Thank You!

I have had a busy holiday season such that I didn't see it until now, but I am absolutely ecstatic to learn that my essay about Metal Gear Solid, "Free Will and Defiance" was selected by Critical Distance for their year-end list on top of having been selected for their best of in the week it was published. 

It is a huge honor for an essay I'm immensely proud of myself for having finally written after years of pondering the game in question and it's themes and subtext, which has been one of my favorite videogames since I first played it more than a decade ago.

All of my gratitude, yet again, to James Clinton Howell, whose work inspired the essay, and Brendan Keogh, who helped me organize what was previously a mess of worthy ideas into something approaching readable. It's a great cap to what was actually a surprisingly good year overall.

- Austin C. Howe, Maryland, 2013

EDIT: I got so excited that I forgot that one of my follow-ups to "Free Will and Defiance", which discussed the damselization and sexualization of Kojima women and how it related to the thematic frameworks of his games (short read: thematically functional, but deeply problematic), was also picked by Critical Distance in their "This Week in Videogame Blogging" for August 11. Also an immense honor, though that piece in particular didn't make the year end list.)