More Than a Game: The Computer Game as Fictional Form

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Manchester University Press, Sep 6, 2003 - Computers - 176 pages
The first academic work dedicated to the study of computer games in terms of the stories they tell and the manner of their telling. Applies practices of reading texts from literary and cultural studies to consider the computer game as an emerging mode of contemporary storytelling in an accessible, readable manner. Contains detailed discussion of narrative and realism in four of the most significant games of the last decade: 'Tomb Raider', 'Half-Life', 'Close Combat' and 'Sim City'. Recognises the excitement and pleasure that has made the computer game such a massive global phenomenon.
 

Contents

Acknowledgements page
1
The postmodern temptation
8
Reading gamefictions
21
reading Tomb Raider
27
reading HalfLife
55
reading Close Combat
86
reading SimCity
111
More than a game?
138
Glossary of gamespecific terms
157
Index
167
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About the author (2003)

Barry Atkins is Lecturer in English and Senior Learning and Teaching Fellow at Manchester Metropolitan University.

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