Video games present an interesting challenge to other visual media: they are neither wholly narrative, nor wholly interactive. Ben Eldridge (USyd) explores mainstream interactive media with a brief case study of two texts splattered with violence and security content – Crytek’s video game Crysis 2 (2010) and Peter Watts’ subsequent novelization of the game, Crysis: Legion (2011). Crysis 2 is an interchangeable example of the so-called First Person Shooter (FPS); formulaic, uninspiring, and ideologically suspect. Ben contrasts the visual grammar of the game with the textual grammar of the novel. Dr Ari Mattes offers a response to Ben’s paper and they explore the video game as spectacle, gaming as a military recruitment strategy and more.

Seminar: 0.00 - 45min
Q & A: 45min - 1hr 10min

Produced by the Sydney Screen Studies Network
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