Rev Rant: a slave obeys

Every week, sort of, features editor Anthony Burch discusses games and gamer culture in his “Rev Rant” video series.  You can watch the previous rants here.

Firstly: spoilers for BioShock, Modern Warfare 2, and Portal. Though if you honestly haven’t played Portal by this point, you are weird.

Secondly: this week’s rant is about how games which are supposedly about control and slavery and experiencing a lack of free will effectively fall into two categories: those that require some subtle doublethink on the part of the player, but are still immensely satisfying (BioShock, Portal) and those that are thematically lazy and hide that laziness through BS statements about free will (Haze, Modern Warfare 2).

The two indie games I briefly mention in the rant are Judith and Edmund. I harbor an intense desire to see a crossover game including both protagonists. It would be called “Judith n’ Edmund,” and it would be an existential buddy cop game.