List of Articles I've been looking at...

Not a lot of research has been done so far. But I'm cruising the web and trying to find some articles that may be relevant to my study, or possibly may lead to a new direction for my study.

I've become particularly interested in gender in video games. In the game XCOM: UFO Defense, and in its upcoming re-imagining, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, you get a small platoon of soldiers from every nationality, of both male and female gender. I think it's a noteworthy interest since it is, in essence, a war game, which means that there's a hidden social-political argument to be had about women in military combat/deployment, and moreso, women on the front line. Should I look further into this, I will examine three things: 1st, the role women play on the battlefield, and whether or not their roles are stereotyped. 2nd, the amount women are objectified as sex objects in both games. Lastly, the context of when the game takes place, since it is a sci-fi genre, and what message the game makers could be (unconsciously) sending about their view of either an ideal, or imperfect future.

http://www.easternct.edu/~lugow/courses/videogames/gender_videogames.pdf
http://filebox.vt.edu/users/jivory/JIvory2006MassCommunicationandSociety.pdf
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2009/jul/31/videogames-gender-balance
http://sc2220.wetpaint.com/page/Gender+in+Video+Games

Another major factor that I want to take a look at in both versions of the game are the ways in which aliens are represented, and their physical design. The concept of extra-terrestrial life forms has been around for a few centuries, and I believe that it could be an interesting point of study to see how our imagining of aliens, their culture, their society, their technology, and more importantly, their biology, has evolved with our increased understanding of science and anthropology over the years- from the earliest incarnations of alien life, which were humanoid, to the latest and most inhuman, such as the xenomorphs from the Alien franchise, and the Daleks from the Doctor Who Universe. I haven't found any sources for this yet, but it'll be my next target of article hunting.

Being that the game is a re-imagining, I'll also have to take a look at the game mechanics itself, note the differences, and examine and over-examine how the differences in the game mechanics affect the playthrough experience. I will also want to look at how realistic each of the games is, and examine how realistic it is when put into the context of available technology and limited knowledge on the matter of futuristic weapons and society during the time in which the game was made- it would be unfair to say that the more recent game is more realistic, when the designers of the original could have tried to be more realistic, and were simply limited by their technology and understanding of future technology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBEtPQDQNcI (iPad, or really, the Tablet, was concieved in 1994)
http://winnschwartau.com/assets/docs/Winn%20Predicts%20July12.pdf ("1993: Coined term "Information Warfare". Didn't know it was classified at the time.")

Additionally, I believe that looking into other media in the 1990-1995 period will give a good background for what the people were theorizing about the future. I'm still looking for a source, but I remember seeing a clip once that explained the first time a laser was discovered to have damaging effects. Another interesting note about laser weapons is where we are today.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=laser-downs-uavs (U.S. Navy's Latest Anti-Missile Defense System)