I Got My Thrill In Foggy Silent Hill

Welcome to Silent Hill. The Welcome Center is located at the next exit. Oh wait, that road just ends and casts you off into a firey pit of oblivion. NEVERMIND.

So last weekend, we here at Ms. Game and Watch had the...experience...of playing through Silent Hill: Homecoming. I'd like to just present a few (hopefully) non-spoilerish things about the game. LT is here, offering her own insights as well. Her comments are in green.

-Silent Hill has finally gotten another POC. Did it really have to take putting this game into the hands of an American developer to get a black man in Silent Hill? Guess so. You're right. For a game series that clearly takes place in somewhat-present America, colored folks were conspicuously missing in this series. However, I would posit that out of all survival horror games you can think of, how many franchises can boast multiple plots inextricably tied to themes of motherhood and feminine protective forces (i.e. the town's "God" and that whole ball of crazy).

-Without giving too much away, I'll say that the bosses were a disappointment. If you don't read up on the boss analysis online or become a meticulous clue-hunter in the game it will be really hard for you to see the connections between the bosses and the things they are supposed to represent-- and even then some things about the bosses will still just not make sense. In some cases it seemed the developers were going for "what looks cool" or "WWSD (What would Saw do?)". I agree, the bosses looked "cool" but fed into my main criticism of this game, and that is relying too much on a 'monster hunter' angle (rargh! rust, dried blood and pointy shear-things!) instead of the deliciously addictive eerieness (why is there no sound? who keeps leaving these pages from a diary? why is that doll sitting on the steps with its hands fol--) that pervades the best survival horror games and --for me-- the best horror films.

-Silent Hill: Homecoming has too many characters. I'm not saying that the cast can't expand, but the game has to expand to fit the cast. How many characters have there been in the previous installments? Usually the cast is kept small for a reason. SH:H just can't accommodate the cast that it has--about double that of the usual number in Silent Hill titles and the game is only 8-9 hours long. If you haven't played it yet, expect to be confused at some points and uninformed at most points. The supporting characters tend to be a let down. You will learn more about the supporting characters from the manual in the game case than you will from the game itself. It was kind of like a creepier version of "Our Town", except with more murder and occult activity.

-This game is not scary. At the very least it is not scary in the same way as other Silent Hill titles. At all. I actually think that it lost some of the aesthetic in the transfer to an American Developer. And again, I'd like to rehash what I said earlier about what really scares us--what can make a game 'pull it off' well: everyone's different and is scared by different things but there will always be those most primal of fears that exists in all of us. Until now, I've thought the series did a sometimes so-so and sometimes spectacular job of toeing the line-- of putting a player inside the game. That is to say, few have experienced the shame and self-hatred of spousal murder and certainly very few of us know what it's like to be the "good" half of a particularly unlucky girl with a crazy mother, drawn back to an evil place for evil purposes. I'll even argue the game doesn't want to bring you right there, at the line. The game wants to pull you in like an invisible hand but drop you at the very edge of where you as a player end and where the mindset and emotions of the protagonist begin. And there you are, with a letter from a dead (maybe she isn't?) wife in a depressing town or on the rooftop fighting something that doesn't even look human, under the control of who you think is just an evil bitch with no eyebrows, your father's corpse still bleeding on your bed, since you didn't have the time to bury him properly. I'll ask: is it really so unfair to compare Homecoming to games past? Partially yes, partially no. Silent Hill 3 shouldn't have been compared to Silent Hill 2; Silent Hill 4 shouldn't be compared to any other game since blah blah blah. It's part of a franchise, Konami signed off on it and considers it canon. Of course I'll compare it to its predecessors. On the other hand, so many things changed when developers changed that it borders on an Apples/Oranges comparison, in which case it's best to quarantine this game and rate it as its own island of a game. What to do, what to do. I'll try to do both, but when I do, I can't help but feel like A) I'm lying to myself and B) There really was something lost in the change of hands.

-The transformation effects are awesome and I'm glad that they carried over the transformation styles from the movie.

-Pyramid Head looks fantastic! However, PH wasn't utilized very well in the main game. Agreed, and this was one of the most disappointing things in the game. This is also a move that I promised myself I wouldn't compare to the "orginial" apperance, that of SH2. I had read comments on forums saying things like 'don't worry there's a reason for PH to be in this game and it fits' so I contented myself with knowing the designers and writers would not stray too far in PH's role, appearance or meaning. That being said, I wish now for a "new" Pyramid Head that isn't Pyramid Head. It's hard to wish for abstracts to materialize in games, I know but the original reaction we all had to PH in the game... that's something that can be re-created, folks! Whatever he symbolizes, whatever he did and whatever was controlling him... this can be replicated! I'm not saying it's as easy a formula as pulling one of humanity's more negative emotions and personifying it in a weird-looking mask with a humanoid appearance but that same response is something I think is an endless, blank book. Pyramid Head is the first page.

-The plot was safe. It was solid enough to make sense, but not solid enough to be satisfying to the die hard fans of Silent Hill. There isn't much there to analyze and what is there to analyze doesn't take much thought or research (and some of it will never make sense no matter how much you try). The first three games have much more interesting things going on, but SH:H will slightly satiate SH fans. It's like a SH snack. It's like a SH fruit roll-up instead of an SH submarine sandwich (with all its yummy layers, smothered in secret sauces, and pressed between two slices of pure mindfuck). This was like Silent Hill Bros. canned coffee, compared to the unique and not-for-everyone tastes of earlier Silent Hill Premium Roasted Spewing Twitching Blood in a Cup. It did the job, but wasn't as engaging and left a huge something-to-be-desired taste in the mouth. I despise number ratings, except for things like olympic events and earthquakes. Letter grades are the way to go, and I give this game a B. It didn't outright suck, but it didn't dazzle like I was hoping it would.

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Uh. That's all I have for now. I might come back with some boss analysis or some plot questions later. Chao. Goodnight my droogs. Sorry this wasn't the HORRORshow you were all after!

Because Normal Guitars Are For Boys

Disney youngins Aly and AJ are here to rescue our tweens and teens from playing those icky normal looking guitar controllers that all the boys play with. Instead, they (with peripheral maker PDP) have designed something pinker for our young women to use so playing guitar on video games (which happen to feature predominantly male-created music anyway) won't offend their adolescent feminine sensibilities with masculinizing colors like black, or red, or sunburst.

Now, I'm not saying that people (PEOPLE, not just girls) can't have pink guitars. I have never personally had an inclination to buy a pink instrument (though I've owned two basses and a guitar), but I fully support people's basic freedom to buy whatever they want in whatever color they please. What I hate is that it's always girls who are marketed pink anything. And in video gaming, stuff made for and marketed for "gurlz" is almost always pink. It's sickening. It's this kind of novelty which continues to perpetrate the notion that gaming is for the boys.

A century ago (and centuries before that), it used to be that it was red (pink) for boys and blue for girls. Now, even though that's been reversed, we never see the "for boyz" crap happening where things that are usually marketed to women are made a pastel blue and then marketed in some obnoxious way to make boys feel like they are anomalies in that particular interest.

If this crap is going to continue, I want to see some male Disney stars create some obnoxious blue peripheral- like Wii-mote spatula attachments for Cooking Mama or something else I would find equally as ridiculous and objectionable.

*sigh*

Proof of Identity

Captain Rainbow was released for the Wii last week in Japan. The story revolves around a young man named Nick who has lost his popularity and goes to Minmin Island (where all your dreams come true TM) to gain it back. He also has the ability to transform in to Captain Rainbow and fight with a yo-yo.

But this post is about Birdo. Birdo is a character from the Nintendo universe (one of many) who is included in the game. In this context, Birdo has come to Minmin Island so she can be popular with the boys.

Some Americans don't actually know this, but Birdo (who originally appeared in Doki-Doki Panic! and what became Super Mario Bros. 2 in America) is male. I believe the American instruction manuals for games with Birdo tend to try to avoid the whole gender identity issue by making Birdo female, but Birdo is a male character who identifies as female.

In Captain Rainbow, Birdo is imprisoned (see above) for using the woman's restroom. You, as Nick, have to find evidence to prove that Birdo is female so that she will be let free. (After this, I think she declares Nick her boyfriend or something.)

I'm not sure how to feel about this. Birdo, to me, is female regardless of her actual biological sex if only because she believes she is female (she calls herself "atashi", the girly form of "I"). There is a distinction between biological sex and gender identity. So on the one hand I am happy that I get to help out Birdo in the game from being wrongfully detained. On the other hand I am slightly unhappy that I have to have tangible proof outside of Birdo herself to prove that she's female. This dismisses Birdo the "person" entirely and tries to find some "objective" proof of womanhood- and I ask you: what, essentially, proves womanhood? In the game video I saw it was "onna no akashi" which is "proof of woman" loosely, so it's not that the game gives any particular piece of proof, but just proof in some unspecified form. But still, the principal of having to find evidence for this propagates a notion that gender identity has to be proven through biological sex or through external means and it is not up to the person themselves what gender they identify as.

I'll probably be returning to Captain Rainbow in the future here to look at some other characters in the game and also just because I think the whole thing is really fun looking despite what issues I may bring up with it.

Dissidia: Equal Opportunity Heroes?

Shock and glee! Kefka is in the new Final Fantasy: Dissidia trailer! And he's just as crazy as I imagined.

Best part, the scene they show in the trailer hints at something even better! While talking to Cloud of Darkness, he stops her and basically tells her to play carefully because the woman she's targeting is a "very special friend" of his.

Does this mean we could have Terra or Celes joining the all male cast of heroes in Dissidia?

Trailer via GameTrailers.

Braid. Go play it.

Just wanted to say that I finished Braid on Saturday. If you haven't played it yet, you should. Braid was a great game with a great twist on the 'Princess in distress' type of video game. I would have written about it here but I would hate to spoil the story for those who haven't seen it yet.

However, if you have played it and want to talk about it, you are welcome to leave a comment.

Why I Already Love 'Left 4 Dead'

For those who haven't heard of it, Left 4 Dead is a co-op survival horror shooter coming out later this year. Players of the game will be randomly assigned the role of one of four survivor characters who they will use to help the other survivors traverse the infested surroundings.

I'm not a fan of shooters or co-op play. In fact, I may never play this game. But I still love it.

Let me give that statement some background: Last month I was looking through the August issue of EGM (I get it for free, so don't hold my subscription of EGM against me). Paging through the previews section, I noticed that at least 4 or 5 games had something terribly similar about them. After thinking about it I was at last able to put my finger on what bothered me: Each cast had one male black supporting character and they all looked nearly the same. Unfortunately, they probably all have extremely similar personalities and roles.

Black men in video games often end up as a soldier type, a gangster type, or a combination of both. They often have shave or nearly shaved heads, some sort of fierce facial hair, and many stereotypical traits that embody the hypermasculinity and brutality that is so often attributed to black men. See: Gears of War, Battlefield: Bad Company, Mercenaries series, Metal Gear Solid series, Grand Theft Auto series, 50 Cent series, etc. etc. etc. True, there are exceptions to the rule, but those are too few and far between. Most black characters I can think of are supporting characters (the most notable exceptions being Crackdown and GTA: San Andreas), and that's not a good sign. There are plenty of male main characters who were made white but could have easily been black without affecting story (but the default white hero is another rant altogether, and don't get me started on the lack of women of color in main roles). Basically, I think the way black men are portrayed and cast in games is disappointing at best.

So why do I love Left 4 Dead? Because in their recent character redesign of the survivors the black male survivor, Louis, is now a dude in a suit instead of the large, muscular, intimidating man that they had originally shown in the first screens of the game. The fan reaction to the redesigns of the characters has been about equally negative and positive, though I think many of them missed the significance of a character like Louis- he's a businessman who happens to get caught up in a life or death battle, and the fact that he's black hasn't caused the usual stereotypes to be coded into his appearance (granted, his head is still shaved, but sometimes you can't win them all at once). There's still the chance that there will be some stereotypes put into his movements, speech, etc., but we'll have to wait for the release of Left 4 Dead to find out if he's been voiced like Chris Tucker or something.

It's just nice to see that video game makers get the concept that black men aren't all the same.

R.I.P. GitM

One of my favorite video game blogs, Girl in the Machine, has decided to stop its activities.

Thank you, GitM, for your awesome work. I will miss it.

Live in your world, play in ours

Another day, another round of newsletters and spam emails. I delete yet another round of Circuit City sale alerts and Victoria's Secret 2-for-1 offers, skipping right to the Playstation 2 newsletter brought to you by your friendly neighborhood Sony Playstation Underground.

This is good, because I have over 50 PS2 games currently in my possession and I practically worship the console.

Let's see what we've got here...

What's this? Tiger Woods '09? Blah. Mercenaries 2? Meh, not interested. Madden '09? You wish. Yakuza 2? I hope it's better than the first one they released here, might get around to playing that some day. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed? I'm interested to see how that one works out because, you know, I've always wanted to force choke some....

Wait, hold the phone.









Double-u teeee effffff. Thanks, Playstation Underground (with whom I've had a membership for nearly 10 years), for assuming that I'm either a) male, or b) not at all interested in "mainstream" games because I have a vagina so you have to point out several "female-friendly" titles for me. Because I must automatically love social simulators and colorful, Disney-infused RPGs if I have boobs.

Nevermind that my pre-orders now include Too Human, Silent Hill 5, Infinite Undiscovery, Rise of the Argonauts.....WAIT those are all on Xbox 360. Purely coincidence, I swear.

This is obnoxious because I have never played nor liked the Sims or Harvest Moon. I have played Kingdom Hearts II, but so have many of my male friends. Many women play social simulators and whatnot, but not all women and the audience is certainly not free of men. By labeling these as "Games For Her", Sony has just told many woman and men that they don't play the games that were made for their gender.

Sony, you've made me a little miffed with your sexist advertising in the past, but I still think that the PS2 is a brilliant console and was an amazing offering in its time. Good graphics, backwards compatibility, CD and DVD support...

Thanks Sony, for devoting a tiny part of your newsletter to remind me that I am the "other", that your customer base doesn't include me and that you certainly don't try to include me in your normal advertising (in fact, Sony has regularly offended plenty of people with its advertising) so you relegate me to a section at the bottom of your newsletters trying to give suggestions for the "fairer sex" in the way of gaming titles.

Sony, I also have a few suggestions for you...

Offensive and Hilarious

Hello my gametes--

It's been a while since I've posted, and the last time I posted I was all ranty and mad. I figured there wasn't much out there to be angry at anymore but then gamestop.com goes ahead and proves me wrong.

Again, I have to thank Amy from Thwomp Factory for bringing this appalling... idea to my attention.

If ever there was a time where I would have liked to be a fly on a wall in a board meeting, THIS IS PROBABLY IT. Not that I believe people are immune for whatever reason to directed marketing and the possible exploitation that ensues, but because this seems so forced, it becomes ridiculous. I actually asked Amy if this was real, or some kind of prank or spoof. "No," she said, "it's all real."

But I paused: was getting girls into football games such a harmful prospect? After all, no stereotype is without its grain of truth (however small it may be) and I can count on one hand the number of girls I know into football*. Clicking around the links from the homepage, I was soon proven wrong:

Yes, that's right. This really IS Football 101. As in, under the assumption girls know NOTHING about football--its terminology is crazy moon language that must be decoded into very simplistic terms. If I were a girl who wanted to understand football a little more, I'd probably ask my football-loving guy friends to explain it to me. I'm sure they'd be happy to share what they know and it would bring attention to the fact that I'm making a concerted effort to like the things typically only men like. If only it went the other way, and I could teach my guy friends all I know about fine dining and etiquette.

"Oh LT," you say, "surely giving the ladiez a brush-up on football terms isn't TOTALLY BAD. I mean if when the student is ready, etc." Fine, so let's move on.

Oh no, RECIPES. Because women love to COOK, right? Well, having a party with no food IS pretty sad. Let's have a look at the vittles one might make for a GIRLS NIGHT IN:

I don't know about you, but associating Brett Favre with "hot" and crabs makes me kind of giggle. Is Brett Favre famous for liking crabs? Having crabs? How could they be a favorite? Did some reporter ask him 'BRETT ONE QUESTION: WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DIP?' Perhaps it was an interview sponsored by Kraft.

I also would like you to notice everything is 'low-fat'. As Amy said, 'Gotta keep it slim and healthy for the ladies!' How true. God forbid we enjoy "man food" such as chicken wings and potato skins loaded with curdly death. Honestly, if we're already sitting on our asses playing football video games, would we care about fat and calories in the first place? Actually, I don't know how to answer that.

I think what bothered me most about this entire site was the Party Supplies page...moreso the concept. Putting women together in a room with healthy, low-fat foods and a football video game doesn't necessarily result in a great, girl-bonding time had by all. I'm not sure if that's what Nice Pete from Achewood would call "a man's thinking", ill-applied in this case but just to show you what skeeves me, have a look.

So basically, this is a party for a kid who really likes football. The inclusion of the "cutest quarterback" just kind of makes me ralph. I don't think I need to explain it.

As an aside about "locker room" dance music: You know that song that doesn't have any words except for yelling? It goes 'NER NERRRRR NERNER [HEYYYY] NERNER NERNER.' It's by a guy named Gary Glitter. He is a pedophile. I can't listen to the song anymore without thinking about him swatting 11 year-old Asian child prostitutes and getting thrown in jail. But I digress.

I wonder how many women will skip the 'eye black' because they think it might clog their pores, or clash with their makeup. A BETTER QUESTION: Why didn't the folks who collaborated on this think to write a condescending, faker-than-Cosmo-complimenting-different-body-sizes, unintentionally sexist blurb about how 'eye black' is non-comedogenic and actually is better for you than your boyfriend's facial? Give me a break.

So is gamestop's "heart" in the right place? Is this the best way to get girls into football games? Is playing Madden or any EA sports game like some gateway to other male-dominated games such as Halo or Dead or Alive? I'd hardly this a "pioneering" effort. Let's try to do a little more market research on women and games before another one of these "YOU LOVE SHOPPING...AND NHL 09!" monstrosities appears.

Li'l T out.




*By "into" I mean, she has a bunch of friends over for the Superbowl and they get rip-roaring drunk. And by "she" I mean my sister.

Xbox Developer lost to Domestic Violence

via Feminist Gamers, Escapist, Kotaku, etc.

On July 29th, Xbox Software Development Engineer Melissa Batton (a Harvard-educated lawyer) was shot by her estranged husband, Joseph, in a parking lot before he turned the gun on himself. She was 36.

This is a damn shame.

Not even two months earlier, Melissa confronted Joseph about an extra-marital affair only to have a handgun pointed at her face. Afterwards she filed for a restraining order only to have it broken numerous times- Joseph called her office 30 times in the span of two days and then entered her work building only to be escorted out by security.

It's a real shame that the law can't do more to protect women in danger. This man was known to have a fire-arm along with having broken the restraining order against him (more than once) and he was still free to walk up to his wife and shoot her several times before shooting himself in the head.

Sad thing is this sort of stuff happens all too often.

My condolences go out to the families of both Melissa and Joseph, for they must all be feeling very confused, hurt, and helpless right now.

Aya's Back!

It's just been announced that Parasite Eve: The 3rd Birthday will be released for the PSP!

Everybody's favorite game about women and the mutation-causing organelles that compose them will return not just be on cell phones in Japan and will be released for the PSP!

*Sigh*
Oh Aya, how I missed you.

No word yet on what the "3rd Birthday" signifies, nor why she's wearing wedding garb in the short trailer produced by SquareEnix.

Fat Princess-gate

I thought I'd offer some thoughts on the recent explosion of discussion around Fat Princess, a downloadable game announced for the Sony Playstation Network (PSN). I'd like to offer up my thoughts as responses to various arguments which defend the game or attack criticism of it.

1) When did Feminism become aligned with the "big is beautiful" movement?
Feminism doesn't have to be aligned with that movement, it encompasses it. Feminism, despite what is said by people against feminism, is devoted to exposing and changing prejudices of all kinds (not just those against women) because these prejudices often overlap or develop from each other. For example, homophobia is rooted in misogyny. People are afraid of that which emasculates men (man-man sex) or allows women to exist without male sexuality/power/whatever (woman-woman sex). That's a very simplistic example, but I hope that illuminates what I mean by prejudice overlap. Another example: bullying of men who aren't "manly" enough or women who are "too manly".

Plus, why is it wrong for feminists to align themselves with the struggle of others? It's not like people can't multi-task.

2) The princess is being SAVED. She's still wanted though she's fat.
Though she's fat? Why shouldn't someone be wanted because they are fat? For that matter, why should someone be wanted just because they are thin?

Secondly, the point of the argument about the princess being saved is that there is an automatic assumption that women need to be saved/want to be saved and that is reinforced through a history of literature, social custom, and tradition. Whether or not you agree, there are people who believe, right now in 2008, that women still want to be saved by men and expect men to come to their rescue. And these people have obviously have not met me. I do not expect nor wish for a man to "come to my rescue", but it is nice when people have your back (whether or not they are men!).

3) If this game was called "Fat Prince" no one would be complaining about it.
WRONG. But since the developers didn't make "Fat Prince", I guess we'll never really know what the outrage would have amounted to. It probably wouldn't have been as big because a) a lot less people frequent and know about fat-positive communities because most still believe that prejudice against fat people is totally acceptable, and b) the problem of the heteronormative save-the-princess theme would have been absolved reducing the feminist angle to the story. And we all know how people love to get all riled up about feminists talking about something.

There are a lot of fat-positive communities (including many feminist communities) that would be upset about "Fat Prince". Currently there are many writings on fat-positive and feminist blogs complaining about the portrayal of fat women AND MEN in the media, especially those sitcoms that thrive on the bumbling-fat-man-married-to-thin-capable-wife setup and movies which contain an awkward/gross/stupid fat character for laughs. Those who make the argument that "Fat Prince" wouldn't receive a send up obviously don't know about these blogs or these groups.

4) Obesity = Unhealthy.
This logic = fail. There is hardly a connection. And if there is one connection it's that obesity and certain health problems are hereditary. NO SHIT, SCIENCE! People have health problems and are larger because of their DNA- you can learn this through pretty much any simple course on genetics or health. People generally have a pretty set limit on how much their body will lose/gain that is determined by genetics and hardly has to do with how much they eat- think about all the skinny people who constantly eat at McDonald's.

What matters to health (not thinness) is eating right and exercising- those overweight people who do eat right and exercise may not lose weight, but they will be healthier than a thin person who eats poorly and is sedentary. And I'm sure this will cover many overweight people who are shamed into dieting and exercising because of the weight-loss industry (weight-loss pills, weight watchers, gym programs, weight-loss surgery...just watch television and find how many weight/health related commercials you can count). Weight/size is no indication of what's going on in the body. There are people who register as "obese" or "overweight" according to height and weight charts but who still compete in triathlons. Booya.

5) The concept artist is a woman!
So what? Ann Coulter is a woman who says women shouldn't vote- does that mean that the suffragettes were wrong and the right of women to vote should be removed? One woman's alignment with a sexism medium does not negate the sexism of that medium. Women can also perpetrate and participate in sexism seeing as they unfortunately fall into that category of "human" like men do. Unless you are an anti-feminist, in which case women who agree with you will support you because you are correct and not because they have human brains to think for themselves and coincidentally choose to also perpetrate sexism.

6)It's just a videogame.
And Mein Kampf is just a book. Oh wait, it isn't? It perpetrates destructive ideology? But I though it was something you just picked up for fun and to pass the time!

Sure, that's an extreme example, but it demonstrates the point that media contains social biases and just because some people enjoy it unconditionally doesn't mean that criticisms of it are invalid or unwarranted.

7) There are more important things to get angry about.
There are. And feminists are angry about those, too (it seems people who make this argument are completely unaware of the work feminists do or what they write about). Who says feminists or fat-positive advocates can't be angry about this in addition to the usual stuff?

8) Gamers who buy/enjoy games with sexist/racist/fat-hating/ablist/homophobic content are not sexists/racists/fat-haters/ablists.
I'm not sorry to say that this statement is false. If you find a racist joke funny, you are racist. But everyone has a little bit of an "-ist" in them somewhere and everyone (even feminists) have to work on examining their privilege and weeding out the "-ist" parts.

9) Feminists/women/liberals/fat people/whatever complain/cry/whine/sob about everything.
No, they don't. I have yet to see one Feminist complain publicly about Funnyuns- the delicious ring-shaped snack that's flavored like onions. I also have yet to see a liberal complain politically/publicly about spatulas- those great kitchen utensils that help to remove food which adheres to the sides and bottoms of food containers.

10) Women run the world.
No, they don't. I shouldn't even have to argue against this one it's so absurd. So I won't.

11)People complain about women in video games being too thin, too busty, or whatever and now you are complaining about them being fat. There's no winning with you.
There are many GOOD female video game protagonists which I wish more video game companies would emulate and create more of, but the fact is that women's bodies have been overwhelmingly used for sexist enjoyment (whether idolizing them or laughing at them, and this is done by men and women). Character creation is not black and white- it's not "hot babe" vs. "fat chick". There are many shades of gray in between which have not been explored. Also, there might be some shades of red that people haven't even discovered yet.
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If there are any other trollish arguments which I did not include or refute, you can leave them in comments and I can quickly squash them.

Labeling Space

Did you miss me?

Gaming and the internet have more than one thing in common. Today I want to talk specifically about inclusiveness. These arguments can also extend to other groups of people, but for the sake of brevity I'll try to stick to the case of women.

If you've traveled along the internet or gamed online with strangers, you will have noticed a lot of hateful language being spewed forth. There are a great deal of misogynist slurs thrown out over open internet forums. The usual arguments I hear are "if you don't like it, don't read it/go to that site/don't game online or on xbox live". The problem with that reasoning, as Melissa McEwan has pointed out at Shakesville, is that it doesn't solve the problem but instead lets it fester and create an environment which fuels the hate speech of some and excludes others.
"Telling women that they should merely abstain from reading and/or participating in YouTube threads—or other places online and offline plagued by unfettered misogyny—is akin to telling women their choices are to tolerate sexual harassment in order to participate in it, or segregate themselves and necessarily limit their opportunities in the public sphere."

Some gaming and internet communities suffer from a "tits or GTFO" syndrome in which cases of sexism will force women to either participate in sexism or leave entirely.

This brings me to something which has really irked me as of late: The Girls of Gaming at GameTrailers.com. I visit GT several times a week to watch new footage and see their original shows such as Bonus Round and GTTV. When they unveiled The Girls of Gaming (which on the surface seems to have nothing to do with gaming and almost everything to do with nearly nude women, usually white women) I felt slighted. This was a site that I felt succeeded in giving me the gaming news and footage I wanted and left out the staff commentary (especially off-putting commentary from the staff that can be found at some other major gaming news sites). However, once GT opened up the Girls of Gaming, featuring a portal icon that was a disembodied pair of breasts in a bikini top and displaying advertisements with women wearing string bikinis and boy-cut shorts on the site, I couldn't help but get the message "you don't belong here". I realize the site is owned by Spike and therefore MTV, but I doubt there was much of a reason to add this portion to the site besides a cheap ploy to increase traffic by appealing to the demographic who would prefer soft core, objectification, and voyeurism to an open, non-gendered space for all gamers to enjoy. Did I mention that all the women I've seen so far on this site are white? Are all gaming men straight and white now? I didn't realize.

The point is: Why should women feel empowered and desire to join gaming sites and communities if they are forced to join with sexist activity which degrades them? I stopped going to one particular gaming site because I felt the discussion was one-sided, sexist, and obstinate, making comments unreadable and some writers obnoxious. I would like to boycott GT as well, but I feel that if I continue to boycott places for game news, events, etc. then I will no longer have a place to exist in gaming communities and that these communities will revel in the absence of women so much that they stop thinking to include women and to accept their validity as gamers (and as human beings in the extreme case at large).

So how does one go about creating spaces where women gamers can exist and co-exist? This blog is a part of a movement in the right direction, I suppose, but larger sites with money, sponsorship, and advertising can appeal to and use a prevailing attitude which will accept sexism and maintain a large audience at the expense of the minority (really, anyone who isn't a straight white man).

Has anyone else had experiences with regard to being excluded from areas of gaming and gaming communities because of sexism, racism, etc.?

Games You Probably Never Played: Majestic

I suddenly had a bit of nostalgia for this game/beautiful failed experiment called Majestic, which was released by EA on 2001. It was available online for a subscription of $9.95 a month and was sold at retail for $40. Majestic cited too small an audience and terminated the game and its components at the end of April in 2002.


The premise: You sign up online for a game dealing with conspiracies and shadow governments, but right after you finish setting up your tools for play something goes horribly wrong: The game studio burned to the ground and the servers are down leaving you with the promise of further information the next day. What do you find out the next day? The fire was no accident, and now the developers of the game are on the run. Why are they running? And from who(m)? The true game has now begun.

The technology: Majestic didn't run on an engine or have character models. The game ran mostly on technologies that many already possessed: web browser, phone, AOL instant messenger, fax, e-mail. The only addition was a small program you downloaded to manage and collect files (mostly video and audio recordings, but also pictures and notes). You progressed by solving puzzles hidden in webpages, e-mails, pictures, and other materials and the story was presented to the viewer through AIM chats and video messages from the characters.

The good: Majestic was as engrossing as the player wanted it to be. If the player didn't mess with the chat bots or scoff at some of the inconsistencies, the game worked well and immersed the player in a wealth of information that accompanied a decent story progression. Telephone calls could be spooky and it was difficult to discern which websites were real and which were built for the game. In fact, the makers of Majestic encouraged fans to build content and pass it around to increase the material for other players.

Majestic builds its plot from several conspiracy theories as well as many that were constructed purely for the game. It blurs the lines between reality and fiction using technology. For the player who wanted to be played by the game rather than play a game, it was an experience not to be missed.

The bad: Puzzles in Majestic ranged from super easy to super hard. All of the beginning episodes are filled with easy puzzles, poor chat bots, etc. and were sometimes slightly discouraging to the player who wished for more challenge. However, past the beginning of episode 2 of the 4, the puzzles became much more difficult and there were a small number of optional puzzles the developers introduced to keep the challenge up for the players who had already progressed through parts of the story and were waiting in limbo for the next event in their game.

And that's ultimately the big 'take it or leave it' elements of Majestic: The action throughout the game is on a time table. When someone says they will contact you the next day, they mean it. The game typically unfolds in real time. This means that the pilot can be finished in the matter of a couple of days, but the actual episodes are meant to unfold over the period of 2 to 4 weeks depending on how fast the player progresses through certain check points. This will definitely not satisfy gamers who are used to being under a barrage of imagery and stimulation for hours on end- those players will not stand the long periods of inactivity. This game was designed for the adult in mind, one that doesn't have much free time available to them and would like a periodic form of entertainment that they can build upon.

The ugly: Majestic was pulled about a year after it's release. Partly because they had to shut it down upon the September 11th attacks in 2001 and partly because they didn't keep an audience large enough to keep it going. Majestic is all but dead now and though the retail versions of the game can be found online for pretty cheap, the game itself can't be played anymore because the sites and servers associated are gone. If the game had been able to incorporate a fake browser with the websites and information, chat interaction, and maybe cellphone text messages or something, it could have kept going.

If you are interested in games like this, check out Missing: Since January and its sequel Evidence: The Last Ritual. Both games have you join an investigation and solve puzzles using web browsing, email, and the cd-rom to hunt down a killer and free his victims (you unlock videos and clues of his victims by solving his riddles and puzzles). And more importantly: both games will still work. They don't interact with your life in real time like Majestic does (no phone calls, IMs, faxes, etc), but you can still get a nice game/internet crossover akin to Majestic's.

Oh For the Love of Virgins

gasp

Clock Tower 3 and...Parthenophilia?

It was several years ago that I played Clock Tower 3. Filled to the brim with gruesome serial killers and running around in a weaponless panic, the game had plenty of material to keep the player on its toes. The protagonist, Alyssa Hamilton, fights a series of supernaturally possessed killers in order to release the murderous spirit residing within them. However, once the game was coming to a close, it seemed the game was less about a quivering teenager trying to defeat the forces of evil and more about how much her grandfather, Dick, seemed to be in love with her.

And not just her- her grandfather expressed much love for his own daughter, Nancy, and her abilities during her time as a rooter (extinguishers of evil, they typically peak at age 15 and then lose their powers by age 20). Then Nancy got married and gave birth to Alyssa, giving Dick yet another young rooter female to cast his admiration and obsessions on once Nancy fell out of his favor.

Dick is not the first man to do this according to the game's story. One of his distant relatives, Lord Darcy Burroughs, was seemingly obsessed with his own daughter. In fact, he planned to kill her on her 15th Birthday, cut out her heart, drink her blood, and become an entity (a spirit which possesses serial killers, causing them to murder and then feeding off the life energy of their victims). In his way, he could be "one" with her for eternity. However, his daughter was killed right before her 15th birthday, causing Lord Burroughs to go into a murderous rage resulting in the death of nearly everyone, including his wife, with the exception of his son (who seemed to have been completely ignored considering how important he was up until the point his father went off the deep end). This son was then the man who Dick descended from.

Dick and Darcy share the same obsession with rooters in their family, so much so that they lose affection for their wives and the daughters who are no longer rooters. And how creepy is that considering Dick and Darcy were over 50 during their parts of the story? Ew. Dick intends to carry out the ritual Lord Burroughs never got to carry out, this time with Alyssa.

"Peaking" at the age of 15, the root (bad pun, I know) of the Rooters' power to extinguish evil correlates with their chastity and the height of their physical and sexual development (according to the game, it's all downhill from there for the Rooters). Women who do not fit into that age category will probably have their heads chopped off or smashed in during the course of the game. I haven't come to any clear conclusions on what the game is saying, if anything. Is the game story making a value judgment about virginal purity? Is it fetishizing the pubescent female? I don't know, but it looks like there are at least two characters in the game who do.

The Women of Parasite Eve

The following is essentially a rambling about Parasite Eve and the unique connections between the characters. Spoilers from more than one game are sure to follow.

Square's Parasite Eve and Parasite Eve II for the Playstation revolve around a phenomenon of destruction and mutating creatures as the result of a mitochondrial awakening (mitochondria being organelles which live symbiotically within cells). At the beginning of Parasite Eve, Aya Brea, a New York City police officer, is attending an Opera with a date. During the performance, the audience and actors burst into flames- except for Aya and one female opera singer, Melissa Pierce, who then flees. The first game chronicles Aya's search for Melissa, Melissa's connection to the ensuing chaos, and the connection between Melissa and Aya. The second game follows Aya out west as she leaves the New York City Police Department for the FBI and the team known as MIST (Mitochondrial Investigation and Suppression Team). She then discovers the depths of the reemerging mitochondrial threat.

Let's take a step back and examine the dynamics of the mitochondrial threat. In short, mitochondria are organelles which live inside cells and produce the majority of ATP, a source of chemical energy. It is believed that mitochondria are descended from bacteria (as they have a separate genome from cell DNA which is closely related to bacteria) and that they were absorbed into cells at some point along the road between primordial ooze and human life, oh some billion years ago. Mitochondrial DNA is also passed on solely through the mother to the child, therefore the theory is that in the early stages of homo sapien development, some female carried a strain of mitochondrial DNA which is the source of all mtDNA that exists in humans now. She is considered, then, the most recent matrilinial common ancestor to all human life. This female has been code-named Eve, and in Parasite Eve she is the consciousness which all mitochondria (who are considered dormant in their current symbiotic state within cells) share.

Now let's conclude the biology lesson and get back to the games (from now on, the science will be much less solid): During the first game, Eve (this ancestrial mitochondrial consciousness) takes over the weakened body of Melissa Peirce and begins the mitochondrial awakening which then transforms the inhabitants of New York City and begins a wave of events meant to bring about the extinction of the human race and the birth of an ultimate being which will inherit the earth. Aya, however, is immune to the effects of Eve- Eve's power or consciousness was held inside the tissue of a girl who's donated organs and tissue made their way into Aya and Melissa. Melissa became sick from the effects of Eve and, in combination with the immunosuppressants she was told to take and subsequently overdosed on, she caved in to Eve's influence and Eve took over her body. Aya, sharing the same tissue with Melissa in her body, is immune to the effects of the new Eve because she herself is part of Eve and is able to suppress it within her own body. The girl who's tissue is shared by Melissa and Aya is Aya's own sister, Maya, who died as a child. Therefore, Aya and Maya share a biological link which aides Aya against Eve- Aya's own body is genetically programmed to simultaneously wield and suppress Eve.

The three main female roles of the first game belong to Aya, Melissa, and Eve who play the parts of protector, vessel, and catalyst respectively. I would argue that the roles of vessel and catalyst are traditional roles for women based on centuries of myth, literature, social institutions and cultural practices- women are traditionally the catalyst for action and vessels for production. The Biblical Eve herself was a catalyst and a vessel as she was involved in the events which lead to the expulsion from paradise and also became the bearer of the children from whom the rest of humanity descended. Throughout history the stories and records have been filled with male heroes, hunters, and conquerors- categories which included few women. Women were instead something to be won, conquered, controlled, etc.

That is what is perhaps most interesting about Parasite Eve: Aya is a woman who is facing essentially female foes. What's more, Aya can be seen as embodying traits of both Melissa and Eve while simultaneously rising above their roles to become the protector and vanquisher. Juxtapose this against the role of Harry in Silent Hill 1: Harry is a male character with no physical, biological or psychological connection with Alyssa or the Mother of God that she becomes, but the stories are greatly parallel otherwise in that he eventually destroys the Mother and the God. Aya does essentially the same task by destroying Eve and the Ultimate Being she birthed, but Aya is part Eve and part Melissa on a social and even genetic level which Harry could never share with Alyssa or the divine being she became. Aya is Melissa and Eve. A male hero in that same situation cannot have the same connections to the antagonist(s).

Any thoughts?

In It to Skin It

Howdy, Ms Game and Watchers. LT here with a couple of mini rants. Before you decide that your opinions are better than mine and you want to tell me so in the comments, recall that less than 40% of people are actually entitled to their opinions. xD

What's Pissin' LT Off Right Now

1: Boobs in Okami

Alright, and I'm sorry I'm too lazy to insert a picture here but you are all probably very familiar with this brilliant game released a few years ago (PS2) and recently (Wii) that is basically Japanese Mythology: The Game! I'm not here to gripe about the story, the gameplay or the script. I'm here because I didn't see the point of all the jigglage in the game. It was stupid, annoying and frequent.

The first time I played through this game I made the mother of all : [ faces at EVERY. SINGLE. REMARK your little pervert accomplice makes whenever he encounters a girl. Seriously, here's a sample scene:

Rao: So we need the Fox Rods to seal away the demons' power! Oh, Amaterasu I have no doubt you're strong enough to defeat them blah blah blah.
[Boobs]: JIGGLE BOUNCE WOBBLE TIT
Issun: WOW THOSE ARE SOME HUGE BAZONGAS! DO YOU HAVE A FOOD DRIVE FOR THOSE CANS OR WHAT! BOINGA BOINGA!
Rao: Huh? Anyway, please hurry to [location] and [do some worthless stuff to advance the story so we can get to the awesome fight with Ninetails].
[Boobs]: WHOA, LOOGOUT! NOTHING CAN CONTAIN US! WHY DON'T WE SKATEBOARD DOWN SOME STAIRS IN SLO-MOTION? A GOOD IDEA; GREAT MINDS, AFTER ALL.
Issun: HAH I just can't STAND IT! BOOBS ARE AWESOME HUH HUH Oh yeah, story stuff. Let's go do that thang. BUT WAIT LET ME SQUEEZE THEM ONCE MORE WOO HOOOO IT IS LIKE A ROLL OF TOILET TISSUE... OR SHALL I SAY, 'TIT-SUE'? HAH HAH AMMY A JOKE!

This kind of behavior continues even after Rao is shown to be actually very dead and not Rao at all. Upon returning to the graveyard outside Ankoku Temple, we visit what we think is her grave. But oh no, not one to actually have some respect for the dead, our little perverted bouncing warrior says "Aw, I bet this is where the real busty babe is buried. May she and her two best friends rest in peace forever."

COME ON.

2: BLACKIE FUNKY KONG
So, I could turn this point into a rant about Japan's hilarious xenophobia and unrealistic expectations of other cultures (exceeding normal, harmless generalizations) but it's common knowledge enough to not warrant a repeating or detailed explanation.

Having accepted (in the loosest sense of the word) Japan's attitude towards others--especially black people, I can still say this: FUNKY KONG IS ANNOYING AS SHIT.

I could be referring to any number of games he appears in, but for the sake of this rant, I'm referring only to Mario Kart Wii. Holy fuck, after you unlock him, you are subjected to his ANNOYING, 'being raepd by an epileptic jellyfish while driving' yelling and his Lil' Jon impression.

Japan, how can you do this?! How can you turn a respectable video game monkey into nothing better than a polygon-rendering of Chris Tucker at his most irritating? And STILL make a character as despicably stereotypical as perhaps Little Black Sambo (a character/book which, by the way, enjoyed a modest revival not too long ago). Only in Japan my friends.

I would provide an audio sample of Funky but here's a description instead, followed by a phonetic guide:

You're stuck in a burning elevator plummeting at 150 mph (and gaining speed!) from the 300th floor, and expect to squish in the elevator shaft's bottom at any moment. With you is Chris Tucker and he is FREAKING. OUT. Instead of his usual Rush Hour "WE'RE GONNA DIE WE'RE GONNA DIE" schtick, he can only use the letter 'A' and a few consonants. So he is panicking, and sounds something like: YABLAWAAWAWANANBABABYWAWABLALAYAWANAWAWAAAAAA.

Strangely, using a red shell on this annoying asshole in a kart is not satisfying. I don't even think a blue shell would do the trick either. An atomic bomb, perhaps.

TOO SOON.

Knights of the Old-fashioned Republic

My boyfriend and I have been playing KOTOR (well, mostly he plays it while I cook and bake in the adjoining kitchen- a very extreme role reversal around our apartment, actually). We had gotten about 16 hours into the game when I remarked upon the amusing dialogue choices available to his male avatar when speaking to female characters. My boyfriend then informed me that the suggestive lines of dialogue are available to the male main-character if you so choose to be male. When I inquired about the female avatar I was told that if you choose a female character you will get hit on.

Hold the phone! You mean the Old Republic of Star Wars has the sexism that we have here on Earth? Though the concept of such an element of male-character gameplay probably had the intentions of humor and fun, it was a bad decision to implement it in the game as it can only be executed poorly under the circumstances. Here are some reasons why it was a bad decision:

1) It reinforces the idea that suggestive language is acceptable and useful for men in any situation. Sure, a female character may quickly dismiss your suggestion that she feels "tingly" when thinking about all the ways you could "misuse the force", but you never get a light saber through the chest or even a force slap to the face. Hell, you are even encouraged to hit on women- one of the missions on the volcano planet requires you to tell a woman she's beautiful before she allows you to join her on a mission to retrieve an artifact to bring to the leader of the Sith Academy. Normally I wouldn't invite you to hit on a female warrior unless you wanted some vibroblade decapitation with your swift kick to the balls- reducing powerful women to sex objects denies them their position and accomplishments and can make then rather hostile. Why the women in this game put up with it so well is beyond me (methinks this is the fantasy of some Star Wars nerds who ended up planning this game and always wanted to engage in sexual innuendo with Princess Leia).

I also fail to see any consequences of choosing the inappropriate lines of dialogue, which is the real kicker. Such language is then insinuated to be acceptable because there is no backlash for making a bad decision about what you say to women in casual conversation (granted, what you say to a member of either sex can have bad consequences in places that actually relate to missions, though you can often just restart conversations if necessary and choose different options). This would be all fine and dandy if all people were sensitive to sexist language and the power/privilege that comes with being male in this society, but alas that is not so. I can't imagine this game makes people any more sensitive to such power dynamics.

2) It reinforces the idea that suggestive language is intrinsic to and expected of men. I don't know, but I might find it a little insulting if I were a man and learned that the male character would automatically be the one getting all the suggestive dialogue. It seems to suggest that men are the only ones who have such banter or that they are inherantly sex-crazed maniacs who can't have a conversation with a woman without making reference to someone's naughty bits at some point. Men are fully capable of restricting their language to reduce offensive comments, and indeed you are given that choice in the game, but isn't it a little unfair that only the men are allowed or expected to use the suggestive lines of dailogue? It's not a frat culture where all the male padawan learners are required to down a keg, sleep with women, and catcall outside the OWK house to become indoctrinated into the Jedi army, but there's a certain expectation that men are the only ones who can and will make snide sexual comments to women and treat them disrespectfully based solely on their biological sex and physical appearance.

3) The game does not show any affects at all of sexist attitudes, thereby removing all context of and responsibility for sexist behavior. Your female party members never talk about past sexual trauma, assault, or rape; being afraid to walk the streets of Taris late at night; the discomfort of gawkers and fondlers on the public transit system in Dantooine; or the conscious decision to wear their Jedi robes loosely around the middle and cover themselves up to the neck because they do not wish to invite unwanted advances. If we're going to make the Old Republic so much like sex relations here present-day America, why not go the whole nine yards? Deciding to include sexist behavior and language in favor of men without having any sort of societal context displaying the environment which results from and allows such behavior and language is irresponsible because it reduces and eliminates the concerns and grievances real women have about sexism in real life. If the people in KOTOR run around doing sexist things without the women having to suffer any repercussions from it, then what are all these real women complaining about? I know it's unfair to relate gaming behavior to the gamer, but you have to wonder if sexist people don't enjoy sexist media. We all know they do, and KOTOR doesn't do anything to change anyone's sexist inclinations because they still aren't forced to see the faults and consequences of sexism.



These things are by no means limited to KOTOR, or video games in general for that matter. Honestly, though, the game is fun despite my beefs with the character personality stereotypes that got attached to the player-character in the design of the game (and trust me, that isn't even the beginning to my list of grievances with the Star Wars mythos). It still irks me that I can't play the character I want because KOTOR gameplay doesn't offer enough of an escape from the sexism that I experience in real life, but, then again, wielding two light sabers at once....

Gamers by Numbers

Every gaming article in mainstream media sources that I've had the displeasure of reading lately has inserted numbers to make a point. Percentages, averages, ranges- all meant to support their argument and color their article with the indisputable truth that is connoted by the presence of numbers. Would you believe that newspaper writers are 400% more likely to die by choking on rubber chickens than anyone else? Why wouldn't you? I put numbers in there! And because the number is so high there must be a rubber chicken choking epidemic, right?

Lately, in all the hubbub surrounding GTA IV, some writer for the newspaper here in Minneapolis (I won't even link to it, for fear of encouraging more traffic for their site) used the statistic that the average gamer is a male between the ages of 29 and 32. Wow, that fact is just tinged with all sorts of fun. Firstly, "average" does not equal "predominantly". If other statistics are to be believed, males aren't much more than half of the gaming audience and I doubt that they all fall in the 29-32 age range. Secondly, that statistic is used for that article because the author wants to make women and men of that age feel guilty for either being that guy playing GTA IV or being married to that guy playing GTA IV (doubly ashamed if they have children) and she doesn't make any mention of women playing the game (because women gamers don't exist for her purposes). She uses numbers to make her illogical and self-righteous point about GTA IV being morally corrupting garbage ruining the men and general youth of America. (Coincidentally, she pretty much argues that patriarchy, sexism, and violence are having ill effects on our culture, but instead she chooses- poorly -to focus on one piece of media which can hardly take all the blame she flings at it.)

There was a study I ran into as well that said teen girls who played "a lot" of M-rated titles were up to three times as likely to say they had destroyed property just for fun. I am extremely skeptical of this "fact" because they never say what type or amount of damage would be seen from the most violent of these girls who supposedly play these M-rated titles. Perhaps the worst thing any of them did was carve in or write on their school desks, but who's to know that if the writers let you assume that they make bombs in their garages and spray paint crude words on ambulances. In the next paragraph, the researcher reminds the reader that "...the actual number of kids who do these things is pretty low", which attempts to put these numbers into perspective without giving away exact calculations or insight. I can still see how people would take the "facts" from this article and use it to speak out against teens playing video games though the incidents of violence are very few and there's nothing in this study that says video games influence or cause this 'property damage'.

It's bothersome to see numbers being thrown around. Statistics like those above are naturally misleading if no context is given as to the sample size or other factors of the study. Personally, it's very annoying to have averages and percentages used in a way which is disproportionate and exaggerated, making the numbers work toward some motive which they do not necessarily support if examined properly.

Just wanted to say a quick word about that.

Monster of the Week

Welcome to Monster of the Week, a Monday feature that looks at a monster from a game we really love. Whether you have to shoot at it, knock it out of the park, punch it in the face or RUN AWAY!, it'll be in this column if it impressed us. There might be spoilers in here, so if you haven't played the game, you have been warned.

Week 2: Green Grass and High Tides (Hard or Expert), Rock Band


Well this week's monster isn't really what you might consider a true enemy in a game, but it's evil enough.



Here's a video of a really great band playing in expert, which is something I and the members of the F# Belles are completely unable to do. The song is quite long, so you don't have to watch the whole thing. It has some amazing guitar solos in it though, so if you want to have a better idea of what I'm talking about, it might not hurt to watch a minute or so after the singing starts.

Location: If you sort songs by difficulty.... IT IS AT THE BOTTOM.
Audio: The Outlaws (and eventually a booing crowd)
Kill?: Myself and Amy of Thwomp Factory make it a point to attempt this game at least once a week (including a bassist and a drummer--I sing) with everyone playing on at least Hard. I've probably played this song a total of 15+ times, and have only seen it to its end once: during the 58-song marathon, when all played on Medium. We're not really the kind of Rock Band-playin' folk who are all hard-core and extremely dedicated. [Failing] this song sort of exemplifies our mentality--fail a couple times, lose some fans, then give up. The song is something like 9 minutes long and has at least three guitar solos within. Suffice to say, I'm sure once this song is successfully beaten, it won't be played for a long time.
Other: Just thinking about this song's length, the ridiculous rate at which it speeds up and the irritating random "Awesome" for singing is enough to make me hate playing this song forever. I will admit, besides the pointless tamborining and the very sparse star power (or whatever it's called) activation windows, the challenge gets a teeny bit easier every time. I believe when we first started, we were lucky to get 50% of the way through...now we're getting into the 70's or 80's before someone craps out and takes us with them. In-fighting!

The Good, the Bad, and the Lovely: April Ryan (The Longest Journey, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey)

"The Good, the Bad, and the Lovely" puts female characters under the microscope and then injects a healthy dose of feminism.

April Ryan is perhaps my favorite video game heroine. Oh, let me count the ways... (*spoilers to follow*)

In The Longest Journey, April possessed a power called "shifting" which allowed her to travel between two twin worlds as the balance between them was threatened. During the game she travels around both worlds and beyond to restore the balance and ensure the safety of the peoples and creatures contained within.

April is the everywoman: She goes to school, has a job in the local cafe, hangs out with friends, and even has an obnoxious neighbor who hits on her constantly. The first part of the game is almost solely devoted to showcasing April's life and concerns. She worries about avoiding creeps and finishing her homework until she discovers the very world could fall apart without her help. April is endearing to the player because of these real-life struggles and also because she's practical, witty, smart, self-reliant, and caring. Not only is that the sign of a good producer or writer, but also much credit needs to be given to April's voice actress, Sarah Hamilton (who you will hear for hours during gameplay and not tire of).

Notice that nowhere above did I mention a love interest or a beloved family member (in fact, she has all but abandoned her family) or picking up the mission of the game just on a whim. April takes on the adventure because of the powers and talents she possesses, but most importantly because she is the only one that can, not because she's fighting for a certain person or for her own self gain. There is no personal gain in her adventure at all- in fact she has to let go of all her ties to her life and herself to complete the journey (making her personal one "The Longest Journey"). It's a selfless act which exposes her pain, her passions, and her insecurities (and, thankfully, none of her naughty bits).

But, she discovers that she was not destined to fix the balance after all.

She played an integral role in restoring the balance, yes, but she was not destined to end her journey there as its Guardian. Suddenly she is abandoned by fate and left without purpose. She discarded her life, her friends, her world, and her very soul to restore the balance only to find out that the role she was to take was destined for another. Relieved of the responsibility she had prepared for, she felt lost.

Enter Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. We learn that, since the last game, April has lost her shifting powers and can't return to her own world, confining her to the twin world she discovered in TLJ. Since then she has struggled to understand what her purpose is, if not to maintain the balance. However, the world in which she now lives has troubles of its own and she creates a resistance to the forces who are beginning to seize control. In Dreamfall she becomes disillusioned, but still has the will, strength, and independence she gained in TLJ and continues to do what she believes is right, regardless of the consequences.

April is a great character who is relatable and realistic in almost all aspects. She's very strong-willed and thoughtful (and sensibly dressed). Her purpose is to fight for the greater good and to improve the lives of others without compromising herself or falling into the pitfalls of other female protagonists (love interests, sexualized image, etc.). Most of all, April is great because she embodies the aimlessness and helplessness we all feel about our purpose while she struggles to make a difference and follow her heart and mind. Her struggles can be epic, but she also has personal and universal troubles we can all relate to.

April Ryan, you're my hero.

Monster of the Week

Welcome to Monster of the Week, a Monday feature that looks at a monster from a game we really love. Whether you have to shoot at it, knock it out of the park, punch it in the face or RUN AWAY!, it'll be in this column if it impressed us. There might be spoilers in here, so if you haven't played the game, you have been warned.

Week 1: Closer, Silent Hill 3

Ah, Silent Hill 3. You were so short, and even on Hard, you were at least doable. I plan to talk about all the Silent Hill games at some point in this blog, but I thought I'd give the special honor of our first Monster of the Week to this ...thing.


Location: Around the mall, amusement park, anywhere they can fit.



Audio: It sounds like someone slurping ramen while fighting a rabid lion...IN HELL!

Kill?: There's one cutscene in the game where Heather kills one of these things; it's feasting on the remains of Harry Mason, I believe (poor guy). Heather uses her newly-found handgun on it but honestly, it looks like a toy against it with its two meaty appendages and tall, tall frame. At least Closers are no match for the Heather Beam! Every other time you encounter this thing holding a melee weapon, you're in for a losing fight. Considering that killing every enemy in the game results in losing points, and puts you in a defenseless position, it's best to run past these things. They're in the game to serve as blockades that can kill you, so it behooves you to simply run past. Of course, that doesn't mean you can't derive pleasure from killing one now and then.

Other: Few games can boast having personalized, intimate and terrifying monsters that are more than the requisite baddies that pop out of pipes. You can bet I'll cover other Silent Hill monsters in this space but what I'll really love about it is that the meaning/design will change every time.

One of the possible interpretations I have for the design and meaning of this monster (shh--let's not pretend it was in Silent Hill 2!) is from the child Alessa's memory: adults in the hospital tending to her incredibly burned body must have seemed very tall. As this thing has no face or even a mouth, I'm guessing it could stand for the internalized shame and helplessness (maybe the desire to disappear or be faceless) Alessa felt while dependent on machines and nurses. (It explains the skirt!) As the monster's name implies, these things tend to move (FAST) towards where you are, and do their brand of damage. There must be a warped sense of intimacy feeding the design: the care and attention paid to a small child demands closeness, yet the feeling of self-hatred and disgust twists even the best of intentions into something horrible and inescapable.

Your thoughts?

Li'l T out.

A little reprive!

Happy Tuesday, my gametes! Well, I was poking around on Digg and found this article, which talks about the retarded way games are critiqued and rated.

Restaurants, hotels, cars, Olympic performances, and earthquakes (to name a few) all have rating systems: established, criteria-based scales reviewers/judges/instruments use in evaluation. You'd think that reviewing games would be an easy shoe-in to the world of reviewing, but lately I've been more rankled at how game sites and publications handle their ratings.

Before I start arguing with the three friends I know have an opinion on this, let me state: I realize reviewing a game is much like reviewing a movie or a book: any entertainment, successful execution and the artistic value is so completely subject that unless we readers agree with how the reviewer thinks (at some point), our opinions are rarely swayed. Why? Value is a hard thing to get a bead on, to pin a prize on. Different people look for different things.

Or should they?

The excerpt below pretty much states my own opinions on game ratings:

[A perfect "10" rating] is something that should be given out relatively rarely, and only to those games which are truly deserving. It shouldn't be given out everytime the developer throws money at us, or just because it's part of a franchise that has previous garnered high scores. Yet it should also not be tucked away like some sort of emergency score, only to be used in case of the videogame equivalent of the Second Coming.

Ms. Game and Watch is comprised of opinion pieces and like the article I'm referring to, I don't expect you to agree with what I or Anthony at Destructoid think but if you disagree, I would always request a good reason backing your difference.

I go to a restaurant for an experience. Sometimes I go out to eat things I am perfectly capable of making at home. When I go out for say, a burger and fries, I'm relishing in the experience of eating in a place different than my dining room. I hear other people or ambient music, I see people on the street or other diners, I feel the weight of unfamiliar cutlery and take everything in: this is gestalt in its truest form, my friends! A critic gives consideration to every part of a restaurant experience; the food itself is the centerpiece.

Having illustrated the unified whole that is evaluation of enjoyment, let me transition to how I think games should be rated.

A scale of 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 gives us a quick picture, a cursory glance and a snapshot of what we should expect. My rub is that if you play a game for the first time--even if you spend ten minutes with it--you're going to form some opinions on different components. One single-digit score shouldn't satisfy your need for evaluation. What about say, 30 different number ratings on the same game? I think it'd be a better model to work from. Yes, games need to be evaluated on a "metacritic" level; not just the opinions of one guy who was told by his editors to have a final draft in his hands title a month and a half from now. A publication that gives out an "A" to every game that doesn't suck in an obvious way is really giving out a "B". A's, I think, should be incredibly rare, and should draw almost unanimous approval from consumers and reviewers alike, such as with games like Okami, which got rave reviews at its E3 premiere...or Bioshock, which everyone loves. Yes, these games are not perfect, but they deserve A's--not this or this. This toes the line, if for no other reason than the only thing different from CoD3 was the much needed and improved multi-player feature. It should have probably been titled CoD 3.1.

In discussion, I eked out a lifecycle I think applies to game production, consumption and resurrection: If we become more critical about what games we buy (look at several reviews, not just one, consider the reviewer as a person with individual tastes and opinions), we become more selective. Our selectivity and refusal to buy a game that has a franchise name slapped on it, with franchise sprites stuffed within, with crappy programming/dialog/sound/graphics help these types of games being made. I'm sure you've been privy to the desperate pleas of some video game reviewers who protest that the only reason they have to review the latest iteration of say, a crappy Naruto game, is because companies know that anything titled "Naruto" featuring the characters (or even perhaps 'From the makers of...', as films tend to do) will bring in money. "If you stop buying these shitty titles", they caution, "they'll stop being made. And that makes [us] suffer a lot less!"

What then?

Better games start being made. Developers (in an ideal world) realize that cheap flash-powder and smoke-and-mirror gimmicks won't work for a segment of the population. They'll realize that games don't belong to a gender, but they do to an age group. Rather than attempting to lure us to an 8-bit Mario sprite (extending from a tentacle sprouting from that ugly anglerfish that is nostalgia), they realize that innovation is always possible. Where new creation is not possible, they eschew tactics that play on our character affinities in the most indulgent of ways (i.e., having a Smash Bros. for the Wii is awesome! Making it just like the other iterations is ...pointless? For people like myself who sort of missed the hype the first time, it's not the most welcoming of experiences, but that's another post.) but still give us something we find much enjoyment in.

To illustrate my point: The first Mario Kart: genius. The first Smash Bros. Brawl: genius. Every iteration gets more tired, even though they change platforms. Feel free to disagree. This isn't to say I got a kick out of say, Mario Kart DS or Smash Bros Melee but it was kind of like the same food in the same cafeteria but on a different day. Sometimes the meatloaf is too salty, sometimes it's not salty enough. The potatoes were a little watery today but they were decent last week. If you're smart, you'll bring your lunch once in a while, or even go out.

Be a smart consumer. Read, read, and re-read all you can before you get a game. Once you're used to reading reviews, you know what to look for. You see that reviewers are like you: they have certain likes and dislikes. They have more experience with certain games than others. They can be fannish and they can be wary of change. Sometimes they can even be in denial (ergo the perfect 10s I see for crappy, run-of-the-mill games). Kirby is cute, I agree, but he is not excluded from the possibility of being in a terrible, waste of time title. Money talks, and it works both ways. Popular crappy games ensure more popular crappy games. Well-made games indicate gamers want more well-made games. This is what we're about!

The Good, the Bad, and the Lovely: Hana Tsu Vachel (Fear Effect and Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix)

"The Good, the Bad, and the Lovely" puts female characters under the microscope and then injects a healthy dose of feminism. I'd like to start with one of the favorite female protagonists of my Playstation-crazed adolescence:


Hana Tsu Vachel was the heroine of the Kronos developed action game Fear Effect and its prequel, Retro Helix, which were released for the Playstation near the end of its life cycle. Along with her two comrades- the portly and psychopathic Aussie, Deke, and the sufferer of the perpetual five o'clock shadow, Glas- Hana undertook secret and deadly operations which usually to lead to unexpected and supernatural places.

Not surprisingly, Hana is the typical temptress-assassin: she lures the men in with her sly, womanly charm and then strikes like a viper. She's all too aware of her feminine power, using her assets to her advantage when possible. This may or may not stem from her history as a prostitute for much of her young, orphaned life. Along with that history comes a detachment which allows her to accomplish kills effortlessly and battle to the depths of Chinese hell without being phased. Hana is also of Chinese-French heritage, but I won't go into the related notions of exoticness of her character because of race (perhaps another time, another article).

Fear Effect has much to say about the exploitation of women, whether it intends to or not. The game's initial mission is purely exploitation: the team wishes to procure a triad leader's missing daughter before she's found in order to ransom her. However, the bigger themes are that of prostitution and general sexual exploitation. Prostitution is not just Hana's history, but she's forced to confront it during a portion of the game which takes place inside a brothel. Ruthless as she is, Hana still has a soft spot for the plight of prostitutes and wishes to save young girls from the misery of such a life.

Sadly, this is not where the exploitation ends. In true action heroine fashion, Hana is subjected to skimpy outfits and near nudity throughout the games and also in the 'scandalous' girl-on-girl ads for the prequel game featuring Hana and her partner, Rain. The generous proportions and tight, revealing outfits are, unfortunately, expected. A real curve ball was thrown, however, during the second game (besides the tentacle assault against Rain during the first section) when Hana and Rain engaged in elements of a homosexual relationship beyond the campy suggestions of the game's advertisements.

I don't wish to downplay the importance of including homosexuality in what could be argued is a sphere of heteronormativity, but a homosexual relationship between Hana and Rain is problematic, at best. Hana's history of prostitution and "love 'em and kill 'em" assassination of men could implicate that the feelings she has for Rain are only possible because 1) Hana has been victimized emotionally and physically by men and 2) because Rain is a woman. Whether or not you like to believe it, there are certain members of humanity who truly think (with little or no evidence) that homosexuality is a result of sexual victimization of a person by a member of either sex. To my knowledge, it was never explicitly stated that Hana preferred one sex to the other or had any ill feelings about men in general simply because of prostitution, but it doesn't help that Hana's history of sexual preference or any misandry on her part is not clarified.

Another element of the Hana/Rain relationship is the exploitation of the girl-on-girl fantasy. Fear Effect is edgy and action-packed, so I never expected such games to be free of female objectification, but the team seemed to want to further push the exploitation by introducing scenes in which the women express lustful sentiments toward each other and act playfully about their sexual relationship in front of others. This game is all for the "male fantasy", D.E.B.S.-style action with two girls getting it on, but there is something to be said that there are very few pieces of media which portray homosexual relationships (or even just women in general) as being genuine, thoughtful, compassionate, and loyal. Fear Effect does nothing in the way of improving the portrayal of homosexual relationships in any medium.

Sure, the game is not out to make any great statements about feminism, female sexual victimization, or lesbian relationships. Instead it does what it sets out to do: present an edgy, futuristic, bloody, mature action-adventure with elements of mythology and folklore seeping into the modern-day grit of the underground. Hana is therefore everything to be expected from an action heroine, but it should still be conceded that her portrayal is not one which is always empowering or enlightening. The game is admirable on many points, especially including Hana as the biggest lead amongst two other male playable characters, but more could have been done in the way of female or lesbian empowerment with this character than the creators seemed willing to put forth the effort for.

Overall, I still highly recommend the games and have great esteem for Hana's character though she does fall short of the great female protagonist she could have been.