Gaming and Women

Okay that’s an ambitious title I can in no way back up. I can’t really speak to the whole experience of women with games. But there’s been some shit stirred recently that caught my interest and made me slightly frustrated with the way conversations about ‘geeky’ media and feminism go. So first off: the very capable media critic Anita Sarkeesian has been doing this Feminist Frequency thing for a while and it’s quite nice! It’s bite-sized explanations of a lot of shit everyone should probably have a handle on. She likes games, so she decided to do similar explanatory videos about tropes and women in games. Basically, here’s what is meant by “damsel in distress”, here’s why some people take issue with it being a cliche, maybe shape up slightly?

So, she got just craploads of death threats and rape threats and … well one guy said he’d never date her which isn’t really a “threat” per se but suffice it to say her entry into the ‘gaming community’ proper with this video series was met immediately with some pretty harsh fucking words. Now, in a nice countermove here Kickstarter asking for $6,000 got funded for $158,917. So, that’s nice. But the thing is, the fact that the reaction to seeing the word ‘feminist’ next to the word ‘videogames’ got a significant portion of the internet crazy mad is not great. There’s also the fact that a rather large number of people responded to her discussing that with ‘Well that’s just how things are you know? You have to let it roll off your back.’ Which ignores the fact that in a lot of circles being inundated with rape and murder threats is not considered the cost of doing business. And it probably shouldn’t be!

Which leads to this interesting post on the blog of one Foz Meadows: rape culture and gaming. Also, on Pandagon: Geeks, You Have a Problem. Basically, there’s a simultaneous assumption by geeks that we’re too smart to be privileged or misogynistic or racist or whatever but if you want to change a goddamn thing about anything we will cut you. After arguing at a ridiculous length about this for years, I feel like it mostly comes down to people who are nice deciding that means they cannot do a bad thing. Well, no that goes too far obviously nice people realize if they just shot a dude it’s probably bad. But I’ve met a hell of a lot of nice people who don’t find using homophobic slurs particularly bad. It just means ‘stupid’, man! Get over it! It’s different! Anyway point is I will destroy mountains before I stop saying this one word I got in the habit of saying for no reason.

Nice people are extremely stubborn when you ask them to change any behavior that cannot be directly demonstrated to harm another person the moment it happens. Because for fuck’s sake, they had a groove. Now, you’re asking them to reevaluate everything and maybe never do some of the things they’re used to doing. That seems pretty mean! So feminist complaints about gaming culture are reduced to the nagging of shrill harpies who just don’t get us. Look, if you’re made uncomfortable by the unrelenting misogyny on display at tournaments, or the trailer for Hitman and the new Lara Croft game having an attempted rape in it but I’m not it sounds like you’re just a whiner. It often gets shifted to a censorship discussion because geeks feel more comfortable in that arena. But the thing is, no one is interested in censoring a goddamn thing. Ms. Sarkessian isn’t making a series of videos about ‘what games need to be destroyed’, she’s making a series of videos about what tropes exist, why they exist, and what that means for female gamers. The exploration of the concept that things may not be perfect is seen as an attack worthy of a pretty outsized response. And of course, the nice kind good people of the geek community say well that’s just 4chan they’re crazy I would never do that but anyway it kind of sounds like you’re just being whiny I never had a problem don’t censor games I like here’s a few examples of good characters that totally disprove everything they’re just doing what sells! They’re totally on your side they can’t stand those damn commenters either but have you ever thought about how all these weak-ass arguments prove you should shut up?

Look I love Bayonetta, it is the best. But I don’t think the hair-fetish shit was really the reason I had so much fun with it. I’m amazed that in a genre of media so much more defined by mechanics than narrative there’s such push-back against the ideas presented by feminist critiques.

Also worth reading: Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat. One of the pieces I found really interesting talked about how gender-neutral games were until some pretty random events kicked them into being a male-centric thing to do.

Also: Women beat 18-34 men for tech adoption and purchasing power. In case you talk to someone trying out that “just what sells” pile.

Steam Summer Sale: I’ve Run Out Of Titles

Hmph, today is less interesting but I still

Know what you need:

-Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light: It’s not really a Tomb Raider game, but it’s probably the most fun I’ve had in a twin-stick shooter, and it’s a great quick paced puzzle game. It’s incredibly well put together. I would say that for $3.74 it is absolutely more than worth it for single-player alone. Co-op is also super fun, but the levels change in order to accommodate either type of play.

-Audiosurf: Unique game that uses your music to populate the playing area, totally worth the money at this price if only for novelty value. Wonderful way to explore your music collection

Know that I don’t even know about these

-Rift: It’s an MMO, I just dont’ care.

-Risen: I have no idea whether it’s good or bad. Is $10 cheap enough for you? I got The Witcher 2 early in the sale, so I’m set for RPGs right now.

-Cities XL: So… Sim City? I guess? I don’t know, looks kind of bland.

-Sanctum: Mixed reviews, but could be fun and is also super cheap.

-Company of Heroes: I liked it a lot years ago, and for $2.50 it’s probably still the best looking RTS out there, but the DRM has gone from annoying to Super Annoying recently.

Know that these things are pretty crappy

-Quake: Yes, yeah. You could buy this ancient FPS if you are some kind of time traveller. Or we could just acknowledge that everyone has already played it and memories don’t cost money.

-Command and Conquer 4: I grew up on Command and Conquer, back when it wasn’t the worst RTS available for purchase.

-Counter Strike: Source: Haha you can’t fool me. There isn’t anyone who wants this who doesn’t already own it.

-Dead Rising 2: It’s not that it isn’t good, it’s just only 50% off. Come on, Capcom

-Street Fighter IV: Also only 50% off, only it’s been rendered obsolete by a new version and the PC community is vanishingly small. You need to be on an actual Street Fighter IV that is keeping you alive for this to be worth it.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light

This game, you guys, this game. It’s really great. You may have completely ignored it because “Lara Croft” has become synonymous with “really mediocre didn’t they stop releasing them 90′s platformer polygonal boobs”. That’s not what you want out of a game at all, that’s just stream-of-consciousness. Your brain is so tired of Lara Croft it didn’t even bother to insert articles.

I freely admit that the primary reason I bought it was that it was one of the very few local co-op options available on the X-Box 360. Online co-op is nifty and all, but I do actually know people willing to sit down with me. I went in expecting a half-decent co-op platformer, and I was shocked to receive one of the better games of 2010.

Guardian of Light is actually a top-down shooter with a little bit of light platforming, puzzle-solving, and exploration. It’s a simple formula, but strange to see placed on Lara Croft. First of all, the graphics are surprisingly pretty for a download-only game. The incredibly minor story involves trying to re-trap an evil being, Xolotl, who was trapped by the Incans because they weren’t fans of the world being destroyed. Single-player follows Lara putting the genie back in the bottle.

If you play co-op, an ancient Incan who was placed in stasis via magic named Totec helps you out with his magic infinitely-respawning spear and invincible shield. Spectacularly, puzzles and combat change in both style and difficultly when someone is playing with you. It makes the game a lot more interesting when playing through alone doesn’t give away the co-op experience.

Playing with a friend is definitely where the game shines, giving you the opportunity to work together toward a common goal, and adding some minor cooperative gameplay changes, including the very important ability to shout “THROW ME THE ROOOOOPE”, that create a sense of camaraderie that is stronger than in most co-op games in which you’re able to progress without your partner and might even feel like they’re just holding you back. At no point in the co-op game for Guardian of Light could you possibly make it past the death-traps without your trusty adventuring companion. The importance of keeping each other alive is reinforced over and over, and you’re easily able to resurrect so long as your partner is still alive, making you very dependent on one another.

The game is presented as a series of levels that present obstacles in the form of either waves of evil Incan monster-things that you must dispatch with guns that appear to fire bullets roughly the size of your palm, or solve puzzles that take a bit of thinking. The combat is quick and fun, and enhanced by a system of weapon types and bonuses of surprisingly complexity that you accrue over the course of the game by either being granted them at significant moments or as a reward for straying from the beaten path a bit.  Xolotl shows up to taunt you at regular intervals because like all recently-released evil beings, he’s congenitally incapable of just leaving the area quickly and quietly to plan the end of the planet while the heroes negotiate airfare.

Each level comes with bonus objectives and rewards for their completion, the biggest ones being the equal and opposite ones of “score X points” and “complete the level in Y time”. It allows for a minimum of a couple of playthroughs in different styles if you’re into being a bit of a completionist. I found myself doing a speedy run of 4-5 minutes per level, and a “Kill everything/Find Everything” run where I got all the little bonus objectives during my playing of the single-player mode.

There are a couple of DLC packs out, the first of which was free for people who purchased the game last year, and they all seem pretty solid if unremarkable. They add minor challenges for scoring super-high or completing something very fast.

If you don’t have anyone to play with, try the demo on Steam or X-Box Live, if you do have a friend, split it 50/50 and buy it today. It’s really one of my favorite gaming experiences of 2010, mostly because of the spectacular co-op.