforts for the Plumber’s classic Game Boy stints? — Where has all of the love gone for Mario’s portable adventures?

 While there may have been an argument over just how much love these titles may have fostered from the Mario fandom, the hype over the recent output of portable tributes mobile device has left a lasting impact. Tributes like the Analogue Pocket, the Mega Man Zero Collection, and the soon-to-be-launched Collection of SaGa has proven that the library of software on Nintendo’s signature on the go device is still very much revered. Among these titles, are some of the finest Mario titles developed by the Big N, and if the 35th anniversary of the Nintendo’s Italian Stallion is any indication, there’s no better time than now to capitalize on re-releasing his Black-&-White classics onto their Console-Portable hybrid while the iron is still hot for the little thing.

Click to read more ...

Examining the masculinity of the newest God of War

Note: The author originally wrote this feature for Pixel Jizz; a gaming culture publication for California’s Bay Area Queer community, and has been given permission to publish it on to Press Pause Radio as well. You can obtain the latest issue from Comikake this upcoming September.

nder the creative direction of Cory Balrog, Santa Monica Studio was able to deliver a radical reimagining for the God of War series that not only changed some of the most fundamental gameplay dynamics of the series, but it also managed to re-characterize its protagonist into something more than a bland cipher for juvenile aggression. While there’s no denying the quality of the franchise and what it did for the character-action genre of video games, the heart of the property was ultimately nothing more than a navel-gazing male power-fantasy that embellished upon all the token signs of toxic masculinity to an obnoxiously troubling degree. There are plenty of reasons to celebrate the newest God of War title, but my favorite reason has to be the fact that it finally redeemed its hero with something far more meaningful than revenge porn, and I couldn’t be happier with the effect it’ll have on male culture as a whole.

Click to read more ...