Opinion

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On The Act Of Being Tattooed

July 22, 2010 in Opinion by Sam Saturday | No comments

I’ve totaled it up: Starting with my first tattoo, in October of 2008, I’ve had about 27 hours worth of work. This doesn’t include preparation or set-up time. That’s literally over a full day of needles pushing ink into my skin. While I’m in no way as heavily tattooed as some of the people I meet who work in the tattoo shops, I do think I’ve had much more experience with it than the average person. And the strange thing about it is I don’t particularly enjoy it.

Hey, it's my ink!

I’m not saying I don’t like having tattoos. I love having them and I crave more. But unlike many people who are “into tattoos” I don’t enjoy the act of being tattooed. I’ve talked with people who like being tattooed because of the endorphin rush they receive. That doesn’t happen for me. My body gives me no pleasure when I’m tattooed; I just have to endure the pain. And while that’s kind of fun in its own way, when a needle is working dangerously close to my armpit, or near a particularly sensitive area around my collarbone, I really wish my brain would just get it together and produce some of those sweet natural drugs.

Most often when I’m being tattooed I listen to music or read a book. This helps distract my mind from the pain. But some areas are just too bothersome and I have to stop what I’m doing and just brace myself. This is fine, but it often leaves me worn out. I wish I got the same physical rush from tattoos that I enjoy after receiving a new piercing, but I don’t. Piercings only take a second and the rush lasts for hours. But conversely, tattoos take hours and the rush is nonexistent. What a rip-off!

It’s gotten to the point where I no longer look forward to getting tattooed. Well, I do and I don’t. Like I said, I love having them, but the process itself is getting tiring. Sitting in a chair while a needle repeatedly jabs me has started to feel like routine. So why do I keep doing it? Simple: Because they look sweet, baby.

Sure, there’s the whole “look what I’ve endured” aspect of tattoos. But really, I’m more into the art. So far all my tattoos either reference literature I love or are taken directly from it. Most of them relate to the work of Robert E. Howard or H.P. Lovecraft. But who knows what’s next? Shall I get Falstaff on my neck? Or maybe Montana Wildhack across my forehead? What about Horton the Elephant on my chest (from the story “Horton Hatches the Nipple”)? Anything’s possible!

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On Brütal Legend

March 4, 2010 in Opinion by Sam Saturday | No comments

Despite being released almost five months ago, I’m still thinking about Brütal Legend, the Tim Schafer/Double Fine Productions heavy metal-themed game. Having a game stick with me long after I’ve finished playing it is nothing new, but the weird thing about Brütal Legend is that I didn’t like it very much. The reason it’s stuck with me this long is, despite not liking it, I really wanted to love it.

Eddie Riggs and friends.

For me personally, Brütal Legend had a lot of good things going for it. Over the years I’ve played two Tim Schafer games (Grim Fandango and Psychonauts) and I loved them both. So I was definitely looking forward to whatever was next on the dude’s plate. I’m also into heavy metal music. I count Iced Earth and Blind Guardian as two of my favorite bands. I also have a healthy appreciation for Motörhead, Judas Priest, and Black Sabbath. And to top it off I’m a fan of Tenacious D. So if you tell me you have an action game based on the fantasy elements of metal, set to a hot metal soundtrack, starring Jack Black, and it’s all put together by the people what made Psychonauts, well son, I will tell you I’m very excited. Unfortunately it didn’t all work out as planned.

Sure, I could go on about how Brütal Legend totally mislead people about its gameplay. Or how the third-person hack-and-slash segments weren’t all that great. Or how driving around in The Deuce (your hot-rod) was made all the more tedious through the lack of a mini-map showing you how to find things. Or I could complain about the tedious and repetitious side-missions. But what I really want to talk about was this: For a game that’s all about metal and kicking ass, Brütal Legend really wasn’t very fun.

A giant chrome spider is pretty fucking metal.

So in case you don’t know the game’s story, allow me to summarize it for you. In Brütal Legend you play as a character named Eddie Riggs (Jack Black) who is described as the the greatest roadie the rock business. While working for the band Kabbage Boy (a completely awful faux-metal teeny-bopper group), Eddie is killed and somehow transported to a world in which everything is inspired by heavy metal. The landscape is covered with heavy metal references, like giant swords and axes, skulls, bones, metal sculptures amps, stage lights and all all kinds of other awesome things. There are demons. There are hot chicks. There are glam rockers and goth rockers. There are giant metal spiders and chopper-pigs and fire-breathing lion-monster things and battle nuns and Lemmy and Rob Halford and even Ozzy…..! It’s all pretty fucking metal.

Anyway, it turns out the humans in this world are enslaved by a bunch of demons. Through various circumstances Eddie meets up with the human resistance and, being the world’s greatest roadie, organizes them into a band/army. By the end of the game Eddie’s army, which he names Ironheade, is made up of groupies, roadies and headbangers, a stage and tour bus, dudes in leather riding choppers, scantily-clad chicks on the fire-lion things, and a bunch of other stuff that really works in the whole band/army way. So all of this is pretty sweet. The problem, and this is the game’s biggest failing, is that eventually you have to command all these characters at once in moderately-sized real-time battles.

Ozzy sez: "What the fuck am I doing in a strategy game?"

And that brings me to my main issue with Brütal Legend: The gameplay is not “metal.” Sure, commanding an army of blood-thirsting warriors is pretty fucking metal, but Brütal Legend handles it in a such an inept way that actually playing the game gets in the way of the fun. I liked the game’s characters and setting way more than I liked playing the damn thing. What’s the point of commanding troops and cutting up dudes if I’m not having a good time doing it? It’s like the designers at Double Fine figured out a great concept for a story but couldn’t decide how to properly implement it.

All Double-Fine had to do was make a funny God Of War-style game. That would have been sufficient. Adding in the open-world, driving around stuff would have been extra icing on the cake. But unfortunately they decided to go further, layering a dumbed-down real-time strategy game on top. These battles were such a pain to play that every time I finished one I was relieved that I would never have to do that again. But I kept playing because I really liked the characters.

Hello, nurse!

Unfortunately just liking the characters turned out to not be enough, because by the end of the game the cool characters were undermined by a lackluster story. SPOILERS HERE! Throughout the story Eddie is referred to as the greatest roadie in the business. He’s someone who uses his skills to make someone else look great.  But as the story progresses it becomes apparent that Eddie is the real leader of the human resistance. Everyone in the band looks up to him for leadership. And yet at the end of the game Eddie steps aside to let Lita Halford (great name, by the way) be the leader of Ironheade.

From a story-telling perspective, this makes Eddie into the same person he was at the very beginning. What’s the point of going through all those battles if Eddie doesn’t learn that he’s not just the world’s greatest roadie, but, instead, he’s the world’s greatest king? the whole story seemed to be leading to that point, and yet it didn’t happen. This was a HUGE disappointment to me.

Tim Curry sez: "I'm just a sweet transvestite."

Sure,  an argument could be made that a smaller, quieter ending is more poignant. But a game called fucking “Brütal Legend” is not about small and quiet. It’s about loud. It’s about violent. It’s about METAL, goddammit! And that’s where Brütal Legend missed the boat: It went for complicated gameplay and a pussified ending when it should have gone FUCKING BANANAS! Chop chop, motherfucker! All aboard the Crazy Train, bitchesssss!!! AHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Ahem….

Y’know, it’s pretty disappointing that the best thing I got out of Brütal Legend was a free GWAR concert. Maybe eventually I’ll accept Brütal Legend as a flawed game that really tried something different. But I don’t think I’ll ever get over the cock-blocked feeling I got from its lackluster story. And that’s a real pain in my fucking balls.

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My Sex In Mass Effect: Why It Was Great And Why It Was Not

September 15, 2009 in Opinion by Sam Saturday | 1 comment

Hello, folks. Yes, I’m still thinking about Mass Effect. In case you missed it, here are my first impressions and here is my review.  I hadn’t gotten around to the game’s sex scene when I wrote my early impressions and I only sort of talked about it in my review. Now that those are out of the way I’m going to talk about the sex exclusively. So let’s get to it!

Why The Sex Was Great

As I said I my review, it took me around 17 hours of gameplay to reach the sex scene. By the time my hero, CathyJones Shepard, got around to making sweet love to the blue Asari alien, Liara, I’d felt like the two characters had made a real emotional connection. The dialogue was exceptionally well-written for a game. In the course of conversation the various dialogue choices I was given leading up to the women’s mating felt natural as well as strategic (myself purposefully aiming for sex between the two).

Through the dialogue the women expressed how they cared for one another and how they didn’t want their lives to end before physically expressing their feelings. The sex scene was tame and even a little short. Much shorter than what you’d see in a film with similar content. But having it short made the affair feel like it was done more for the emotional context of the story and less for titillation (which is probably completely unrealistic from a sales and marketing perspective, but that’s the way I felt after watching it).

I can’t stress enough how great a decision I think it was that Bioware made getting to the sex a long process. If Mass Effect had made it easy to sleep with any number of characters quickly and easily, the sex would have lost all emotional resonance. As it was, the game made the player not only work toward the sex through lengthy dialogue sequences, but also made the player choose which specific character they wanted to pursue. Having choices made the outcome feel that much more important.

Why The Sex Was Not Great

I admit it: By the end of Mass Effect’s story I had come to really care about Liara. I wanted CathyJones Shepard to fight for the woman she loved, save the galaxy, and run off with her to make blue babies. Unfortunately, it was not to be.

Sure, Shepard fought and saved the galaxy, but in my game she was never reunited with Liara. I specifically left Liara behind, out of the final battle, to make sure she survived the story. I had no idea that this decision would cause me to never see her again. Why didn’t she appear during, or after, the final dialogue sequence, running into Shepard’s arms? Why was there no victory kiss? Why was there no “We saved the universe together, babe” speech? I felt ripped-off that Liara had mysteriously vanished.

I wasn’t just mad that Shepard didn’t get to see her lover again. I was especially peeved that I was awarded an Achievement directly after the sex scene was over. The Achievement is called “Paramour” and it is awarded when you “complete any romance subplot.” This is very disturbing to me.

Mass Effect - WomenHaving the sex be the culmination of the a romance subplot very says to me that Bioware was not as interested in giving the game an emotional center as they were with titillation. Shouldn’t someone there have known that the end of intercourse is not the same as the end of romance?

There’s only a couple reasons why you would fuck someone once and then no longer have any romantic interest in them. For one, the sex could have been so awful you’d never want to see them again. Or two, you’re an addict who never feels any emotional connection to sex. I can confidently say that neither one of these reasons fit CathyJones Shepard.

I can only assume that Mass Effect’s designers were more focused on gaining publicity from having sex in their game than they were on fleshing out any real emotion. If the Paramour Achievement was awarded, say, after the lovers decided to spend their lives together, or conversely, after breaking up, I could see either of those options as legitimate ends to a romance subplot. But getting to the sex and then having the game say “Well, glad that’s over with,” felt like a slap in the face.

For The Future

Bioware has stated that some of the decisions players made in Mass Effect will carry over to the upcoming sequel. I can only hope this will include the romance subplots. It would be quite sad if I had spent all this time building love between Shepard and Liara, only to have it never spoken of again. If that were to happen, Mass Effect 2 would be little more than a James Bond-style story, where the sexual encounters in one episode are rarely (if ever) remembered in future entries. Let’s hope Bioware doesn’t take Mass Effect down this route.

I do think Bioware should be commended for their efforts. Gaming in general will benefit because Mass Effect brought sexuality in games to mainstream audiences in a big way. More people will now be more accepting of sex and romance in games. Mass Effect isn’t the first game to put such a focus on sex and romance, but it may turn out to be one of the most important.

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Mass Effect Impressions: Addicted To Meh

September 2, 2009 in Opinion by Sam Saturday | 5 comments

Hey, guess what? I’m finally playing Mass Effect. Yes yes, I know I’m late to the party. But I figured it was about time I learned for myself what all the fuss was about. Right now I’m about seven hours in, so it seems like a good time to stop and gather my thoughts.

Mass Effect boxThe last Bioware game I played was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. People loved that game, but not me. Back in 2006 I played it for about a dozen hours before finally giving up in frustration. I thought it had an okay story but it was slow and I couldn’t get past the shitty technical problems. So you can’t call me a Bioware fan.

Well now I’m onto Mass Effect because for $20 for a new copy, why not? And hey, this game has some of the same shitty technical problems like Knights of the Old Republic, but at least there’s less of them. However I can’t stand riding fucking elevators every fucking place I go. They’re so goddamn slow! I’d much rather see a brief loading screen than have a long elevator ride that forces me to listen to some boring news report. It’s really frustrating and it seriously slows down the game.

Even if the elevators weren’t in the game, Mass Effect would still move very slowly. After seven hours I feel like I haven’t accomplished much at all. It’s like all I’m doing is moving from one poorly-designed location to another, trying to navigate confusing layouts while using a barely-functional mini-map, and talk-talk-talking to people about things I couldn’t care less about. But at least there’s shooting, right? Wrong.

Combat is another technical problem. Whether you’re on foot or in your big six-wheeled land-rover thingy, combat sucks. It’s not fun. I just want to shoot dudes and get it over with. There’s a radial menu of special abilities that I try to ignore as much as possible. I don’t care about that stuff and I don’t want to bother with it. I’m playing on the Casual difficulty setting and I have the game set to auto-assign experience points to my party members. I’m only interested in Mass Effect’s story and I have zero interest in micro-managing skills points. That kind of stuff does nothing for me.

Mass EffectAt this point you’re probably thinking to yourself “Gee, he must really dislike this game.” Well, you’d be half-right. I dislike a lot of it, but I find the characters, dialogue and story compelling enough to keep playing. Sure, I find a good deal of what the side characters have to say to be pointless and boring, but the major characters are pretty interesting. I really like the main character, Commander Shepard (my Shepard is a tough-talkin’ soldier lady). And I really like most of my ship’s crew. It’s obvious a lot of thought went into creating these characters and to try making them into believable personalities. They’re all pretty neat.

So I’m going to continue trudging along, exploring the galaxy and visiting mostly-bland new worlds. As long as I get to keep talking to interesting people, make some compelling moral choices and eventually bang a hot alien lady, things should be A-OK. Expect to read more whining as I continue my adventure!

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Let’s (Respectfully) Oogle Batman: Arkham Asylum Together

August 27, 2009 in Opinion, characters by Sam Saturday | 1 comment

I respect this woman for her mind.

Batman: Arkham Asylum is out this week, and I was thinking you and I should take a moment to look at the hot hot hot redesigns of Batman villains Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn. I was going to point out Ivy’s bare midsection, heavy bosoms and underwear made out of leaves, and Harley’s corset and skirt.

But dammit, while I was looking for images I came across a posting at Toronto Thumbs called Harley Quinn: Not A Sex Object and another posting at Feministing about the same subject. The Toronto Thumbs article accuses game journalists as misogynistic in their writings about Harley. The Feministing post goes a different way, accusing the game’s creators of not treating the character respectfully.

Poison Ivy“Shit,” thought I. “What’s a guy with a sex-in-video games blog supposed to do?” Is oogling sexed-up female characters in a game wrong? Is sexing them up to sell more copies of the game also wrong? What is right? These are the questions of our times!

Well I’ve done my thinking on the subject and here’s my conclusion: These are fictional characters. No one’s being exploited and no one’s getting their feelings hurt by being oogled. And you know what? Even if these were real people, they’d be actors, and actors are no strangers to being made into sex objects.

It’s fine with me if the game’s developers want to throw a little sex appeal into their product. Honestly, who is it hurting? I see nothing wrong with sexuality, whether it’s directed towards women or men.

"I will make love to this clown, discreetly and tender."

"I will make love to this clown, discreetly and tender."

And don’t think Arkham Asylum only sexes-up its women. Just take a look at what the game’s developers did to The Batman. Check out those bulging pecs, hard abs and rippling biceps! If any fictional character should feel exploited, it’s the game’s hero. They turned him into a total beefcake. You can’t even see the logo on his chest because his tits are so damn huge.

So fuck it. If I wanna drool over a video game character then, by golly, I’m gonna do so. Video game makers don’t create attractive characters on accident, and it’s certainly no secret why the most famous actors are also the most beautiful. Sex lives in our society constantly, and no one should be looked down upon for embracing it. And with that in mind, check out these hot shots of Harley and Ivy from Batman: Arkham Asylum!

And in case you were wondering what Poison Ivy looks like in action, check out this cinematic trailer:

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Allow Me To Ramble About The Shadow Complex Boycott

August 25, 2009 in Opinion by Sam Saturday | No comments

Over on DoorQ.com, friend-of-the-site Jody has written an article about the boycott on the new Xbox Live Arcade game Shadow Complex. And over the weekend I read this article on Kotaku about the “moral debate” over the game. And now I figure it’s about time I addressed the subject.

In case you’re wondering what’s up, allow me to explain: Shadow Complex, the game, isn’t ruffling feathers, but the involvement from outspoken anti-gay science fiction author Orson Scott Card is.

Shadow Complex - JasonSee, the game’s fiction is part of a larger story, which is detailed in Card’s book Empire, and its upcoming sequel, Hidden Empire. Card didn’t actually write the script for the game; that job was handled by comic book writer Peter David, who seems like a pretty nice guy. On the other hand, Card, who is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has gone on the record saying homosexuality is a sin and that he is in favor of banning gay marriage.

If you’ve been reading this site then you should already know I don’t agree with Card. But I do think the man’s got a right to his beliefs, and he’s got a right to express them publicly. At the same time I also think anyone wanting to boycott Shadow Complex because they disagree with Card have a right to do that as well. But am I gonna play the game? Too late; I’m already on my second play-through and I love it.

The interesting thing to me about this boycott is it has nothing to do with the contents of the actual game. Shadow Complex only has the barest threads of a plot. And it certainly doesn’t come anywhere close to touching the gay marriage debate. Sure, the story is about some underground army wanting to invade San Francisco and start a new Civil War, but the game doesn’t ever explain why this army is doing what it’s doing. The thing I like about Shadow Complex’s story is that you play as just some regular dude who stumbles upon this plot and tries to stop it, whatever it is. At no point does Shadow Complex ever debate any real issues. There’s barely anything more serious in the game than “I got a jet pack! Awesome!”

If  Shadow Complex had anything to say about any issue, one way or another, I could see people having a legitimate reason for a boycott. But really, this game isn’t about anything. Boycott it if you don’t like Card and don’t want to support anything with which he’s involved. But me, I’m gonna have fun blasting dudes, crawling through air vents and triple-jumping with my jet pack.

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You’re Doing It Wrong: Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Collector’s Edition

August 17, 2009 in Opinion by Sam Saturday | No comments

While I think the Japanese marketing for Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 is spot-on, showcasing what the game has to offer, the Western release of said game is, so far, leaving much to be desired. And by that I mean “Where’s the boobs??”

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Collector's EditionThe Gamestop-exclusive Collector’s Edition of NGS2 comes with an 80-page book and a soundtrack CD. That’s all well and good. But the kicker is that if you pre-order the game you get a special download-only costume. That’s great too. The problem I have with this damn costume is that it’s not for one of the game’s femme fatales. It’s just a bland set of costumery for the game’s protagonist dude Ryu Hayabusa.

This is from the people that brought us the genital-tickling costumes in the Dead or Alive games? Where’s the zazz, the naughty, the T&A? People wondered if Team Ninja would change after former head Tomonobu Itagaki left Tecmo. Well now we’ve got our answer and it’s a defeated-sounding “yes.”

For years the ladies of Team Ninja have been the hottest female characters in gaming. But now with Itagaki gone it looks like the Team’s focus has changed. Listen, I’d be all for it if this downloadable costume was a Speedo-clad Ryu. I’m happy as long as it’s sexy. But someone at Tecmo or Team Ninja seems to think that a lame piece of drapery is enough to entice a pre-order. Well see here, you corporate fools: You ain’t getting my money unless your company follows its traditions and gives me some sweet cheeks, pectorals or knockers to oogle.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 - RachelC’mon, Team Ninja! Don’t you remember how it was when you gave the world the DoA Xtreme Beach Volleyball games? Sure, they were a mess to play, but dammit, they featured hot bikinis and girls “making friends with” girls. And the Ninja Gaiden games have Rachel. I mean, look at her, it’s Rachel! You guys couldn’t try to get my money by offering up a hotter outfit for her? And what about Ayane? She’s a playable character in NGS2 as well, and you’ve already got bikinis make for her from the volleyball games. Just port one of those over and let her fight demons in the nearly-nude. That’s why I’m at this party. Just gimme the tits!

…

Anyway…I’m still looking forward to this game. But I’m sure not paying sixty bucks for it now that I know it’s not as titillating as it should be.  I think it’s great that Team Ninja has sexy characters in their games. I’m just bummed they’ve missed an opportunity to puch the envelope even more.

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A Response To Edge’s “Best Sex Scene” Award

August 4, 2009 in Opinion, Sex in Games by Sam Saturday | 3 comments

Over on Edge, Chris Dahlen wrote an article proclaiming a sequence in Overlord II to be the “Best Sex Scene Of The Year” in a video game.  Here is the awarded scene:

I have no complaints about this scene (other than the complete lack of on-screen sex!). What I do have issue with, however, is Mr. Dahlen’s attitudes toward sex in games. With the very first line of his article he freely states “I’m torn as to whether sex belongs in games.” If you’re reading this site then you already know my feelings on the subject. But I’ll state them here for the uninitiated: I feel sex does have a place in mature games, just as it does in film, television, music and literature, as long as its content is targeted at the appropriate age groups. I don’t see why video games should be treated differently than any other form of media. Mr. Dahlen, a pop-culture and tech journalist, obviously sees video games as separate from other forms of entertainment.

In his article, Mr. Dahlen explains that Overlord II’s sex scene is “the best” because it doesn’t actually show the sex. He states:

And that’s the best part. Because even though games need sexuality, I don’t want to watch sex in a game. That man (or woman) on-screen – that’s me. I don’t want to just sit there watching myself have intercourse if I can’t control it. And I definitely don’t want to control it, because trying to steer a sex act using a game controller is as ludicrous as ludicrous gets. Human intercourse already breaks down if you focus too much on the plumbing – and in a gameplay context, that’s all there is. I don’t want to sit there pumping the Wii MotionPlus or banging away on the D-pad. Gamewide, Overlord II goes off the tracks many times, but they got that one thing right: sex in an interactive context is better left to the imagination. We don’t need to see the details.

First of all, I don’t see how Mr. Dahlen can state that “games need sexuality” when he’s already said he doesn’t know whether sex belongs in games or not. Clearly, he has yet to make up his mind regarding the issue. Secondly, even I don’t think games “need” sexuality, just as I don’t think movies “need” sexuality. There are countless games and films and books that are completely devoid of sexuality, yet are still great works of art and entertainment. However, I believe that if we are in a society that allows sexuality to be expressed in its art and media, then games should be afforded the same freedom as all other forms of media.

Next, I don’t agree that the man or woman on-screen is “me” or you. Just as in film, the person on-screen is a character. Games can be, and many are, a tool for telling stories and stories are about characters. When you see Rhett Butler kissing Scarlett O’Hara, you may become emotional, but it’s not you being kissed. And when Master Chief’s Warthog gets blown up, you may get angry, but again, it’s not you being fired upon. There’s a difference between controlling an on-screen character and actually being that character. Mr. Dahlen seems to not know that difference.

Overlord II MistressNow let’s get to the idea of “human intercourse break[ing] down if you focus too much on the plumbing.” Maybe Mr. Dahlen should ask his past sexual partners if they agree with him. I have a feeling he might find them a bit unsatisfied. And the idea that sex in games needs to literally be controlled by the player is both ludicrous and unimaginative. As games like Mass Effect have shown, the sex in a game can be part of a non-interactive cut-scene used to advance the story. Or even if the sex is part of the gameplay, it’s not necessary to “control” each and every action the character makes. A great example of this is the sex in the God of War games. In those games the sex is handled as a cross between a quick-time event and a rhythm game, which is a perfect (and funny) analog for the act of intercourse.

I’d be very interested to know Mr. Dahlen’s feelings on sex in mainstream film and pornographic films. He may not need to “see the details,” but the popularity of porn and erotic films certainly proves that a great many other people feel differently. Why is sex in an interactive context “better left to the imagination?” This brings me back to my belief that Mr. Dahlen sees video games as fundamentally separate from all other forms of media. If books, film, music, painting et al can be explicit with their sexual content, why not games?

Early in his article he wrote that some people believe “that if games can show relations between consenting adults, we can finally call them ‘art.’” I don’t have any say one way or another whether gaming as a form of media should be called “art.” And I certainly don’t think that putting sex in games will automatically make them into art, either. But I do think having sex in games will go a long way towards making mainstream audiences accept that games can be a legitimate form of entertainment and story-telling for mature audiences. I think that’s something that Mr. Dahlen simply doesn’t understand.

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Allow Me To Ramble About Racing Games

July 15, 2009 in Opinion by Sam Saturday | 2 comments

So yesterday I was checking out the news and I saw this picture:

Car? What car?

Toyota was showing off their new hybrid-only Lexus. Does anything about this picture seem weird to you? I’ll give you a hint: What the fuck are those women doing there?? What they hell do they have to do with the car?

At first I was going to go on a rant about how models have nothing to do with automobiles. Or how using women to sell cars is inherently sexiest and there should be some muscle-bound hunks hanging out next to the vehicle. Or how putting models next to a car is some sleazy way of telling your subconscious that if you buy this car you’ll get laid. But then I realized something even better: Models standing next to cars are what’s right; driving video games are what’s wrong. Take a look at the following images and see if you can spot the difference:

Did you say the difference is “The games have no girls?” Well congratulations, smarty, you figured it out!

It’s occurred to me that sexy models are an integral part of the automobile industry. Just take a look at one of the many car enthusiast magazines out there and you’ll see enough hot ladies to make you think you’re in the “Men’s Interest” section.  The auto industry uses sex to sell their products just as much as the booze industry. So why are racing video games so sexually sterile?

Boooobsss Racer!

Boooobsss Racer!

One could argue that racing games are just supposed to be about the speed. Or that simulators like Gran Turismo are essentially car porn already. But those arguments don’t take the real car industry into consideration. I would argue that any semi-realistic driving game that ignores the inherent sexuality of automobiles is not being true to its subject matter. Hell, Burnout Paradise is an amazing game, but it doesn’t even have people, let alone tantalizing models.

I say that there needs to be driving games that embrace the auto industry’s use of sex to sell its products. (No, Pimp My Ride doesn’t count.) The only racing series I can think of that even uses cover models is Ridge Racer. And honestly, who plays Ridge Racer anymore?

What the video game world needs is a car-selling simulator. Starting with the creation and design of the vehicle, the player would guide all aspects of bringing a new car to market, up to and including the hiring of sexy models to pimp the unholy contraption. The player could take the prototype out for tests drives to ensure the game keeps some racing aspects. And towards the end of the game players could direct their own photo shoots with hard-bodied models getting greased-up and prancing around the brand new vehicle. The more I think about this game, the more I realize how perfect this game would be. It would have action, strategy and sex appeal: The ultimate trifecta!

Enough about my wants. What do you think? Do you agree with me that driving games need more sex (of course, if you’re reading this site you probably do). What are your ideas? Leave a comment!

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Allow Me To Ramble About Gay Characters

July 10, 2009 in Opinion by Sam Saturday | 2 comments

Kotaku is currently hosting an article from GLAAD’s Director of Digital Media, Justin J. Cole, entitled  The Impact of Homophobia in Virtual Communities. In it he provides the following statistics from a 2006 survey:

When asked what forms of homophobia people have seen in the gaming community, here are some of what the surveyed said:

87.7% – Players use the phrase, “That’s so gay.”
83.4% – Players use the words “gay” or “queer” as derogatory names.
52.3% – Stereotypical representations of gay characters in games.
42.5% – Refusal of game designers to include well-developed gay characters.
49.4% – Invisibility of gaymers and/or the gaymer community.
When asked how frequently players experience homophobia, those surveyed who responded “Always” or “Frequently” equaled 42%. Add in “Sometimes” and it brings up that total to 74.5%.
When asked how often those players respond to the homophobia they witness – 50.9% total responded “Never” or “Rarely.”

What really sticks out to me is “Refusal of game designers to include well-developed gay characters.” While I agree that games lack well-developed gay characters, I doubt game designers are “refusing” to create them. I think it’s a symptom of most games lacking ANY well-developed characters, regardless of sexual orientation. How many pumped-up, futuristic male heroes do we have in games? How many big-titted femme fatales are there? What about platformer animal mascots? At the moment most video game stars are merely iterations of the same characters over and over again.

Look out, world!

Look out, world!

How many years has it taken for gay characters to not be stereotypes in movies and television? Some would argue we’re still not there yet. Movies like “Milk” and “Brokeback Mountain” are a big deal because straight, mainstream actors are playing gay characters. And it’s taken movies over one-hundred years just to get this far.

Unlike movies, video games are still a young format and it’s changing with each generation. And luckily it’s not the age of the format that will dictate the characters in games; it’s the people making the games. The characters we see in games today are 1) made out of necessity due to the relative newness of the medium, and 2) a reflection of the society in which they’re created. I have no doubt that as game-making technology becomes more standardized, and cheaper, more people will be able to make the games they want to play, and have them star the types of characters they want to control. I have no doubt we’ll see all sorts of interesting characters and stories told through games. I see a future in which there will be just as many genres of games as their are books and film.

Right now it’s easy to say game designers aren’t doing a good job with their characters. But that’s because they’re still figuring out how to make the damn games work in the first place. Give it time, people.

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