tronhound

I recently finished the first episode of Kentucky Route Zero. I loved the aesthetic and the mood (enough that I strictly only played the game at night) however it felt kind of short considering that it looks like there are so many places I could be exploring. Maybe I was playing it too linearly but I'm going to give it another run through and see if I missed anything. The dialogue with the dog was great, it reminded me of how I talk to dogs IRL.

At least keep it open till the new one is out, I need to see people on the internet continuously defend this damsel... almost as though she is some kind of distress.

American players were probably just confused because they were playing as a female so they couldn't play the game as their typical male power fantasy.

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I'm looking forward to 'Congrats Nick: the Nick Breckon simulator' at the next amnesia fortnight.

Isn't it the same way with films? If you're going to represent a journey on screen character movement is typically shown from left to right.

She's shows the game, makes out that it empowers males because Snake can get out of prison on his own (he can't) and paints Meryl as a damsel in distress (she broke out of prison on her own). Any further argument about Metal Gear Solid will be answered with 'nanomachines'. Edit: just saw your edit, I am talking about Metal Gear Solid, though in her video it looks like she shows footage from Twin Snakes.

I'm going off topic here, just wanted to point out that Johnny is the guard Meryl knocked out in MGS1 when she busted out of the cell. So Snake giving him the whole "haven't even taken the safety off" speech is just about the greatest throwback ever. Anyway the whole reason I brought Metal Gear into this is because Anita completely misrepresented the game in her video. Edit: I feel kind of bad for taking the SotC thread off rails, what do you guys think will Anita tear apart ICO and SotC?

Yeah, you hold people up and search them for ammo, at the end of a search your given the opportunity to squeeze the crotch which knocks the person out. FROGS however will give you a line like "all you men are the same" then kick you.

You can't deny the facts though, pick almost any sport that relies on physical power - middling male professionals would completely dominate the top tier females.

Don't forget that all the main bosses were a female supergroup, though if you knew what you were doing you could have photoshoots with them were they pose for you. In the case of Haven Troopers/FROGS, I wouldn't be surprised if Kojima opted for all of them to be female purely for the crotch grab joke - crotch grab a typical male enemy and they get knocked out, crotch grab a Haven Trooper and they call you a pervert (alternatively though MGS has always kind of had an underlying theme that women make better soldiers). Like you say though MGS is a funny beast, personally I always saw Metal Gear Online to be completely filled with homoeroticism, though maybe that was because my character wore leopard print pants shirtless with suspenders and was a master at charming other men.

It's such a cop out how suddenly everyone refers to every female character in video games as merely an object for the protagonist to win. When I played through Dead Space that didn't even cross my mind, I felt genuinely bad for Isaac as I always assumed he went there just with the sliver of hope that she might still be alive, even though they were having trouble with their relationship he obviously still had feelings for her. But I guess not, Isaac has no feelings at all for his girlfriend, to him she was merely an object to be won.

The crew they had at 1up in the glory days was outstanding.

The real victim is real world princesses.

now the spoiler is quoted outside of tags, game ruined

I can't wait for Anita Sarkeesian to run down SotC and ICO and expose them as the male power fantasies that they are.

Posting for introducing, been listening for years but in desperate need a of a video game forum to post on. First episode I ever heard was Shadow and Colossus, immediately hooked.

Same here, I was also 13. Meryl is hardly presented as weak when she breaks out, you see her in the cell next to you doing sit ups before this happens and she seems to bust out at will when she hears something happening in the cell next to her, she then knocks out the guard and steals his gear. She obviously a rookie compared to the legendary soldier, Solid Snake, but the next sequence see's them team up to dispose of enemies. There is a blatant 'dat ass' shot when she runs off, but hey it's Kojima and the entire of MGS4 is Old Snake 'dat ass' (plus it's the only way you can spot her disguised as a soldier). She does get shot and needs to be recused later on, but she'd hardly the damsel Otacon is when he hides in a locker and pisses his pants. But hey my point is, don't hold this up as an example of the male protagonist being able to handle himself when imprisoned when Snake can't break out of a cell on his own (even when the bad guys purposely make it easy for him) and Meryl breaks out completely by her own accord, takes out the guard, steals his gear and helps Snake.

Silenced by my hero; Jake Rodkin. Worst day ever.

In what context? There are huge fundamental differences between men and women, especially in terms of physical power. This isn't cultural, it's evolutionary.

So do we get rid of all this kind of "meta-humor"? People like Barry Humphries have made an entire career out of it and it's really a bit of a disservice to say that it shouldn't be acceptable because some people won't get the joke.

With that in mind though, I think it would be a cop out to claim that in the future birth rates will be declining as men believe they are meant to ejaculate on their partners face at the end of sex.

Your post is weird you're quoting yourself for the post itself? Anyway I took a look at some of the examples in the tumblr page you linked and it really just seems more like a list of female characters in video games. To begin with I think it's worth knocking out any kind of game that is a beat em up, everyone single one of these games consisted of either 'rescue your girlfriend' or 'avenge your family member', nothing went into these stories, they were targeted at young boys so a rescue your girlfriend thing is the obvious choice. The list is a joke though! I haven't played the majority of these games, but from the ones I have played the women in them are hardly powerless. Maria from GTA3, She's the main antagonist. Maybe I haven't made it far enough in Borderlands 2 but Lilith kicks ass and is extremely powerful (not to mention it's her boyfriend you have to save). Rinoa is the leader of a rebel group, it's just unfortunate she became possessed by a sorceress. Meryl escapes from a cell, beats the shit out of the guard successfully goes undercover for a large period while helping your character - who eventually get's put in a cell and needs Otacon to help him get out. Aeris (spoiler) lets herself die (/spoiler) because the power her life-force is the only thing powerful enough to summon holy and save the planet (it is worth mentioning that Cloud loses his shit at one point in the game and Tifa becomes the lead and she saves him?). Are women simply not allowed to be present in the storyline of a video game, or is anything at all happening to them considered a trope that is negatively reflected in society? You can argue with this all day really, but it's really not worth the time and effort in my opinion. Any kind of negative stereotype against women in video games is a drop in the ocean compared to something like Barbie dolls.

While I generally disagree with every point she makes I will be watching the rest of the series and I look forward to seeing what she does with part 2. I can't help but feel that given the time and money someone could just as easily build a case for any trope they want in video games, such as; "look how often business people need to be saved" and "look at how violent men are they will kill hundreds of people with no remorse". While I think it's completely insane, lets take a deeper look at the story in Mario games. The princess is, as far as we know, born into extreme wealth and essentially handed life on a plate. Upon being kidnapped by the baddest villain in the land, her fellow upper class citizens couldn't do a damn thing to save her and the task was completed by an overweight middle class nobody who works as a plumber and is likely an immigrant. This isn't the story of a damsel in distress, this is the story of the uprising of the underprivileged middle class proving their worth.

Are you referring to a woman's clothing being the reason for rape? I also live in Melbourne and use to live in Qld, the only time I've ever encountered it was when it was all over the news after that Muslim guy made the comparison to uncovered meat. Edit: After watching the video twice and reading some of the comments in this thread I just don't understand why everyone thinks she's hit the nail on the head. All I see is a few cherry picked examples and what seems to be an unnecessarily in-depth analysis of the plot in the Mario games; the Princess of the Mushroom Kingdom has been kidnapped by a dinosaur and you must take the whole of an Italian plumber to save her. It seems insane to me that anyone could attempt to use this as any kind of argument for anything.