"Critical Hits: Writers on Gaming and the Alternate Worlds We Inhabit," edited by Carmen Maria Machado and J. Robert Lennon, falls short of expectations with its lackluster delivery and uninspiring content. Despite its promising premise, the anthology fails to captivate readers, offering little in terms of engaging narratives or thought-provoking insights. Many of the authors' anecdotes feel mundane and fail to resonate with the reader, leaving them disconnected from the supposed allure of gaming and alternate realities. The collection lacks cohesion and fails to explore the depth and diversity of experiences within the gaming community. Overall, "Critical Hits" proves to be a disappointing read, failing to live up to its potential as a celebration of gaming culture and the imaginative worlds it creates.

Super interesting. Explains what it is to be a gamer and why. For those of us that give gaming a strong place in our lives, this feels like a must read.

This was a really interesting anthology of essays from various writers, some new to me and others familiar, on the topic of video games and what that means to them. Some explored specific games and the themes involved, and I enjoyed the difference in writing styles. I found this book very enjoyable to read and would recommend it to any gamers.

As a book lover who picked gaming up in 2023, this was a fascinating book. It really was an excellent intersection on what gaming is to various writers and perhaps what it could be to you

Edited by Carmen Maria Machado and J. Robert Lennon, "Critical Hits: Writers on Gaming and the Alternate Worlds We Inhabit" is a compelling look at how video games have changed our lives. This collection was important to me as a student seeking an HND in games development since it explores the immersive world of gaming and gives fascinating viewpoints on play and human existence.

Writer-gamers who expertly blend reality and virtual worlds create the anthology's different pieces. Carmen Maria Machado's preface sets the tone for her keen, passionate, and inquisitive views. The writers relate personal stories on how video games provide comfort and challenge language, body, race, and technology ideals. By exploring "portal fantasy" games by Charlie Jane Anders and the connection of gaming and poetry by Stephen Sexton, I was reminded of the gaming industry's complexity.

The compilation honours gaming and dispels myths about a beloved and enthralling business. MariNaomi's comic on her time as a video game creator gives the anthology a new visual dimension and a well-rounded view of gaming's different experiences.

In conclusion, "Critical Hits" is a thought-provoking anthology that delves further into gaming and the complex interaction between gamers and their virtual worlds. During my HND games development degree, it helped me comprehend the medium and inspire fresh academic ideas.

A great collection of short, beautifully-written, personal stories that relate to gaming. Fans of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin will love this; it's more than just the technical aspects but the intimate ones, too.

My only complaint is that the cover is slightly misleading. It doesn't show how truly thought-provoking and beautiful this book is! I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I have intermittently played a few computer games throughout my life (mostly Diablo, Diablo II, The Sims and The Sims 4 - an interesting combination) but I've encountered them far more often in the pages of novels like Ready Player One, For The Win and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. Nevertheless, I'm absolutely fascinated by their storytelling potential and in people's emotional experiences with them, and, like all pop culture, how they weave themselves through our lives - and so I was excited by this collection of essays about digital gaming. In retrospect, Critical Hits starts so strongly that it was almost bound to be disappointing. Carmen Maria Machado's introduction is incredible, if nothing less than I would expect from the writer who dealt with pop culture so brilliantly in her memoir In The Dream House. (It also name-checks Animorphs - the first of TWO references in this collection! - and the computer game Titanic: Adventure Out Of Time which I played as a kid and have never heard anyone else mention until now.)

The first essay in this collection, Elissa Washuta's 'I Struggled A Long Time With Surviving', is also fantastic. She retells the story of The Last of Us so movingly that I was totally captivated despite knowing very little about the game, linking it to her own experiences of chronic illness. Coincidentally, I've just finished Washuta's full-length collection of essays, White Magic, which is equally wonderful - and features an essay on Red Dead Redemption 2 that could easily have fit into this anthology, 'In Him We Have Redemption Through This Blood'. And there are other strong essays in Critical Hits, although none quite so strong as these first two entries. I liked Andre Monson's 'The Cocoon' (despite a bizarre digression in the middle where he goes through every Alien game ever) because of the way he reflects on video games and memory, citing the Learning Games Initiative Research Archive, which argues that the best way to archive video games is to play them, rather than preserve them: the conclusion of this essay, when Monson plays video games with his daughter, is just beautiful.

Tony Tulathimutte's 'Clash Rules Everything Around Me' is good on how some things, like gaming, are ranked as 'a waste of time' because they are seen as 'something outside of the narrative of whatever you've called your real life, some menial and unproductive activity that doesn't amass wealth, deepen your relationships and quality of life, or improve you. Something that makes time pass without changing anything else.' Or in other words, a term that might encompass our deepest flow states and most important experiences, things that can't be captured in the logic of capitalism because they are unproductive. I also enjoyed Larissa Pham's 'Status Effect', about pain, Genshin Impact, and deep depression.

However, many of the other essays in this collection were forgettable and sometimes a bit frustrating: the writers are often content with pointing out problematic narratives in games without saying anything else, which is important work for reviews or articles, but I expect more from essays. And while some of the contributors manage to wonderfully interweave their own personal experiences with their experiences of gaming, others do this much more formulaically and schematically. Overall, while I enjoyed reading this, I think that only a few of the essays will stay with me; it could have been so much more.

I don't usually give nonfiction star ratings, so this rating is entirely for netgalley.

I'll preface this by saying I'm not really a 'gamer' beyond the occasional bit of Minecraft and Pokemon, as I just wasn't allowed access to videogames growing up! But I used to watch LetsPlay videos and also watched friends and boyfriends play games (so the intro by Carmen Maria Machado was pretty relatable at times!).

I really enjoyed these, even though only a handful of them involve videogames I have any real knowledge of. I think the first one, focussing on The Last Of Us, was one of my favourites, I loved the narrative connection drawn between Joel and the author as they both try to survive in a pandemic.

I think some essays ended up spending too much time straight-up describing the games they're referencing but this didn't impact my enjoyment.

Overall I just really love the concept of this book. Games are often treated as a waste of time but actually there is so much enjoyment to be had and so much to explore.

I'll read anything Carmen Maria Machado touches and once again I was right in doing so. Although I haven't played video games in years, I'm really glad I picked this up because it was a great read and I will be returning to some of the chapters again in the future (also I've discovered some new writers and I'm happy for it). The essays are great little pieces of each writer and if you don't connect with one of them you'll definitely connect with another one as they touch on different topics and evoke different emotions. Highly recommend!

I've loved reading Critical Hits: it's been consistently surprising, moving and thought-provoking. It's such a great collection of lived experiences, and a powerful reflection on how video games have helped shape people's way of being in the world. It's hard to pick out a favourite essay as there's so many of them, but among them are these: the opening essay on The Last of Us, a beautifully rendered piece that captures the tenderness and devastation of the game and the resonance of its environmental storytelling. It also tells a story about trying to survive as an immunocompromised person in the age of COVID. An essay on Disco Elysium and growing up Ghanian that articulates how the game forces you to reflect and grow, making magnificent use of the game's own systems. An essay on Hollow Knight and trans experience, which might be one of the best things I read this year - all about the gradual growth into one's body, and the strange, bewildering experience of transitioning, and discovering a strategy to survive and thrive in the world. Those are just the first three pieces here.

There are other high points too, many of them from games I haven't even played. Essays on Final Fantasy 6, or playing Leisure Suit Larry when you were far too young to do so, with powerful reflections on how videogame narratives shape their players' worlds. An extraordinary piece playing on Call of Duty: MW2 as someone of Middle Eastern descent, and the cognitive dissonance of identifying with both the American soldier and the dead Afghan corpse in the same moment. A startling piece on how Viking narratives connect to white supremacism, and the increasing prevalence of these stories in videogames, and the paucity of other worldviews and cultures on the small screen. The joys and horrors of trying to buy a PS5 for one's kids when there are none to be found.

I don't know if everyone would love Critical Hits: I think you have to have truly loved at least one videogame in your life to 'get' it. As a book that proudly embraces a wide range of racial and LGBT identities, I can also imagine it being somewhat incendiary among gamer communities who have typically not been all that accepting of those identities. But man, I loved it so much, and I'd recommend it to anyone who's ever sat in front of a small screen with a controller in their hand and tears in their eyes. It's one of the deepest, most thoughtful collections I've read in ages, and a testament to the sheer power of videogames as an art form. I honestly can't recommend it enough.

I've been nothing like a gamer for more than twenty years - there's part of me that misses the days I could devote to the first two Civs, but that was in Midlands suburbia, not to mention before the modern internet, and now I just don't know where I'd find the time. But I still enjoy reading about games sometimes; even back then I don't think I would have had the hours regularly to commit to Eve, but catching occasional long-form updates about goings-on there feels like a less depressing flavour of foreign news. So when I saw this on Netgalley, with Carmen Maria Machado the co-editor and Charlie Jane Anders among the contributors, I thought it was worth a look. And for the most part, it very much was. One could easily be glib - and doubtless some of gaming's more unappealing cellar-dwellers will be - about how many of the essays combine an identity and a game: Keith S. Wilson talking about Final Fantasy VI as representation that helped make sense of growing up mixed race, or nat steele processing being trans through Halo. But there wasn't a one of these pieces that lost me. Indeed, the only time I felt a little like I was stuck in a cutscene was reading the book's longest and least personal essay, about how even games that scrupulously try not to align with racist readings of Vikings can find themselves stumbling into pitfalls. Partly this was a case of bringing in too much baggage from the Discourse; partly it was the awkwardness of something trying to lay down some knowledge regarding the Vikings and race while repeatedly using 'Viking' as if it described a people rather than a hobby group. But as much as either it just felt out of place, like everything else here was a fascinating chat at a party and then you meet someone who's brought a flip chart. That's the exception, though: more often I was left thinking that yes, it is curious how we still so readily talk about games as a waste of time, when they're no more or less so than anything else, or that debuffs really are a useful way of talking about chronic conditions.

Although critical writing on video games has come leaps and bounds in the online era, it is necessary at times that we have a reminder of the potential of video games to affect their players as would any other piece of art. This book is one such reminder, as the essays within chart the personal landscapes of a series of gamers changed forever by their encounters with interactive media.

I have to add a disclaimer before this review. I have never been a gamer and have never played any of the games mentioned in this book. I was interested in reading it as I took a course of the philosophy of art which discussed video games and what defines a video game over a static piece of art. Unfortunately I felt this book focused more on descriptions of games rather than the philosophical aspect of playing a video game. I’m sure this book will be popular with the gaming community and people who have played some of the games mentioned, but unfortunately I struggled to relate to this book.

When I saw the cover of this book and read the description I knew I had to give it a try. This is a series of essays by authors where they explore how gaming has fit into their lives and how it reflects major personal events.

Although I do think you get more out of this if you are familiar with the games (there are some plot spoilers for games in the essays) I don’t think you have to be a gamer to enjoy it. I don’t play games anymore however have fond memories of playing certain games at certain times and this is exactly what this collections is about.

Like most anthologies I preferred some essays and writing styles than others but over all I thought it was pretty solid read. I opted to read an essay every evening and it worked well. I also feel like if you are into journaling or writing that there are lots of prompts and reflections you could spin off from each section which is always a bonus.