This book looks at the uses of popular music in the newly-redefined category of the nostalgia game, exploring the relationship between video games, popular music, nostalgia, and socio-cultural contexts. History, gender, race, and media all make significant appearances in this interdisciplinary work, as it explores what some of the most critically acclaimed games of the past two decades (including both AAA titles like Fallout and BioShock, and more cult releases like Gone Home and Evoland) tell us about our relationship to our past and our future. Appropriated music is the common thread throughout these chapters, engaging these broader discourses in heterogeneous ways. This volume offers new perspectives on how the intersection between popular music, nostalgia, and video games, can be examined, revealing much about our relationship to the past and our hopes for the future.

Focuses on the relationship between music, video games, and broader social and cultural contexts Accessible to both academic and casual readers Engages with popular culture on multiple levels, making it of interest to undergraduates in all fields related to popular culture, including video games, music, film, and general media

Autorentext

Andra Ivnescu is Lecturer in Game Studies at Brunel University London, UK.

Inhalt

1. The Ghosts of Popular Music Past and Video Games Future.- 2. Games on Media: Beyond Remediation.- 3. Games on Society: Playable Anxieties.- 4. Temporal Anomalies: Alternative Pasts and Alternative Futures.- 5. Memories of Mediated Pasts and Hopes for Mediated Futures.