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Article 28
Video games are not the medium most conducive to probing moral dilemmas. Slaying the undead? Sure. Leading the beleaguered Mets to the World Series? Why not. But pondering the meaning of life, the...
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Article 27
It was going to be a Shabbat to remember. After a long week of work at Tablet Magazine, I was looking forward to leaving the Jews behind and focusing instead on the ghosts. I left the office Friday...
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Article 26
It might’ve been my brand new iPhone. It might’ve been the Torah portion. It might’ve been the relentless rain that, at some point, began to seem like a punishment from the heavens. Whatever it was, I...
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Article 25
Possessing both a Ph.D. in video games and a giddily infantile disposition, I spend more time than an adult should with a controller in hand, slaying pixilated baddies or solving convoluted puzzles. It...
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Article 24
As Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is almost upon us, now is the time for soulful reflections. Here’s mine: a hardened technophile with a doctorate in video games, an obsessive geek whose home is a...
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Article 23
Whatever its earthly, economic problems, Greece owes me big. This week, I cleansed it of a three-headed Hydra, freed Athens from hordes of the undead, and gave Prometheus a hand with that pesky bird...
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Article 22
As this week’s parasha begins, Jacob, having just swindled his brother out of his birthright and his blessing, is on the lam, en route to cool his heels in Haran for a while. Before he can get there,...
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Article 21
There are biblical stories that resonate with clarity and urgency, that guide and inspire us, that lay in the sod of our souls the foundations of morality and lovingkindness. This week’s parasha is not...
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Article 20
Hey, kids! Excited about the new Nintendo 3DS? Can’t wait to play Portal 2? Forget such trifles: Your world is about to be rocked, courtesy the Council of Samarian Settlers, which recently released a...
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Article 19
Like meeting an old flame years later and finding out he or she did not age gracefully, revisiting the video games of our childhood can be a jarring experience. Those of us accustomed to lifelike,...
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Article 18
Facebook games tend to end up in the growing pile of cultural detritus, along with reality TV and tweeting congressmen. Usually, they involve coercing one’s friends to join in silly, virtual...
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Article 17
Last spring, I gave a tough assignment to the students in my NYU class on literary and cultural representations of the Holocaust. “By Wednesday,” I told them, “I want you to kill Hitler.” Their task...
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Article 16
As a professor of video games at a major university, I spend a lot of time, well, playing video games. So when Marc Tracy posted a trailer for NBA Jam: On Fire Edition, I was thrilled. The game...
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God and Video Games
Part of my week each week is spent at Tablet Magazine, where, among other things, I write this column of Torah commentary. Another part is spent at New York University, where I teach and research video...
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Video Games, Especially ‘Wolfenstein,’ Are All About Revenge
The Arbiter is a weekly column dedicated to revisiting canonical works of art, high and low alike, to reevaluate their merit. All media are considered; none are pitied. As an homage to the greatest...
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Liel Leibovitz on Wolfenstein 3D
Video games, observes senior writer Liel Leibovitz in his “Arbiter” column today in Tablet Magazine, are the only appropriate medium for revenge, because only in them is the cause for vengeance...
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The Demise of Herbert Moon
Below is the link to a deleted scene from the (unknown to me until now) video game Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare. In the scene, a Western storekeep blames the Jews not only for killing Abraham...
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‘Adolf Critler’ and the Question of Video Games and Free Speech
Poor old Adolf Critler. All he wanted to do was bum around Tyria for a while, hang out with his friends, and seek and destroy the armies of Zhaitan, the undead dragon. Instead, he was ejected from the...
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You’ve Read the Book of Leviticus. Now Play the Video Game.
As the game begins, cartoon animals go flying in the air, and players must slash their throats by swiping a finger across the screen. Like many similar video games designed for the iPhone and the...
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To Restart Mideast Peace Talks, John Kerry Should Look to Video Games
Forget Big Data. Think not of crowdsourcing. Disruption, our sincerest apologies. But of all the insipid terms that the tech industry, an industrious mint of trendy terms, has ever coined, gamification...
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