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.