Eventually…

… I’ll be starting a little project called “Skydim.” I just got Skyrim for PC and have been playing it way more than a grad student should. After the first hour, I started rapidly taking screenshots of clipping errors (eventually, I’d like to take video, but I’m sadly not tech-savvy enough to actually figure out how to do that.) There will be all sorts of appropriate disclaimers, and the blog will be dedicated entirely to screenshots of those errors that are deemed funny enough to appear on the site. Likely, I’ll be updating about once a week, with one screenshot and some commentary. I hope to see my one single reader (Hey Mom!) pop over there every so often. Especially to correct me when I get something wrong.

This is Halloween, This is Halloween!

Halloween is just around the corner. I’m super excited, are you super excited?

I am.

So anyway, for Halloween this year I’ll be dressing up as Hit Girl from the comic-book-turned-movie, Kick Ass:

My costume is less "badass little girl" and more "poor college student using her friend's sewing machine for the first time."

But this wasn’t my first choice for a costume, not by a long shot. My first choice? Resident Evil 5‘s Sheva Alomar:

 

"What's 'emasculation' and can I shoot it in the face?" Yes, Sheva, please do, because we're all sick of that term.

I was all a-twitter about the costume: should I wear a BSAA version of her shmexy, impractical cleavage outfit? What sort of gun should I use? Do I need to get my ears pierced, risking infection? Should I get a wig?

And then I remembered something: Holy shit, Sheva Alomar is South African, and also black.

I am white.

Suddenly, my costume idea was a terrible one. I mean, granted, Sheva was incredibly white-washed compared to the other South Africans encountered during the game [even when they were transformed into obligatory "zombie gray"], but her parents’ skin color was never mentioned; she could have had one parent who had lighter/white skin. And obviously, not every South African should or does have the same damn skin color. I felt racist even considering that, and sat for a while staring at a picture of her and thinking how awful I’d been for even considering dressing up like a black woman.

But Sheva is my favorite character from the Resident Evil series. She’s awesome! In the game, she completely holds her own, isn’t flirty with Chris like Jill is with Josh in the downloadable content [and with helicopter guy, who, to be frank, was being super fucking creepy. Seriously, we are in the midst of a fucking zombie outbreak and you are trying to HOOK UP with the lady you are rescuing?] and gets to SLIT PEOPLE’S THROATS when you melee from behind.

GAH! Plus, her boots… WOO! I want those damn boots.

But still, dressing up as her felt something akin to blackface, which is deplorable.

I’m thinking back on my decision, today, going over all the racist Halloween costumes out in stores, and even the racist extra costumes for Sheva in the game.

This is called Sheva's Clubbin' Outfit, and if you don't know why that's racist, then you need to read some bell hooks.

NO CAPCOM. THAT IS NOT ACCURATE OR OKAY. PLEASE STOP.

I’m thinking… waitasec. Why is it racist for a white woman to dress up as a black woman, if the point of the costume is the character she is portraying, and not that the character is black? Sheva’s blackness is part of her identity, obviously, and me attempting to mimic her blackness through makeup or other means is just plain… well, stupid. But why would dressing up like Sheva be racist? In fact, I’m thinking my decision NOT to dress up like her was the racist one. I was afraid that my numerous black friends [zero] would become enraged that I had dared to dress up like a black woman.

Way to go Sunshinetango, way to assume all of your black friends [zero] are going to all become angry and offended for the same reason, when you A) aren’t trying to be offense and B) aren’t really doing something offensive. What if I was trying to dress up like Ada Wong [I wouldn't, her dress would be fucking hard to make]? Would that be less racist because we have a similar skin tone? Or would I have had the same issue, feeling like my Asian friends [two] would become angry with me? Especially considering that Ada Wong is Chinese [I think?] and not all of my Asian friends [two] are Chinese.

No, look, my decision to not dress up like Sheva was a racist one. And I rejected the costume in favor of a ten-year-old white girl.

But still, at least Hit Girl is also a badass.

EEEE!!!: Beyond Good and Evil 2

The Boy found an excellent-quality trailer/sneak peek at some of the awesome that will inevitably be Beyond Good and Evil 2. I was excited for this from the time I finished the first one, and I’m still excited now! Beyond Good and Evil is my favorite game of all time, hands down. I’ve played through it at least eighteen times, twice in French and once in Spanish, just to shake things up a little. I mean, this game literally changed the way I thought about video games. Up until I played it, my choice of video game heroines were Lara Croft, and Coco Bandicoot… I mean, their pixelated badassery was great, don’t get me wrong.

There just weren’t that many strong, female protagonists back in the halcyon days of cartridges and D-pads. The ladies didn’t really make a breakthrough until the Playstation 1, with the Tomb Raider, Coco, and a scant few others. And most of the games that came out of the states didn’t star a female character–she was in the background. That was the position that women took in gaming: ten paces behind a man. I mean, even now, in 2010, there still aren’t that many games that star a woman coming out of the United States. Just a brief sweep of the game covers reveals the same gritty white male with some sort of backstory-related facial scar.

Sure, there are games where you can decide if you’re a man or a woman, but the worlds in which the male and female character operate are not created equal. Just look at Oblivion, where the stats for your character are different, depending on if you are male or female (spoiler: the women are usually physically weaker, what a surprise.) As well, in games like Fallout 3 and Mass Effect 1, the clothes or facial disfigurements change for your character if they’re female–in Fallout 3, Sexy Sleepwear becomes a teddy on a female model, whilst being pajamas on a male model, and in ME1, the scars for the women are noticeably smaller and more discreet than the men’s massive facial scars.

The point is, there are few games that star women, and those that do usually feature prominently her tits, not her personality. The game is marketed to men, not to women. We can’t even have our own heroes!

But Beyond Good and Evil was different! For those who’ve never played it, it had nothing to do with Nietzsche. The game stars Jade, a photojournalist, an “Action Reporter.” She lives on the planet Hyllis in a lighthouse, taking care of a cadre of orphans with her “Uncle Peyj,” a pig-man. On a suspicious mission from a suspicious character, Jade and Peyj uncover a government conspiracy relating to the safety of their planet from the alien threat, the Domz. It’s full of action, adventure, and interesting characters that, even if you only meet them for a moment, seem totally complete. Sure, the boys at Mammago Garage in the game are kind of a stereotypical version of Jamaicans, but they’re also rhinoceros-people, so I’m not really sure what’s going on there.

Regardless, the game was awesome, and starred a non-sexualized female who was able to handle herself. She had an interesting background (she’s also an orphan), and was a complex, deeply moving character that I easily related to.

I hope they finish this game. I hope it’s awesome. I hope it shows gamers that a female doesn’t need to have her tits hanging out to catch their attention.

Without further ado, and with my rant at its completion, I present to you the trailer I mentioned earlier:

Oh yeah, it’s that good.

I have got to stop…

… reading comments to posts I’m interested in. I’m serious. I know that the world (and especially the internet, due to its anonymity) is full of people willing to say hurtful, bigoted things just because they can, but I get so enraged reading it. The article and subsequent comments that spawned this post is from [I seem to be going here a lot lately] Kotaku, and is an interview with Casey Hudson a “project lead” on Mass Effect 2 [it's a popular game!] The article, The Thoughts Behind Miranda’s Behind in Mass Effect 2, is a follow-up to the article about homosexuality. And the comments… well, here; this is an insightful and self-proclaimed semi-feminist comment from one reader, in which she includes the comments from other readers that she is referring to [in italics]:

“Some of the comments here have certainly made me question my opinion of the Kotaku readership – I feel for those men who are embarrassed and ashamed by the actions of their fellow men. Seems that simply asking questions and sharing an opinion from the unique female perspective on games is offensive enough to warrant insult and ridicule.

For the record, most of you here sound like misogynistic bastards; completely closed off to the idea that women do not experience games (or sexual attraction for that matter) the same way you do from your convenient position of being the major demographic – the ‘catered to’ audience. Women have to slip into your world and find a comfortable position within it all – and sometimes stuff like this just doesn’t sit right – yet by all accounts we’re not allowed to voice that discomfort?

Are we not allowed to validly question developers? Are we are not allowed to see sex differently? Are we all in a time warp and back in the 19-fucking-50′s?

Here’s a choice selection of the bile being spewed by people here. I think it deserves to be highlighted.

“As a side note…speaking as a male, guess what? I look at hot womens’ asses. All the time. If the author was hot, and had a great ass, and she was in my vicinity…I would look at it. That’s just how it works, sorry if you hate men but unless a man is gay, chances are real good he enjoys looking at hot women’s asses.”

“Every single Kotaku article written by a woman, that I’ve read, has been worthless, insipid garbage. This feminist whinefest, and the one before it, is no different … Yeah, it’s true: men like attractive women in tight outfits. Get over it. Or buy yourself some cats.

“if you don’t like miranda’s fake, yet awsome ass, go fucking play Mario. Cunt.”

“Hahahahah! This chick just had her period all over this page and titled it “The thoughts about Miranda’s behind” You don’t get your dick and manass shots because they are trying to appeal to the MASSES with that. If you want to appeal to the MASSES and the MASSES just so happen to be male.”

“No offence Tracy, but you sound like a bit of a Prude … Outside of a few prudish people (many woman I know would have liked that shot, nevermind be bothered enough by it to actually confront the game designer about it in a minorly hostile and judgmental way).”

“Oh, please. Mass Effect seeks to demean all women. Get over yourself.”

“Honestly, all i see in this article is the author putting Hudson on the spot by whining and demanding answers to a completely irrelevant and harmless aspect of the game. It’s ridiculous that this is even an issue.”

“This is exactly why the author isn’t a successful video game developer.”

“This post is nothing but drivel written by someone trying to make a big deal out of nothing.”

“psstt…stfu.”

I am not a feminist particularly, but I too found Mass Effect 2 to be annoyingly sexualised. It detracted from the story, and no, “she was genetically engineered to be that way” doesn’t really excuse zoom in shots of her arse. I was also put off by Jack and Samara for similar reason; lest not forget the succubus daughter.

From Mass Effect 1 – which was an exemplar games where a strong female lead doesn’t have to be about sexual objectification – to Mass Effect 2, where almost every female character has their tits and arse accentuated for ‘fan service’ purposes; it was a step backwards, and Tracey has every right to discuss it, question it and share her opinion of it.

All you sexists who automatically disqualify her opinion because she is female need to wake up to what century you’re living in and perhaps learn that women do not view the world exactly as men do.”

I wanted to scream. Someone writes an interesting article with a well-made, and brief, point, and what happens? Some of the boys feel their fantasy is threatened by the intellectual commentary. Heaven forbid people have a serious discussion about video games–something that a lot of the gamers I’ve met, really, want people to do, so that we’ll all be taken seriously as worshipers of a new art form. And heaven forbid that discussion includes the idea, nay, the fact, that most video games cater to the male perspective.

Here’s a take-home message: It insults your intelligence, guys, that game designers assume that you can easily be drawn into a game from gratuitous ass shots, and tits hanging out everywhere. Why? Because the game designers know that they can be lazy in storyline [which ME2 was] and in character depth [which both ME2 and ME1 were, deceptively--a flaw here or there does not a complex person make [and one dialogue with Joker (in ME1) does not satisfy the Seth Green fans ;_;]. They can make you pay $60 to see an ass you could find for free on the internet, and they’re not giving you a much better story than the porno Pirates.

Okay, so the storyline is better than Pirates, but that’s not the point. The point is, if you stop acting like misogynistic, wiener-brained, dumb-struck “We’ve-never-seen-a-nice-ass-before”-boys, the game designers will have to pick up the slack they made. They will have to start making more creative, and innovative games that appeal to your [and women's] intelligence, not just our genitals. Like Psychonauts. Remember Psychonauts?

Mass Effect 2: Effectively… Disappointing [MASS EFFECT 2 SPOILERS WARNING]

Beautiful game. Bioware always makes beautiful games. (Even if their female characters are usually in pretty revealing outfits) But I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed again, Bioware.

Here’s some background info. Mass Effect 1 featured a character that you could customize, male or female, even their background to some extent. All of it effected the game a little. You also chose how you reacted to certain situations throughout the game as well–you could be a paragon of virtue, or a total prick to everyone you met. The same goes for Mass Effect 2. You make a character, customize them (or pick your character from Mass Effect 1 if you’ve beaten it), and make choices for how your character acts toward others. In ME1 you were able to make your female character gay with the alien Liara or the Consort, a sort of high-end alien prostitute on the Citadel. You could not make your male character gay.

I let it slide. Why? Because there wasn’t anything I felt I could do about it. But now I’m playing ME2, and you still can’t be a gay male. The claim has been made on the forums that you can be gay as a woman in ME1, but it isn’t really “gay” because the Liara’s people are unisex, thus not technically female (they still have “hawt boobehs,” soft voices for the most part, tiny waists, and basically look like blue women–they are also, apparently, the majority of strippers in the galaxy). However, in Dragon Age: Origins, I found out, you can be a gay women, or a gay man (with one character, a flamboyant elf of course.)

So basically… what the fuck, Bioware? Do you think a male character can’t be masculine if he fucks dudes? Or are you so inundated by corporate greed that you can’t see what you have the power to do with your games? Normalize homosexual relationships for gamers? Please stop doing this to your customer base. All Bioware has to do is go on their forums–they will see what their customer base has to say. A lot of people are disappointed, and I’m not the only one.

Thank you, Bioware, for being just another corporate asshat who exploits women and lesbians to make money, and who fails at not ostracizing your customer base. I won’t be purchasing any more games from you until I get my DLC Gay Garrus or my DLC Gay Jacob.

UPDATE: There’s a pretty good article on Kotaku called “BioWare Explains Why There’s No Homosexuality in Mass Effect 2″ with an interview with some of the BioWare staff in it. The problem with it, however, is that there IS homosexuality in ME2: female!Shephard can have sex with Kelly [Mass Effect 2 Romance Guide on GamesRadar]. A lot of the comments are along the lines of, “Well, duh, the characters aren’t GAY” so I decided to respond… My comment hasn’t been posted but I thought it was good, and since I have an ego the size of a small star, here’s my comment [sorry for the Huge Block of Text That is My Comment]:

“So, a lot of the replies here seem to be, “Well, not everyone is gay or bi, jeez!” … So, why the hell can the female Shepard be bi? They’re the same person, just a different gender. I don’t understand the concept of “Male Shepard just doesn’t seem like a gay character to me.” WTF makes a “gay character?” What, does he need to wear a pink scarf and tell everyone about his cake-decorating hobby? Can a male video game character be tough, gruff, and strong, AND happen to like men? In the game, if you are a woman, you can have sex with Kelly. But you cannot have sex with any of the male characters if you are male. This is the real issue. They [Bioware] claim that they just didn’t want to put in any gay characters, but in reality, they thought, “Hey, dudes play this game, and dudes like some girl-on-girl action, no matter how PG it is! Let’s just add in some lesbians, and forget about all those gay men! They are pansies and gross.” Not only is Bioware stereotyping 1) male gamers and 2) gay men, they are also assuming that girls do not play their game, and that if they do, they will just ignore that content. I’m aware this response is long, but I’m hoping I’ve made my point: two different versions of the same person, one male and one female, but the male doesn’t seem “gay” to you, while the female can ride whoever she wants, as long as you get to watch. Nice.”

Seriously, it’s the bullshit.