Chris

Idle Thumbs 45: Episode Forty-Five

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Sorry, but I have to come to the defence of Subject Zero. My initial impression was that the character is well-designed, visually at least. She looks the part. I think what people are reacting to so negatively is the ridiculously cliched script and unconvincing voice-acting that she has been given. I think the actual look of the character is really good. It's only the lines she delivers and the voice she does them in which are actually cliched. Think about it, how many other female Video game characters are skinheads and are completely covered in tattoos? I can't think of a single one. Most female Video game characters are really cute, girly, and have ridiculously oversized boobs. That is the real cliche. Subject Zero is actually an interesting character, because she looks cool, she doesn't pander to the braindead boob-obsessed demographic by being stereotypically beautiful. This is a female character who you can actually believe might be good at shooting, because she looks aggressive and fucked up. Think about it, in real life, even in the universe of Mass Effect, which is based in a society similar to ours, how likely is it that the most beautiful and desirable women would also happen to be combat-hardened marines? It's completely unlikely. It requires too much suspension of disbelief to have beautiful female Video game characters taking part in space adventures, battling aliens across the universe. I really really love the look of Subject Zero, because I find it easier to believe she might be into fighting and space adventuring, so she becomes a much more believable female character than most female characters in games, who face it are usually there just as a pair of boobs to look at and nothing more. So I applaud Bioware and challenge those who have criticised them for this character to back up their views with something more than just attacking this character for having cliched lines. I saw some clips of Uncharted 2 recently and it contained some very very cliched lines, but nobody attacked it for that, in fact it is being celebrated for its script. It is only because Mass Effect 2 has a female character who is a badass, something which is usually done very badly and is a pretty unrealistic thing to attempt overall, that the cliched aspects of it are being attacked, but I think that if you look beyond that, this female badass is actually done well, and is actually more believable and convincing than the hundreds of previous ones, because she does not foreground her sexuality at all, and does not look exactly like someone who would ordinarily make a living as a model and have no reason to want to kick anyone's ass. Subject Zero looks like she has a reason to do that and would want to. I really, genuinely do not think any video games have had a character like this, a woman with close cropped hair, covered in tattoos, who is aggressive. Bioware has actually done something clever, and very interesting, and this character is a good one. Even in films, most rebellious female characters are still sexually desirable, and make great play of their desirability. Subject Zero does not rely on her sexuality, and does not make herself sexually available in a pandering way (the sex referred to in the trailer is a result of her own desire rather than someone else's), and this makes her more believable as an ass-kicking character. I think she's a great character, it's just that the some of the lines they've written for her are a bit crap. But I think the character has potential to be very cool, and an asset.

Edited by flunky

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It requires too much suspension of disbelief to have beautiful female Video game characters taking part in space adventures, battling aliens across the universe.

So aliens don't require you to suspend your disbelief, but beautiful women do? You're revealing quite a bit about yourself, my friend...

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So aliens don't require you to suspend your disbelief, but beautiful women do? You're revealing quite a bit about yourself, my friend...

Aliens who behave like aliens, no. Beautiful women who behave like beautiful women, no.

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Aliens who behave like aliens, no. Beautiful women who behave like beautiful women, no.

So... beautiful women have no business being action heroes? Man, movies must be twisting my view of reality.

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Regardless of whether the character is beautiful or not, regardless of how beautiful women are "supposed to behave" (the implications of that statement are best left unexplored, I think...), it's preposterous to the extreme to suggest that Subject Zero is somehow breaking the mold by being a "badass female character". Every female character in every Video game is basically an honorary boy in all respects, because actual honest-to-God femininity is in fact far more threatening to 13-year-old boys than a chick with a flamethrower. If the next Tomb Raider game revealed that Lara Croft was actually a post-op transexual the whole time, I'm not sure I'd be all that surprised.

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Sorry dude, if you're looking for a realistic badass woman, you're still looking in the wrong place. She doesn't look like a real ass-kicking woman does to me, she looks like she really wants to be a suicide girl. That is still playing into stereotypes, but in a slightly different way. Just as pandering though. I've defended her a bit too, mostly based on the fact that all we have is a really bad trailer, but that look is just as realistic for an action hero as Lara Croft. The fact that she's more Alternative Burlesque than Runway doesn't make her real, it makes her appeal to a slightly different group of drooling kids. She seems about as suitable to be holding an assault rifle as Kat Von D. (read: not very. Also, please forgive me for referencing that horrible show and irritating woman.)

Again, this is not saying she could not be cool, or an asset. She very well could. Nothing about that trailer shows it though.

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Regardless of whether the character is beautiful or not, regardless of how beautiful women are "supposed to behave" (the implications of that statement are best left unexplored, I think...), it's preposterous to the extreme to suggest that Subject Zero is somehow breaking the mold by being a "badass female character". Every female character in every Video game is basically an honorary boy in all respects, because actual honest-to-God femininity is in fact far more threatening to 13-year-old boys than a chick with a flamethrower. If the next Tomb Raider game revealed that Lara Croft was actually a post-op transexual the whole time, I'm not sure I'd be all that surprised.

You're not really getting what I'm saying. I'm not saying women aren't allowed to behave however they want to, I'm just saying that, in my experience, beautiful women of the kind frequently depicted in video games aren't actually as interested in flamethrowers and in wielding guns as they are made out to be in those games. So Bioware aren't breaking the mold by having a badass female (notice how I said in my earlier post that there had been hundreds already?), but they are breaking the mold of badass females by covering her in tattoos and having her as a skinhead. OK, it's not earth-shattering, but it is new. Show me one other female character in any video game or even film who is completely covered in tattoos. Even the caricatures of women in Saints Row 2 only have tattoos of the kind porn stars have. They are not covered all over in tattoos, and they aren't skinheads.

The fact that she's more Alternative Burlesque than Runway doesn't make her real

It makes her a lot realer than most badass females, which is why this is a laudable effort. Seriously, even having a suicide girl is a lot more believable than having the leader of the cheerleading squad! If you are trying to imagine a violent woman (and don't want to go down the Aileen Wuornos route) a skinhead covered in tattoos isn't a bad start.

Admittedly the character is a bit over the top and comic-book style, and not even to my taste, but I felt the need to defend it as I think people are criticising it too vehemently and not acknowledging that the character is actually quite interesting and unusual and exciting in some ways, it just seems more realistically human to have a character who is obviously mentally damaged and a bit screwed up on the inside, and is perhaps violent because of that. The tattoos suggest the character has some kind of mental inner life, and is somewhat conflicted and self-hating, a bit like a suicide girl maybe, which is quite a sophisticated approach, the character actually seems interesting to me simply because of the design, the tattoos suggest insecurity. Having them all over could potentially be alienating for some people, so I think it is a pretty bold design choice (even though she is still good-looking beneath it all). Maybe the script won't live up to the design, though, but I do think the mere fact that she is covered in tattoos is interesting and unusual. And it is rare for women to be skinheaded, the only one I can think of is Sinead O'Connor, and she was pretty rebellious.

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It makes her a lot realer than most badass females, which is why this is a laudable effort. Seriously, even having a suicide girl is a lot more believable than having the leader of the cheerleading squad! If you are trying to imagine a violent woman (and don't want to go down the Aileen Wuornos route) a skinhead covered in tattoos isn't a bad start.

The violent ones always look relatively normal :tup:. Except in the case of people in the metal music culture, in general they tend to be pierced to the extreme as opposed to tattooed, a large amount of tattoos means to me that the person in question enjoys pain to an extent whilst piercings take far less time to get done. But this is besides the point.

The character herself is horrible, with both mannerisms and presentation.

Admittedly the character is a bit over the top and comic-book style, and not even to my taste, but I felt the need to defend it as I think people are criticising it too vehemently and not acknowledging that the character is actually quite interesting and unusual and exciting in some ways, it just seems more realistically human to have a character who is obviously mentally damaged and a bit screwed up on the inside, and is perhaps violent because of that.

So you think that a game should try and tackle the infinitely more problematic problem of mental issues above those of homosexuality and even love? Other forms of media didn't do that until they had matured (gaming hasn't) and many people (including me) find it fairly offensive for these issues to be dealt with badly, which this will be, with an initial presentation of the character like this I can't see it progressing to something acceptable ever.

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So you think that a game should try and tackle the infinitely more problematic problem of mental issues above those of homosexuality and even love? Other forms of media didn't do that until they had matured (gaming hasn't) and many people (including me) find it fairly offensive for these issues to be dealt with badly, which this will be, with an initial presentation of the character like this I can't see it progressing to something acceptable ever.

But this is a big-budget studio game. Compared to big-budget studio movies, it's miles ahead in its treatment of just about everything. You ever see a Hollywood blockbuster that dealt sensitively with homosexuality? I think it's the rule that they deal with issues very insensitively in big budget movies.

Maybe one day games will deal with a broader range of issues in a deeper way, but demanding that a big-budget one should do so is a bit unrealistic, and also fails to acknowledge that Mass Effect probably compares very well to most big-budget movies in terms of its story and characters. Also, this is a combat-oriented game, so issues of why someone might be attracted to violence are arguably more relevant than the issues you mention, however desirable it might be that those issues should feature more prominently.

The character isn't horrible, I find her charismatic because of her appearance, I'm surprised people have so little time for this kind of character. Wouldn't having a normal, ordinary-looking character be a bit boring? And wouldn't a supermodel one be too unrealistic? What kind of female character would you have wanted? Or would people have preferred no females to be involved in the combat?

I think they've done well by making a potentially complex female character who it is easier to believe would be involved in combat than the usual traditionally beautiful lead females in games and movies. Where they've fallen down is the rubbish script, but then again, you might even find the cliches she delivers somewhat believable if you view them as being the product of someone vulnerable putting on an act, pretending to be tougher than she really is. I doubt that's what the developers intended, still, you could read it that way if you were trying to get the most out of the game. Anyway, overall my reaction to the character is positive - I wouldn't have come up with a character like this if it was up to me, but I don't think she ruins the game.

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It makes her a lot realer than most badass females, which is why this is a laudable effort. Seriously, even having a suicide girl is a lot more believable than having the leader of the cheerleading squad! If you are trying to imagine a violent woman (and don't want to go down the Aileen Wuornos route) a skinhead covered in tattoos isn't a bad start.

Admittedly the character is a bit over the top and comic-book style, and not even to my taste, but I felt the need to defend it as I think people are criticising it too vehemently and not acknowledging that the character is actually quite interesting and unusual and exciting in some ways, it just seems more realistically human to have a character who is obviously mentally damaged and a bit screwed up on the inside, and is perhaps violent because of that. The tattoos suggest the character has some kind of mental inner life, and is somewhat conflicted and self-hating, a bit like a suicide girl maybe, which is quite a sophisticated approach, the character actually seems interesting to me simply because of the design, the tattoos suggest insecurity. Having them all over could potentially be alienating for some people, so I think it is a pretty bold design choice (even though she is still good-looking beneath it all). Maybe the script won't live up to the design, though, but I do think the mere fact that she is covered in tattoos is interesting and unusual. And it is rare for women to be skinheaded, the only one I can think of is Sinead O'Connor, and she was pretty rebellious.

You're talking to a guy who spent Thursday night re-shaving his girlfriend's head. I'm definitely down with the skinhead girls. That said, spending 4+ nights a week with one (we don't cohabitate, but pretty much act like we do) for the past 2 years really taught me a few things about just how "realistic" stylizing yourself like a suicide girl is. Comparing Sinead O'Connor to a suicide girl is a horribly insulting thing to Sinead. There's a big difference between a woman who decides that she just doesn't want to have hair and shaves it off (resulting in a LOT of weird looks from strangers. Small children asking "what's that?" is also pretty common when we're out together) and one who does it to attract attention on the internet.

Thing is, Subject Zero is not a real woman. She is a character in a game, and one now being featured in the marketing. Again, as I keep saying, we don't know the game yet. Maybe she is a really well fleshed out character who has believable motivations for everything she does. "Some are because hey, fuck you" notwithstanding, of course. If she weren't the boring suicide-girl type of skinhead though, this way that she is being marketed is very deceptive to the game. As she's being used right now, she is a hollow exploitation of the style in order to move copies, which is pretty far from legitimate, and feels like it cheapens the look of women who actually do feel more themselves without hair. Shoehorning Marcus Fenix into a female shell the way the trailer portrays is not a progressive step for women in games to me. She is no more a realistic portrayal of a bald woman than Zangeif from Street Fighter is a realistic Russian or Reni Wassulmaier from GTA Vice City (or hell, Florian Krevich) is a realistic gay man.

If I were simply to look at a piece of concept art for the character, I would probably be reacting much more similarly to you. She is visually striking, the tatoos are an interesting look, and I find "weird" hair on women very attractive. Aside from unrealistic-for-combat clothing and bust size, she looks much more capable than most female game characters. All of your defenses come from design choices in her look, which is fine, but ignores the fact that we have heard her speak, and her speech is incredibly contrary to everything that could have made her interesting. There are a lot of boring (or worse) characters out there that have some appeal to their look. I don't see anything about Subject Zero as of yet that elevates her above that. Though the story in Mirror's Edge was pretty meh, if you're looking for a progressive female character Faith is leagues beyond SZ. She just didn't have nothing on but leather suspenders, so she didn't get as much attention. I hope that you're right. I hope she is a fascinating character with a detailed and interesting back story. Then I watch her monologue trailer again and get depressed. Regardless of how the character may actually be in the game, I take most of my offense from the fact that she (and her look) are being used cynically by a marketing campaign to appeal to sexually frustrated geek stereotypes.

Sorry to be reacting in a slightly hostile manner to you. As a guy who happens to be in love with a bald girl, it's a subject that's close to my heart.

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"Some are because hey, fuck you"

Objection! That is conjecture, we don't know she said that!

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The character isn't horrible, I find her charismatic because of her appearance, I'm surprised people have so little time for this kind of character. Wouldn't having a normal, ordinary-looking character be a bit boring? And wouldn't a supermodel one be too unrealistic? What kind of female character would you have wanted? Or would people have preferred no females to be involved in the combat?

Maybe a character similar to Ashley in the original game, a character that is clearly not a super model, she may look a little ordinary, but hell they are in the military so wouldn't need to have to glam themselves up. I don't see how you can see this as more realistic the character looks more frail than tough (minus the tattoos). If you were to see a more realistic woman in that role, if anything I would expect her to be more built up.

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There's way too much text in this thread for me to go through the whole thing and address individual points, but my distaste for the trailer is far more based on the voiceover than the visuals, although neither appeals to me. To my memory, pretty much every spoken line was ridiculous-sounding to me. She just seems like a ludicrous character that I'm pretty sure I would find equally grating as a male or female. I found the Prince in the Warrior Within demo to be pretty loathsome for similar reasons, so I'd like to think I'm equal-opportunity in that regard.

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OK so my actual thoughts on the character is that she seems like an adrenaline junkie with slight suicidal tendencies. Her representation as a bald and tattooed woman is irrelevant to me, at this point, the trailer may well be misleading. This is likely because people I know and are close to me are these sort of people, but we shall see. It may be different to an outsider, say me liking Travis Touchdown, while not being linked to that culture at all, maybe it is different to those linked t it.

The one thing I do NOT agree with is the apparent perception (from the trailer) that this person is insane, crazy, mentally unstable or whatever you want to call it; she isn't, from what we have seen, she may well not be in the right state of mind compared to a normal person, but that isn't the same thing. I hope that the trailer is either accidentally or purposefully presented like this and the final product is not the same.

Finally it also seems that if they are purposefully trying to link people who behave in the way portrayed with the trailer with an image associated with modern metal, punk or other often frequently looked down on genres. Again hopefully it is a miscommunication between advertisers and the character designers.

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I have to say, I actually dug Subject Zero. But I was laughing hysterically at how you guys worked her into the podcast. She totally is that character I like, but also like to make fun of (most of the Gears of War characters).

I also like the concept of Subject One you guys had; looking a bit like Miss Muffet and being super accommodating.

"Oh dear Shepard I cant do those naughty things, you havent properly courted me for 5 years *blink blink*"

With the beautiful women discussion I'd like to name drop a bit.

Female characters that were real women to me (regardless of state of undress- wearing a mini skirt doesnt make you less of a woman):

Heather (SH3), Faith (Mirror's Edge), Joanna Dark (orig PD), Jill (RE), Chell (Portal) Not going to go too crazy naming them.

As a chick (yup.) those were a handful of gals that made me feel more invested in the story and sounded like they were from the right perspective. There's a couple instances where playing the main character chick as a chick doesnt feel right, you still feel like you're playing a dude. Those characters arent necessarily less feminine either. It's a weird finesse.

Heather honestly is the stand out for me personally. I played the game when I was her age almost exactly, still a high schooler, and wore jean skirts as well. I feel like it had the same effect as a young married man playing Silent Hill 2.

There's certainly chicks who have the sexy look but I thought were good realistic characters. Sniper Wolf, Tifa, Sheva Alomar. Sometimes I stretch that list to Lara Croft simply because when I was super young a friend and I would go through adventuring with her, it felt like we were being a super cool acrobatic older chick. Back then she looked just as done up as a high schooler to us :P

Edited by Rawru

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Is it me or did we miss the point that Mass Effect already had a non-conventional, in-to-weapons-and-kicking-posteriors female character?

Did everyone forget Ashley Williams so quickly?

I didn't like her but I always felt that was because of how well she was written: a believable working class racist. Sure I sent her to her death but I actually felt bad about that, I mean at the end of the day she died helping to save a universe full of things she despised. Pretty honorable if you ask me.

Subject zero by contrast is both a parody and celebration of some seriously fucked up people (people who could actually do with serious psychiatric help not encouragement). I felt as queasy watching that stuff as watching Domino.

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I was reading Quintin Smith's series of articles for Rock Paper Shotgun on Pathologic, and it occurred to me that a grim game like Pathologic handles mature subject matter much more elegantly than Dante's Inferno and Lakes of Semen or Mass Effect 2's newest and baddest biotic bitch, Subject Zero.

The comparison is probably sharpest when I compare Pathologic and Dante's Inferno. Both games present hellish places, but Pathologic's town doesn't project the same sense of repugnance and grossness as Dante's Inferno's Hades.

As for Pathologic vs. Subject Zero, Subject Zero just seems like an adolescent boy's idea of what a hardass, Warren Ellis-esque chick should be. It's almost a caricature of Tank Girl, for example, and it hints that Mass Effect 2's characterization is more shallow than the player would expect. It's the same problem of Dragon Age Origin's "give magic books for sex" mechanic. Relationships and people aren't so simple, and BioWare can do more nuanced and less abrasive characters than Subject Zero.

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...

Speaking of obnoxious, smarmy, and ill-written female characters, I really hate the one in your avatar. Not that Warehouse 13 was really good TV or anything before, but it was okay to put on in the background at work until they had that horrible Claudia character come in. The show has just become unwatchable with nearly every character (her mostly) inserting their little one-liners inbetween every action or pause in conversation. Sheesh.

Sorry if this is flame bait, I guess it's sort of on the subject of the same problem I have when hack writers make up characters like Subject Zero without even going into her appearance.

The thing with the Tank Girl comparison is that she never exactly stood for much in the original comics, and to just do a bad ass sneering chick with a shaved head and a knack for weaponry sort of misses the point. I think originally maybe that's what Jamie Hewlett had in mind, but then he notoriously said he would purposefully keep changing her look and hairstyle as he found people imitating or projecting what they thought she would be and tell/show him. Alan Martin's writing for the series until he was rejected from a particular story after the movie (From his own comic! Details in the newest, third remastered edition...) always tended to be stream of consciousness, nebulous, and lacking any ongoing plot or proper endings really to most shorts. A lot of what made Tank Girl so weird and distinctive I think has to do with the way the comic was structured rather than an angry tough chick constantly spouting out catch phrases and acting angsty. But if anyone has read much of Deadline magazine, the anthology mag where Tank Girl originated, almost all of the strips were like that in one way or another.

So has anyone read any of the new Tank Girl series yet? I own a couple of books but haven't had time yet. Alan Martin seems to be the only one who will be able to write her in a way that is convincing and anarchic, but I don't know how he's doing at the moment. Maybe Bioware can import him?

What's kind of sad about this is the recent interview with Mac Walters, who I sort of felt was building himself up and talking out of his ass. He didn't seem to display much humbleness at all when juxtaposed against the other two in the interview trio, Chet Faliszek and Rob Gilbert, so it's sort of funny to see the Subject Zero trailer as the new preview.

In a way, it's always sort of been a good thing video games aren't played much for the writing in the manner of film, books, comics etc...

Edited by syntheticgerbil

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As far as I'm concerned project zer0 is such a cliche stereotype that she makes me not want to play the game, simply because I'm not sure if I could put up with her.

Also, when I listened to the (amazing) cast I found my self imagining that all the gun sounds were various animals all taking a dump...

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Since the conversation is serving in to believable female characters, I have to mention The Longest Journey (and, to a lesser degree, Dreamfall). Not only is it one of the best [adventure] games I've ever experienced, it has a great female lead, who you first really get connected to, through her everyday life and friends, and who then keep you grounded once you embark on your adventure. I really really dug the story in TSL, and especially because of April Ryan.

I think the game is under-represented on Idle Thumbs, but I wont mail in and berate them for that before I've worked my way through the entire archive, could be I'm totally wrong. :x

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Well lets not forget the context... this was covered on a podcast, a modern day radio show.

I was listening on the way to work, I hadn't seen the trailer the day before. As Chris started to talk about it I thought "nah, come on it can't be that bad" because Chris sounded utterly dejected, as if this trailer had in one fell swoop made him go from looking forward to buying and playing the game, to most likely not touching it. Quite a turnaround for someone who liked to talk about Mass Effect and his problems with sniper rifles a lot. Personally I loved Mass Effect and nothing could sway my interest in this game. I thought that the trailer must have ended with a diss on Far Cry 2 or Pikmin 2 multiplayer or something.

Boy was I wrong a minute later. Based solely on the audio of the trailer, I too was now totally disinterested in ME2. Which I thought was HILARIOUS. I guarantee none of the epicness of the change of tone that caused said hilarity had anything to do with those words being said by a woman/fembot.

"Some are to remember. Some are for kills. You know, good ones. And some are for because, hey, fuck you."

I hope she has a breaking the fourth wall voiceover in the game, that would be so awesome and original! It was so awesome and original in Fight Club, Domino, Lock Stock, Snatch, Crank, Crank 2. I can't take it its so edgy! I can't think of a better way to let me know that this character just DOESN'T GIVE A SHIT WHAT YOU THINK!!!!

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Since the conversation is serving in to believable female characters, I have to mention The Longest Journey (and, to a lesser degree, Dreamfall). Not only is it one of the best [adventure] games I've ever experienced, it has a great female lead, who you first really get connected to, through her everyday life and friends, and who then keep you grounded once you embark on your adventure. I really really dug the story in TSL, and especially because of April Ryan.

I think the game is under-represented on Idle Thumbs, but I wont mail in and berate them for that before I've worked my way through the entire archive, could be I'm totally wrong. :x

I actually think April Ryan (and most character in the Longest Journey as well) are all pretty shallow as well. Ms. Ryan particularly being full of one liners and sarcastic comments by a writer who clearly doesn't know what a girl is like and instead relies on a Hollywood perception. Besides all of the obvious long winded and tedious dialogue in the game that doesn't have much to do with the topic, the content of April Ryan's diary is exactly the kind of trash writing I hate seeing in games .

I tend to think The Longest Journey got a lot of love that it didn't deserve. I'm kind of glad the hype died down over the years, but it seems Syberia and Benoit Sokal games in turn swooped up all the attention instead, which in my mind is worse. I didn't play Dreamfall.

Either way, I'm having a hard time thinking of well-written, strong, tough, believable female characters in video games outside of Maureen from Full Throttle, who you don't even play. They were going to totally fuck her up into some stereotype dyke mess in the sequel that never came out. Thank goodness.

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