Table of Contents

Introduction - Things That Go Boom: From Guns to Griefing -- Gerald Voorhees, Josh Call and Katie Whitlock

I. Tutorial

Chapter 1: BattleZone and the Origins of First-Person Shooting Games -- Mark JP Wolf
Chapter 2: Call to Action, Invitation to Play: The Immediacy of the Caricature in Team Fortress 2 -- James Manning
Chapter 3: I Am a Gun: The Avatar and Avatarness in the FPS -- Victor Navarro
Chapter 4: Monsters, Nazis and Tangos: The Normalization of the First-Person Shooter -- Gerald Voorhees
Chapter 5: The Shameful Trinity: Game Studies, Empire, and the Cognitariat -- Toby Miller

II. Campaign

Chapter 6: Bigger, Better, Stronger, Faster: Disposable Bodies and Cyborg Construction -- Josh Call
Chapter 7: Hatched from the Veins in Your Arms": Movement, Ontology and First-Person Gameplay in BioShock -- Gwyneth Peaty
Chapter 8: Meat Chunks in the Metro: The Apocalyptic Soul of the Ukrainian Shooter -- Dan Pinchbeck Chapter 9: More Bang For Your Buck -- Hardware Hacking, Real Money Trade and Transgressive Play within Console Based First Person Shooters --Alan Meades
Chapter 10: 'Tips and tricks to take your game to the next level': Expertise and Identity in FPS Games --Daniel Ashton & James Newman

III. Multiplayer

Chapter 11: 'A Silent Team is a Dead Team': Communicative Norms in Team-based Halo 3 Play -- Nick Taylor
Chapter 12: Challenging the Rules and Roles of Gaming: Griefing as Rhetorical Tactic -- Evan Snider, Tim Lockridge & Dan Lawson
Chapter 13: The Best Possible Story? Learning about WWII from FPS Video Games -- Stephanie Fisher
Chapter 14: Taking Aim at Sexual Harassment: Feminized Performances of Hegemonic Masculinity in the First-Person Shooter Hey Baby -- Jessy Ohl & Aaron Duncan
Chapter 15: Invigorating Play: The Role of Affect in Online Multiplayer FPS Games -- Chris Moore
Chapter 16: Repelling the Invasion of the 'Other': Post-Apocalyptic Alien Shooter Videogames Addressing Contemporary Cultural Attitudes -- Ryan Lizardi
Chapter 17: Face to Face: Humanizing the Digital Display in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 -- Timothy Welsh

About the Contributors
Index

Promotional Information

This collection brings the weight of contemporary social theory and media criticism to bear on the public controversy and intellectual investigation of first-person shooter games.

Promotional Information

This collection brings the weight of contemporary social theory and media criticism to bear on the public controversy and intellectual investigation of first-person shooter games.

About the Author

Joshua Call, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Grand View University.
Katie Whitlock, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Theatre at California State University, Chico.

Reviews

‘First person shooters’ are one of the most fundamental and important videogame genres. Many critiques of this type of game have been put forth by those with little experience of actual game play. Voorhees, Call, and Whitlock include here essays that explore the genre in specific and useful detail from the perspective of the expert player. The essays are nuanced, carefully researched and supported critiques of specific aspects of first-person shooters. James Manning’s analysis of the heads-up display in Team Fortress 2 and Gwyneth Peaty’s discussion of the permability of avatar bodies in Bioshock are especially strong. Summing Up: Recommended. All Readers.
*CHOICE*