youmeyou

The strongest example I can recall of a man-monster is the cyborg ninja in Metal Gear Solid. He even does the whole 'kill me' thing at the end. Of course, it's not a romantic relationship so it's slightly different but I think some of the same notes are struck. An old friend stuck in a monstrous shell which causes him to lose control. I'm sure it'd be easy to find more such examples. However, I find compelling the idea that the importance of this trope lies not in its preponderance but in its cultural context. The "hysterical woman" is a notion that has existed for centuries, I'd argue accusations of witchcraft are quite closely connected. Think about it: a town woman is acting strange, probably under satan's spell, she must be sacrificied to exitricate the evil, and so on. It's this context (in addition to domestic abuse) that makes the video game incarnations more problematic than their male equivalents. On a slightly unrelated tangent: I was playing Borderlands 2 (which is prominently featured in the video) recently and Lilith - who has been captured and made the quintessential damsel in distress - instructs you to kill her if you can't help her escape. She says: "I'd rather die than be a damsel." Which is to say, she'd prefer to be a fridge woman variant of the damsel trope, which is fascinating not the least because the writers clearly recognized how worn out the trope they were using was and used it anyway and additionally made it kind of worse by doubling up the trope with another even creepier one. It's making me very...

She makes the really important statement in the beginning that these can still be considered great games that you enjoy and that have nuanced and compelling reasons for the employment of their tropes - but they do still add to the greater body of work that establishes the prominence of that trope. An argument certainly can be made that some of these examples are employing the trope ironically (Double Dragon & Hotline Miami and probably others) but I think it's still valid to consider whether a trope, even ironically applied has a cultural impact. But that's probably a video in and of itself.

Don't you think that there's significance in the fact that it happens to be female in nearly every example of this kind of trope happening? That's why gender matters; if it was merely a discussion of lazy plotting ideas applied to both genders equally, it would be an entirely different discussion. For example, the trope of having brightly colored hair or carrying weapons that are oversized to a ridiculous extent is a video game trope that could be applied to both genders, generally. This is why she goes over example after example after example to support her assertion. It's a culturally enforced trend that it is the woman specifically who is 'out of control' and must be put back to normal (or sacrificed) through violence.

This is one of the best bundles yet.

Ha totallly, I couch potatoed it very intensively this sunny weekend. Was all: Finished up Far Cry 3 and played a chunk of Metro Last Light. Far Cry 3... you know how it goes. Many of the open world elements were quite excellent. Stealthing around an enemy camp then beating a wingsuit-aided escape as reinforcements arrive that leads to a hidden ravine infested by alligators and bandits. Rambo the game, essentially. Except Yohalem wasn't satisfied making Rambo. A director intent on remaking Heart of Darkness while the crew thought he said mini-game laden jungle sandbox shooter. A game incredibly at odds with itself and its purpose. But the entertainment factor was enough to keep me invested to the end so that's saying something, if only about a studio's finely tuned formula for fostering addictive habits in the players of their games.

This article convinced me to try Kane and Lynch 2 and I was extremely glad I did: http://www.actionbutton.net/?p=779

Except there are plenty of cheaper options like Roku and Apple TV for streaming television. It doesn't make sense to make that the selling point for a several hundred dollar high-powered gaming machine.

Can I just second the Fable 2 dog? In the end I chose the option to save the dog. Sorry wife and kids. That dog was my BRO. We played catch, I saved him from bandits, he was by my side from pleasant mountain paths to creepy ghoul-filled swamps. I don't think any other animal in a game has come close to feeling like an actual companion. SOTC horse comes close.

Someone help, I'm stuck under this giant grain of salt.

The Nazi faction is interesting because their traditional obsession with racial purity is adapted in the world of Metro toward any human who has been mutated from the radiation caused by nuclear fallout. There are even nods to Roadside Picnic as a Nazi soldier plans to escape with his mutated, hair-covered progeny. There isn't, to my knowledge, any mention of other (non-mutation related) underclasses. So in some ways they side-step racism as broadly as Bio:Infinite does, by couching it in science fiction. Though I still think it's a clever extrapolation of how Nazi's of today would react to imagined events of the future.

I'm quite enjoying playing Last Light in Russian. I do get that the low quality english voices add a certain manic campyness to the game, but walking around only understanding half of what I hear (only important dialogue is subbed) lends the game a strong sense of place. This is exists with english VO as well, but as has been mentioned in previous casts, games so rarely feel culturally influenced that it's nice having the option to approach a game where it doesn't feel like the devs bent over backwards to make the experience bland and palatable to my american tastebuds. That and the poor quality of the english VO is super distracting after listening to the Russian (foreign languages are also more forgivable for mediocre VO since I don't have a frame of reference for proper delivery)

I finally won a game in NP2! It was with some coworkers and lasted a little over two weeks. By the end I was huddled over my phone while on a long weekend trip to SF for a wedding, moving 30 ships around trying to take advantage of the time gap with my east coast friends. It was terrible and exhausting and totally worth it. The need to take a break after a few intense games is definitely there, I'll admit.

I do, and I'm glad this forum fosters it. I'm sorry you don't but I'm not going to stop talking about it. So please stop trying to silence my opinion by calling what me and others are posting 'harping.' That is a pejorative term. That, and everything you just wrote is basically asking me to shut up about it. How exactly is that not an attempt to silence? There are plenty of threads on this forum that I find uninteresting, I do not feel the need to comment about how uninteresting they are. Like I said, there was gaming discussion on the first page. You did not contribute to it. You responded to the sexism stuff. Direct the conversation to the gaming if you want to talk about that instead. Reacting solely to posts discussing sexism only serves to center the discussion around that.

Twig, I think we've had a wide range of interesting discussion in this thread. I don't equate it to 'harping.' Why you tryin' to silence opinions, yo? The first page talks primarily about gameplay, actually. This game hasn't come out yet and there isn't a huge amount of information as to its mechanics. There is a whole lot of visual... information, so that's just what's easier to discuss right now. I think the fact that threads on these subjects tend to run on illuminates how little agreement there is on this forum in respect to gender issues. Which is a good thing I think. It'd be quite dull otherwise. Anyway, I've had way more respectful and insightful discussions here than in other places I've brought up similar topics. So: more of this sort of thing, I say.

Also for the autobiographical category there's I Get This Call Everyday http://www.davidsgallant.com/igtced.html about a telemarketers personal experience. Great list btw, noyb.

But that's a good example of the problem I'm talking about. Lots of games, especially world building and top-down strategy use historical figures as pawns but necessarily fictionalize the events that play out to account for player agency. (or just make up a crazy sci fi narrative for the hell of it like in asscreed) Nothing wrong with that at all but not exactly what OP is asking for I think.

My guess is this is going to be a rare occurrence (aside from online flash games made in a few hours spoofing this or that political event) if only due to sensitivity over the treatment of subject matter. Seeing as games are an interactive medium, it's difficult to claim authenticity of documentation when the player can jump on top of a table or walk into a wall while Important Events are happening. Though the example you cite is a sound one and there are surely others. The early Call of Duty's recreated historical battles such as Normandy. Though admittedly a super Hollywood-ized version. I guess the simulation genre of games (flight in particular) cover a lot of historical wars and battles. I do think an alternate area of study could also be in games that simulate real life systems - rather than events - that still have historical relevance. Papers, Please! in terms of national borders and anti-terrorism and Prison Architect in terms of prison management and ethics spring immediately to mind.

Dishonored has skill-based gating to a very limited extent. Except it's kind of inverted. It's usually quite possible to blink through a level's upper areas and beat it in a shorter-than-designed period of time. Harvey Smith has talked about journalists at expos complaining that the demo Kaldwin's Bridge level was broken since they could finish it in 5 minutes by blinking along the rooftops. Much of the fun of Dishonored came from exploring the world's nooks and crannies, however, so even when playing with a great familiarity with the game and each level I still refrained from taking the shortest path. I guess in this case I was self-gating, which I think is necessary to get everything out of Dishonored. Which is interesting.

While that's a totally fair opinion to have, you basically grouped everyone who doesn't like the character design along with the one immature Kotaku response. So that's why it seemed like a weird statement to make. I think specificity is required here. Twig, exaggerated physical features are a staple of cartoon pornography (in both Japan and elsewhere). That you don't find it attractive does not mean that was not the intent.

Man, I can't believe this is turning around into people being offended that I'm offended by a plainly eroticised and objectified playable character. Should she end up serving as biting satire to play against my cynical assumptions, that would be super. But I'm not seeing that yet and until that happens, I don't consider this to be an unfounded stance to take.

I'm glad I am satisfied with playing fighting games at a thoroughly incompetent level, then. *Mashes all buttons then blames the joystick gate*

Played about 2 hours so far and loving it. Feels very much like the first Metro. Raiding enemy camps, skulking in the shadows. But this time, stealth is quite viable and very enjoyable. Turn off the power, wait for a soldier to break off from the group and investigate, knock him out. Circle around behind the rest, throw a knife at one sneak up on the other. Listen to a Nazi soldier struggling over the fact that his hairy baby (nice roadside picnic ref) must be killed for its mutation, before accidentally being spotted by another guard forcing you to kill everyone in the room, even the man you had previously felt sympathy for. The linearity isn't really grating yet either, as a linear scripted section is often followed by a larger area with multiple ways through (again, very much like the first Metro). The English actors are not the greatest of thespians so I've switched over to Russian with subs. You miss some incidental dialogue but everything feels much more natural and the characters you do interact with feel more authentic. Can't wait to play more.

I think you're just worn out (as we all must be) from all the rumor mongering, Mington.

Haven't seen a thread for this yet. (I guess due to the fact that it's only been in locked off development stage for years now) Should be coming out by the end of the year. I can't wait to get my sneak on! Love the ability to try out different kinds of thieves with strengths in hacking, disguises and lockpicking for example. (And if you die you just start with a different thief, instead of a completely reset game).