As a follow up to the nerds and sexism thing, go read this.
I will pause now for the traditional arguments from my readers: these characters are all femme fatales in the comics, all of the characters in the Arkham games are over-the-top, the men are just as exaggerated/sexualized/objectified as the women. Got all of that out of your systems? Good.
Because that reaction is exactly what I’m talking about.
Y’see, one of the issues of male privilege as it applies to fandom is the instinctive defensive reaction to any criticism that maybe, just maybe, shit’s a little fucked up, yo.
Also this:
From the peeps at shortpacked.
Lately I’ve been tinkering with the idea of creating my own “indie” videogame. It’s a shitload of work though, so instead of creating something, I’ll take the easy road for now and tear down the hard work of others for my own amusement. Starting with indie darling, Bastion.
All indie games gotta have a gimmick right? Otherwise they are just a low budget commercial game. Bastion’s gimmick is the narrator. Watch the video and you’ll get the idea, the “stranger” narrates your path through the game. I think this idea is really cool, but the tone of the narrator and the cartoony art are incongruous. The gravel voiced “stranger” wants to set the tone of a desolate wasteland, but the colourful, vibrant, beautiful artwork of Bastion fights against it. It’s a shame, because the art on one side, and the voice acting, plot and atmosphere on the other are both great in their own right, if not for their schizophrenic combination.
The level design tries to make you feel that the world is crumbling around you, with no edges and long drops to your death; but as you walk around, the world actually falls into place and constructs itself in front of you. Your “leaps of faith” are all successful, making you feel safe, as if someone is looking out for you with a ready safety net. Contrast this with the approach of Dark Seed 2:
Dark Seed 2 is a point and click adventure game where you cannot fall off the edges (unlike in Bastion) but the narrow suspended walkways are much more unsettling. You can’t see the bottom, and their threat is more implied than real.
The combat in bastion is workable, but not very interesting. You have different melee and ranged weapons, with a bunch of special abilities, but on the whole it feels very button mashy. Dodging and defense are important but I found it easier to just eat the damage, spam hammer attacks and quaff potions like an junkie rather than employ any tactics. Turning the difficulty up or playing further into the game might invalidate this strategy, but I wasn’t having enough fun enough to warrant it. Aiming and hitting seemed imprecise, with the art and animation focussing more on looking pretty than providing functional feedback. The ranged weapons have a targeting guide that I found more confusing than helpful due to it being traced along the ground, rather than the actual flight path of the projectiles, and the height difference between the two paths caused by the isometric viewpoint.
So how would I improve Bastion? Or more to the point, how would I use this narrator concept in another game? A bit of unreliable narration would be nice, like in Spider and Web. Or subvert the usual RPG adventurer role goblins comic style, and have the narrator describe and condemn your every genocidal action. For example:
After setting the defenceless orc villagers on fire and laughing at their anguish, the ‘hero’ rifled through their home in search of valuables.
That approach would only work for a short form game though. For a longer play like Bastion, perhaps make the game itself much darker in art and music style, more punishing and scary in gameplay, and have the narrator as your one and only friend. Once the player gets accustomed to this, once they come to depend on the narrator, pull the plug on it. Make them feel alone, abandoned and afraid. When this becomes old, give them a hint and make them fight to get the narrator back. Apologies if Bastion actually does anything like this later, I only played through the demo on the google chrome marketplace (which worked brilliantly on linux).
Oh oh, bullshit science reporting incoming!
A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analysis of long-term effects of violent video game play on the brain has found changes in brain regions associated with cognitive function and emotional control in young adult men after one week of game play.
Hmm let’s examine this claim shall we. First up, who funded the research?
This research is supported by the Center for Successful Parenting, Indiana
Why it’s the Center for Successful Parenting! What does their mission statement say?
Our culture used to protect the innocent. Today our children are constantly exposed to sex and violence. Our vision is to move parents, leaders in health, government, business, education, public safety and other vocations to action by changing our culture to protect children from unhealthy media in all formats.
Hmm, no potential for bias there. Cue media outlets not doing their homework and rattling off alarmist headlines.
But let’s examine the study itself shall we? The authors are Yang Wang MD, Tom Hummer PhD, William Kronenberger PhD, Kristine Mosier DMD, PhD and Vincent Mathews MD. Unfortunately I don’t have the paper itself, just the press release and the abstract:
Twenty-two healthy adult males (age 18-29 years) with low past exposure to violent video games (average: 0.9±0.8 hours/week) were included in this report. Subjects were randomly assigned to two groups. In the video game group (n=11), subjects were instructed to play a violent video game for about 10 hours (average: 9.8±1.6 hours) at home in the first week, without game play for the next week. Another group (n=11) served as the control group without violent game play for two weeks.
They call that a control group? The study can’t possibly separate between the effects of violent video games versus “acceptable” video games like sim city or gran turismo. How about using three groups, one playing violent, one playing non-violent, and one doing nothing?
FMRI measurements were performed at baseline, 1, and 2 weeks follow-up… Two modified Stroop tasks were carried out in an event-related manner. During the emotional Stroop (ES) task, subjects pressed buttons according to the color of visually presented words. Words indicating violent actions were interspersed among the non-violent action words in a pseudorandom order. The counting Stroop (CS) task required subjects to press buttons to indicate the quantity (1-3) of a repeated numeral (1-3) that was discrepant with the quantity.
So in order to test their brain activity and emotional response, they had them play button pressing video games? Of course the ones who had been playing more adapted to it. They could have just gotten better at games. Being better at games, they would have cut to the crux of the game – the colour of the words, not their meaning. Or they could have gotten better at distinguishing the imaginary from the real, and realised that those words flashed on the screen are just that.
“These findings indicate that violent video game play has a long-term effect on brain functioning,” Dr. Wang said.
Or that video game play has a long term effect, violent or not, seeing as the study didn’t control for that. Whether that effect is harmful or beneficial or benign, they don’t comment on either.
If you want to prove that violent video games make people more violent, take a large sample of convicted violent offenders, and a sample of people with no record of violent crime. Do a linear regression to control for other factors show me the results.
This is appalling, but it sure explains the rampant sexism in videogames. Hey devs, 42% of all gamers are women! Perhaps you should not despise and fear them so much?
Clearly we need more women working in the games industry. We need to stop this bullshit. If you are a game developer like the turds in this video, grow the fuck up. Read something about feminism and misogyny. You don’t have to be afraid of women! It’s not their fault that you are afraid of them! Perhaps the reason you are single is because you hate women? Stop blaming them for your own failings.
And for those of you who would like to counter with the “this is just some shitty tv show” argument, you are so wrong.
Nehtack has been around since 1987, so bethesda have no reason not to blatantly plagiarise it. Here are some things from nethack which would have made Skyrim better.
1: Interesting enemy attacks
In Skyrim, enemies hit you until you die. Your job is to hit them until they die. You can hit each other with spells, swords and arrows, but it’s always the same, you chip away at their HP while they chip away at yours. You use the same strategy for every enemy, even ones you have never encountered before.
In nethack, enemies will mess with you in all kinds of ways. Nymphs will steal some of your items and then teleport a short distance away. Puddings will divide in two if you hit them with an iron weapon. Krakens will try to drown you. Succubi / incubi will attempt to seduce you and take off your clothes, leaving you naked and armor less until you put them back on. If you hit a rust monster with an iron weapon, it will corrode. Ravens will peck at your eyes, blinding you. Some monsters have passive attacks and can only harm you if you choose to hit them.
All this means each fight must be approached differently. This is especially the case when dealing with many enemies at once. Do I blindfold myself to negate the umber hulk’s stunning gaze attack, or do I deal with the nymph first (after all, she could steal my blindfold)? Do I take off all my armor and sheath my weapon so that the nurse’s attacks will increase my maximum HP instead of hurting me, or will a team of soldier ants show up and catch me with my pants down?
It would also make other aspects of Skyrim more interesting. What’s the point of stealth? All it gets you is a damage bonus to your first attack. If each enemy needed to be handled differently however, getting the skinny on enemy types before the biffo starts would make a huge difference. Also spell effects like “detect life” would be much more useful if you were temporarily blinded, using it you could still locate and attack the enemy.
2: Religion
There are gods in Tamriel. If you stop at their shrines you get a blessing. Some of your stats go up temporarily.
In nethack, you can make sacrifices to your god, who might give you pressies like really good swords and armor in return. If things are going badly and it looks like you are going to die, you can pray and they will help you out. Conversely, if you do something to anger your god (like killing one of their priests so you can take his loot), they will send minions and/or lightning bolts from the heavens after you. Nethack is full of these risk/reward choices that make things interesting. The only interesting choices in Skyrim are whether to go for spells or swords.
3: More ways to die
In Skyrim you die when your HP reaches zero. In nethack you can be killed from food poisoning, disease, starvation, sexual overexertion, being petrified (turned to stone), being drowned by a sea monster, having your brain sucked, or from accidentally magically genociding all creatures of your own race.
4: More enemies at once
In Skyrim you might face 10 enemies at once, a few times in the game. In nethack you can be facing fifty. Sure that would be hard to do in Skyrim without grinding your PC/console to a halt, but perhaps a swarm of small enemies (e.g. low polygon rats) wouldn’t look too bad, and could change things up.
5: The dev team thinks of everything
In Skyrim, you can turn into a vampire or a werewolf. In nethack, you can polymorph into any enemy in the game. If you turn into a Dragon and your character is female, you can lay eggs that will hatch into baby dragons who will fight with you. They will eventually “level up” into adult dragons. If your character is male, don’t worry, magical sex changes are also possible.
In skyrim, you can wield swords, maces, bows and spells. In nethack you can bash enemies with a dead cockatrice, which will turn them into stone. Just be careful you don’t fall down the stairs while carrying one, else you will touch it and be petrified yourself.
A computer program is nothing more than a list of instructions that the computer follows, a “recipe” if you will. The thing is, computers are stupid. They follow instructions to the letter, like good little robots, with no understanding of what you (the programmer) is trying to achieve.
Computer programmers like myself are therefore experts at writing instructions that are easily understandable, unambiguous, and hard to screw up. Which is why I fucking hate cookbooks.
Let’s take a look at some recipe excerpts. First up, “free” beer:
…
Sparge with 15,5 L of 78 °C water.
Collect 22,7 L of wort.
Remember to add Northern Brewer hops at the beginning
of sparge a.k.a. First Wort Hops/FWH.
Ok so first I sparge, then I collect wort, then I… “remember” to have done something at the start of the sparging process. Fuck! Don’t provide instructions out of order. The people following your recipe are not as good as modern CPUs. You’ll see this a lot in recipes where they will say “put it into an oven preheated to 180 degrees”. People read recipes top to bottom, they shouldn’t have to pour over the whole thing to find the instruction they should be doing first (pre-heating the oven) at the end of the recipe.
Next up, vegan pancakes:
- Mix the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl. Add the fruit and toss to coat the fruit with the dry mix.
- Combine the wet ingredients in a measuring cup.
Step 1 includes multiple instructions! I know when I am cooking, I can’t handle MIMD. Either break it down into multiple steps like so:
- Mix the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl.
- Add the fruit and toss to coat the fruit with the dry mix.
- Combine the wet ingredients in a measuring cup.
Or do it all 1 sentence per instructions like this:
Mix the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl. Add the fruit and toss to coat the fruit with the dry mix. Combine the wet ingredients in a measuring cup.
Next we have Stef’s Lemon rosemary olive oil cake:
Make a well, and pour in:
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil (for the flavour)
2 tbsp arrowroot or cornstarch mixed with 2 tbsp water to dissolve (this is a good binding agent)
1 tbsp baking powder mixed with 1/2 cup of soy (or other preferred) milk to dissolve and get a bit frothy (raising agent)
Juice and grated zest of 1 lemon with 1/2 cup of preferred milk and sit for a sec til it curdles (another raising agent)
Oh, Stef, I expected more from you. It’s so ambiguous! Do I mix the ingredients separate container and then add them to the well? Do I mix them after I put them in the well? And what is “making a well anyway”?
I could go on with a few more examples, but I’ll leave it there. No wait, I hate it when they put instructions in the ingredients section, e.g. “Ingredients: 1 tomato, blanched peeled, and lightly fried”. Ok I’m done.
Make sure to view it in fullscreen and HD if you can
Here is some stuff that has been keeping me entertained lately.
First up we have Madonna’s single “Like a prayer” which has been on heavy rotation in my brain lately.
Next we have Oblivion mod Nehrim.
Nehrim is awesome, better than vanilla oblivion in many ways, and for a free mod it is unbelievable how big it is. I have put 30 hours into it so far and I’ve barely scratched the surface. In a recent jaunt I decided to trek to the mountains at the edge of the game just to have a look, only to tumble down the other side and realise that those red lines on the map aren’t the edge of the game, they are just the borders of each region. The only downsides are the dreadfully long and linear opening segment, and the woeful cpu limited performance when outdoors in some cities (11 fps).
Lastly we have a book that I read ages ago and liked, Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
I am mentioning it now mostly because I am annoyed that they are turning it into a movie starring Thomas Fucking Hanks and Sandra Fucking Bullock.
Nethack is a video game. A very old school video game. I’ll just be lazy and let someone else summarise.
Instead I will just brag – I have finished nethack. I took my female dwarven valkyrie name RoboHobo all the way from the dungeon entrance, into the bowels of Gehemnom, retrieved the amulet from the wizard of Yendor, made it all the way back, and the offered the amulet to my god (Týr). Did I mention that nethack is hard? Because it is. Not like these piss easy games youngsters play nowdays. To explain how hard nethack is, here is a photo stef took of me while I was playing:
(Alternatively, imagine that there is no laptop out of frame, and provide your own caption)
In all of my 25 years of videogaming, I’ve never been so excited to finish a game.
RoboHobo, lawful female dwarven Valkyrie
RoboHobo the Heroine St:25 Dx:18 Co:20 In:14 Wi:19 Ch:9 Lawful S:1549823
Astral Plane $:21 HP:236(272) Pw:66(66) AC:-28 Xp:23/30060277 T:48053 Satiated
Latest messages
...
There is an altar to Tyr (lawful) here.
What do you want to sacrifice? [KM or ?*]
You offer the Amulet of Yendor to Tyr...
An invisible choir sings, and you are bathed in radiance...
The voice of Tyr thunders: "Congratulations, mortal!"
"In return for thy service, I grant thee the gift of Immortality!"
You ascend to the status of Demigoddess...
Farvel RoboHobo the Demigoddess...
You went to your reward with 3138846 points,
Grayswandir (worth 8000 zorkmids and 20000 points)
Excalibur (worth 4000 zorkmids and 10000 points)
The Orb of Fate (worth 3500 zorkmids and 8750 points)
2 amulets of life saving (worth 300 zorkmids),
1 amulet of magical breathing (worth 150 zorkmids),
and 21 pieces of gold, after 48053 moves.
Killer: ascended
You were level 23 with a maximum of 272 hit points when you ascended.
Full proof of my glorious victory can be found here.
I was listening to this song on the train this morning. It’s awesome, so I thought I’d share it.
I love the way the lyrics preach acceptance of the unknown, acceptance of the benign indifference of the universe, while still being very positive and cheery.
