Ha ha, suck it, frank miller. pwned
― Philip Nunez, Thursday, 5 April 2012 18:55 (twelve years ago) link
i can say with some certainty that i will never need to buy a new frank miller book ever again
― wrapped sausage stylus (forksclovetofu), Thursday, 5 April 2012 18:57 (twelve years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/bXNsGl.jpg
― bnw, Thursday, 5 April 2012 19:16 (twelve years ago) link
and yet they went with a butt shot
― thomp, Thursday, 5 April 2012 19:39 (twelve years ago) link
Plus all the male characters are still muscly male power fantasies and not you know
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6173/6171158228_5b3c3e0991.jpg
― raw feel vegan (silby), Thursday, 5 April 2012 19:49 (twelve years ago) link
lol or sigh?http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2012/04/potential-porn-site-sponsorship-causes-split-over-fighting-game-communitys-self-image.ars
― Nhex, Friday, 6 April 2012 02:23 (twelve years ago) link
I think the fighting game community is the same one that had a bunch of dudes earnestly defending trash-talking each other by shouting "get raped" and the like.
― raw feel vegan (silby), Friday, 6 April 2012 02:33 (twelve years ago) link
Did this get circulated around here or did I come across it somewhere else? I totally forget
http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/editorial-article/sexual-harassment-as-ethical-imperative-the-ugly-side-of-fighting-games
― raw feel vegan (silby), Friday, 6 April 2012 02:35 (twelve years ago) link
i saw that situation as a horrible example; that stuff does happen unfortunately, but the nature of most hardcore fighting games involving face-to-face situations leads to people being more respectful that you would guess, especially compared to online
― Nhex, Friday, 6 April 2012 03:34 (twelve years ago) link
good thread.
boring answer but i think this is mostly due to a) writing being secondary to gameplay (if this is even a consideration - v. often it is not) and b) videogame writing being completely terrible and embarrassing 100% of the time.
lots of folks have already said this stuff but i am serriously struggling to think of one well-written game and i have played roughly a billion of them. i don't think it's a coincidence that we're still in the dark ages when dealing with nuanced topics... we're in the dark ages PERIOD. so we get bad guys shouting 'bitch' at girls bc its easy shorthand for 'edgy'. lazy writing bc these people are lazy/horrible writers.
― original bgm, Friday, 6 April 2012 04:39 (twelve years ago) link
Earthbound & Mother 3 both well-written, you can count on me to parrot that anywhere.
― and i don't even care, similar to how a badass would respond (Abbbottt), Friday, 6 April 2012 05:10 (twelve years ago) link
the last express is better than agatha christie (but this is a once-in-a-decade game, for the most part yeah even/especially the games lauded for their writing do not have very good writing)
― their private gesture for bison (difficult listening hour), Friday, 6 April 2012 05:14 (twelve years ago) link
agreed on mother/earthbound, very sweet yet haunting games
last express was pretty damn cool, especially because of the way the action happens regardless of what you're doing, and how the game itself was designed around this real-time story with the rewindable clock and such
planescape: torment is legendary, though it could be the nostalgia talking... i haven't played it in about ten years. but i loved the plot/characters, and there was a beastly amount of sheer high-quality text in it
shadow of destiny has all the hallmarks of crappy video game writing - crap dialogue, shallow characters, environments, etc., and as a game it's not very good. but the plot structure is pretty unique and magnificent. basically the concept behind the game is that you keep getting murdered, and given the chance to rewind/alter your destiny, but of course things keep going wrong. then there's time travel involved and a whole bunch of different people and timelines start getting messed with, and a crap load of endings before you get the "true" one that ties everything together. but i'm a sucker for Groundhog Day-type plots
also, not as serious, but i think the comedy writing in the 90s Lucasarts games is very high quality, not just the dialogue but the creativity and general wackiness involved in the puzzles
i see the point there that the writing should be secondary to the gameplay, in general, though it shouldn't mean it should be sacrificed altogether...
― Nhex, Friday, 6 April 2012 06:01 (twelve years ago) link
Like with Grim Fandango and Tim Schafer, Planescape cemented Chris Avellone's legacy forever. I got at least one other Ilxor in this thread to play the game just by mentioned that Sheena Easton voiced the hot chick love interest in the game.
― Spleen of Hearts (kingfish), Friday, 6 April 2012 07:48 (twelve years ago) link
yeah i was about to point to Mother 3 as being incredibly well written, even before seeing abbott's post
― ciderpress, Friday, 6 April 2012 13:27 (twelve years ago) link
Planescape: Torment's real genius doesn't even start until you pump tons of points into the Nameless One's intelligence and his dialogue choices become ridiculous
― God, Music and Romeo and Juliet (DJP), Friday, 6 April 2012 13:45 (twelve years ago) link
Shigesato Itoi who wrote the Mother games is actual proper writer though, isn't he? (also the dad in Totoro!)The best written games do tend to be the "show don't tell" ones though like Portal, exposition through cutscenes needs to die
― zappi, Friday, 6 April 2012 13:49 (twelve years ago) link
Arkham City was written by Paul Dini, the creator of Harley Quinn, which makes the treatment of her by the story an extra layer of creepy to me
also before this thread, I didn't notice the sexism of AC as being overt and off-putting, mostly because I spent most of my time leaping off of buildings and shouting "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" at the television
― God, Music and Romeo and Juliet (DJP), Friday, 6 April 2012 13:54 (twelve years ago) link
I think you mean "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE I'M RACIST"
― wrapped sausage stylus (forksclovetofu), Friday, 6 April 2012 14:44 (twelve years ago) link
I will admit that Batman shouting "WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE I'M RACIST" when he leaps off of buildings in AC would make this my favorite game of all time
― God, Music and Romeo and Juliet (DJP), Friday, 6 April 2012 14:46 (twelve years ago) link
let's get ZS on the phone and make this happen
― wrapped sausage stylus (forksclovetofu), Friday, 6 April 2012 14:46 (twelve years ago) link
The best written games do tend to be the "show don't tell" ones though like Portal, exposition through cutscenes needs to die
yes, yes, YES.
some good good examples of well-written games that I hadn't thought of. a definite 'yes' to earthbound (esp. bc a lot of the good stuff here happens while bumbling around and talking to incidental characters - it's videogamey and not just blindly aping the style of books/films), haven't played mother 3, and was considering grim fandango. it impressed me heavily at the time but it's been so long that I honestly can't say anymore.
I do think it's telling that we've only come up with only a handful of games but I think everyone is in agreement that these games are the exception (and a minor one at that) and not the rule anyway.
― original bgm, Friday, 6 April 2012 15:10 (twelve years ago) link
also, wow @ itoi being the dad in totoro!
― original bgm, Friday, 6 April 2012 15:11 (twelve years ago) link
Mother 3 much better written than Mother 2/Earthbound IMO. Wld argue all the Phoenix Wright games were well-written, funny and sometimes suspenseful. Good female characters in those, too! Though not without some vid game yuckiness eg Trucy's magic panties.
― and i don't even care, similar to how a badass would respond (Abbbottt), Friday, 6 April 2012 15:21 (twelve years ago) link
oh videogamepanties
― God, Music and Romeo and Juliet (DJP), Friday, 6 April 2012 15:22 (twelve years ago) link
hahaha
― original bgm, Friday, 6 April 2012 15:25 (twelve years ago) link
feel that Bungie's games, esp. Marathon, are usually well-written although obv a tremendous dearth of female characters
― dayo, Friday, 6 April 2012 15:32 (twelve years ago) link
a big factor that hasn't been directly mentioned yet is JAPAN. Japan is a sexist society and most of their art also includes that. and their video games make up a big part of the market.
http://i.imgur.com/V593t.jpg
― the acquisition and practice of music is unfavourable to the health of (abanana), Friday, 6 April 2012 16:13 (twelve years ago) link
i know i am probably missing some counterexamples here but it seems like the new fallout stuff has actually done a pretty good job of avoiding these pitfalls considering what a massive game francise its been
― sfdgafhtehw (jjjusten), Wednesday, April 4, 2012 4:25 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
ha i have the feeling that the fallout games would be better if there was more racism and sexism in them! mostly because i have the cynical feeling that if a 50's dreamworld collapsed into nuclear terror things would get racialist and bigman-dominated really quickly. you get a few 'bad pimp' characters here and there, and some evil psycho rapist villains, and there's the lingering presence of bigotry against ghouls which kind of stands in for other kids of prejudice.
but really there are moments when i felt like the game's unspoken racial equality and gay-positivity felt like, idk, controversy avoidance more than anything? maybe i'm too deep in the liberal bubble.
the fallout world is free of the the kind of hatefulness we see irl. people want to kill each other but not for the reasons people want to kill each other now, if that makes sense.
― goole, Friday, 6 April 2012 16:27 (twelve years ago) link
that's where things get dicey. when to be culturally tolerant means tolerating bigotry/sexism/etc. xpost
― bnw, Friday, 6 April 2012 16:28 (twelve years ago) link
That cooking mama comic would be a lot funnier if they didn't have her getting beat the fuck up in it, what the hell.
― and i don't even care, similar to how a badass would respond (Abbbottt), Friday, 6 April 2012 16:30 (twelve years ago) link
Plus it activates the ILX/grad school-induced part of my brain that wants to sneer at its unsophisticated understanding of 'power structures.' But anyway lol, the punchline is: submission by violence.
― and i don't even care, similar to how a badass would respond (Abbbottt), Friday, 6 April 2012 16:32 (twelve years ago) link
Plus there is the reactionary 'modern Bust magazine is half about crafting feminist' part of my brain that says wtf is wrong w/being a cooking, crafting mama anyway. That after I libeled those Imagine Girlz Makeup games.
― and i don't even care, similar to how a badass would respond (Abbbottt), Friday, 6 April 2012 16:34 (twelve years ago) link
I thought cooking mama is a fun game; I like chopping daikon irl and on vid games.
― and i don't even care, similar to how a badass would respond (Abbbottt), Friday, 6 April 2012 16:35 (twelve years ago) link
ALSO I think it's wrong to say "JAPAN is sexist and that's the big factor," U.S. and Japan not in some kind of sexism contest, and if they were I don't honestly know who would win. U.S. is sexist too and to blame all this on Japan and not the ppl in the U.S. buying/supporting/etc this seems....not "casually racist," but...let me dial up Momus here, he would have some things to say about this.
― and i don't even care, similar to how a badass would respond (Abbbottt), Friday, 6 April 2012 16:39 (twelve years ago) link
i don't play many japanese games, doesn't seem that relevant to me.
the loci of video game sexism that i think of like penny arcade are US of A
― goole, Friday, 6 April 2012 16:43 (twelve years ago) link
Japan being sexist is a big factor on Japanese games being sexist. I am not commenting on games from other countries there.
― the acquisition and practice of music is unfavourable to the health of (abanana), Friday, 6 April 2012 16:45 (twelve years ago) link
I think that comic is more casually racist/sexist than Cooking Mama, is what I'm saying.
― and i don't even care, similar to how a badass would respond (Abbbottt), Friday, 6 April 2012 16:46 (twelve years ago) link
― goole, Friday, April 6, 2012 12:27 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark
i dont think its controversy avoidance so much as a conscious attempt to go against the grain! it certainly caused more controversy than if there hadn't been any gay characters in it at all. je sawyer wrote something cool on this topic:
http://twofoldsilence.diogenes-lamp.info/2011/06/platonic-forms-of-marginalized.html
― these pretzels are makeing me horney (Hungry4Ass), Friday, 6 April 2012 16:46 (twelve years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/L5lir.png
holy lol
― God, Music and Romeo and Juliet (DJP), Friday, 6 April 2012 16:48 (twelve years ago) link
gamers are so smart
haha damn ppl are so ignorant
i guess what i'm trying to say is, the game would have felt more real to me, and braver, if there was NOT ONLY a great gay character like arcade gannon, but also some asshole who's like "what are you doing rolling around with this faggot?" i can't fully understand why there wasn't tho
iirc there were some sublimated hints here and there that people think the Legion is a bunch of angry gays, right?
(i'll have to read that sawyer piece)
― goole, Friday, 6 April 2012 16:52 (twelve years ago) link
veronica mentions her ex-girlfriend's Brotherhood of Steel family not looking kindly on their relationship
― their private gesture for bison (difficult listening hour), Friday, 6 April 2012 16:56 (twelve years ago) link
what i dig in fallout are the NCR recruitment posters that say "LADIES! EVERY ONE OF YOU THAT SERVES IS A SLAP ACROSS CAESAR'S FACE!"
― their private gesture for bison (difficult listening hour), Friday, 6 April 2012 16:58 (twelve years ago) link
"the fallout world is free of the the kind of hatefulness we see irl. people want to kill each other but not for the reasons people want to kill each other now, if that makes sense."
i disagree that it is a gamemaker's responsibility to provide the hatefulness. that's the gamer's job.
― Philip Nunez, Friday, 6 April 2012 18:04 (twelve years ago) link
abbs otm
― dayo, Friday, 6 April 2012 18:12 (twelve years ago) link
yeah agreed.
― wrapped sausage stylus (forksclovetofu), Friday, 6 April 2012 18:14 (twelve years ago) link
yeah, lets dial up momus so he can justify his yellow fever over submissive women to us.
― bnw, Friday, 6 April 2012 18:27 (twelve years ago) link
why did momus stop posting here
― these pretzels are makeing me horney (Hungry4Ass), Friday, 6 April 2012 18:28 (twelve years ago) link