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.