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Google Books Ngram Viewer is a data visualization tool that uses the Google Books database to show how often a word or phrase has been used in print sources over the years. There are some bugs—inaccurate years of publication, spotty… Continue Reading →
Boom Culture is dead. Long live Luderacy. Boom Culture was my previous blog, which ran from January, 2009 until May, 2012. More people read the site than I expected when I started it as a graduate school project. For this… Continue Reading →
Hey Max, My second letter is below. I know the pony express took a long time to arrive. I don’t plan to go on another two week hiatus! Harrison Dear Mister “Max” Marston, It is always good to hear from… Continue Reading →
Hey Harrison, Here’s my second letter. I think my Marston might be losing it a bit—but he recovers at the end. We’ll see what the future brings for him. Apropos more of the West than of Red Dead specifically, I… Continue Reading →
The judicial system treated the Wild West bandits with an unusual degree of understanding. Those who surrendered and survived—Frank James, Cole Younger, Emmett Dalton—served a few years in prison and then went on with their lives…The West was closing up…. Continue Reading →
Games I have played in the past year that feature shooting as a prominent mechanic: Red Dead Redemption Metro 2033 Borderlands Perfect Dark Zero Gears of War Dead Space Resident Evil 5 Alan Wake Vanquish Dark Sector Call of Juarez:… Continue Reading →
I recently reconnected with the brilliant and engaging Harrison Gish, a college friend and now a Ph.D. candidate studying games and other media at UCLA. Harrison was one of the first people I met who took what you might call… Continue Reading →
Hi there. My name is Max, and I do side quests in JRPGs. I’ve never said it out loud before. It’s actually kind of liberating. I think I was born this way. There was never a time when, if a… Continue Reading →
Multimodality Alan Wake draws on a collection of interesting sources—but if you’ve heard anything about the game, you probably know that already. Between obvious references to Twin Peaks and frequent shout-outs to Stephen King and other writers, developer Remedy Entertainment is ingratiatingly eager… Continue Reading →