Girl Gamer

It’s not as oxymoronic as it used to be, so we’re getting somewhere, but the idea of a ‘girl gamer’ seems to conjure the image of some super hot ass kicker. I don’t know whether this taps into some sort of Freudian part of the male brain that enjoys being dominated, but it’s kind of odd how much guys will fall over themselves when they realised you’re a gamer.

The problem with a male dominated industry like this one is that often, in order to appeal to the demographic, there have to be boobies involved and it has to seem like those boobies love games. It’s for this reason that you have booth babes at E3 or The Frag Dolls. (I’m not going to deny that they’re gamers, because they obviously love what they do and they kick some ass. But let’s face it; there is a reason they’re all attractive young ladies…) If you type ‘girl gamer’ into google, you end up with a plethora of images of beautiful women with headsets on and a controller in their hands, conveniently semi-clothed and somehow in front of a camera. I remain unconvinced. Of course there are hot women out there who game but I'm always suspicious of them if they make it really obvious, with lots of flirtatious pictures and lots of, "yh, Im a gurl who luvs gaming, bet yur suprised! come game with me boys, my gmrtag is: XxXboxCutiegmrgurl123XxX!! lol" (I'm suspicious of 'lol' at the best of times.)

These ladies don't help the rest of the female gaming audience fit in; they just further the idea that we're mystical creatures, only there to impress guys. Most guys really don't care whether you're a girl, guy, shemale whatever, they just want to kick someones ass online, but there are still a fair few guys who have to realise that not all girls who game are there to be singled out and fawned over like some sort of oddity; they just love the hobby as much as you and they’d be happy to talk about it, but they don’t want to have boob pictures requested of them; they just want to kick your ass.


This girl obviously isn't an actual gamer, or she wouldn't
be doing this. A true gamer knows how much sweat has gone
onto that controller and barely wants to touch it with
their hands, let alone their mouths. *shudder*


But the whole 'guys getting excited when the realise a girl games' phenomenon is pretty easy to explain though. I’m going to try and not sound sexist now. Here goes: guys are driven by their manly bits (Pssh, not sexist at all…) and when they find a girl with whom they share common ground, they’re going to be pretty chuffed. Add the anonymity of the internet to the mix and you’ve got some pretty bold guy trying to woo you over a headset.

But seriously, putting on my non-sexist hat here for a moment; finding common ground is always nice and considering that gaming is seen as an inherently masculine past time, it must be nice for some guys to meet a girl who loves gaming as much as they do. I don’t see the problem in that and I’ve made some wonderful male friends through the initial mutual love of gaming. It’s amazing how one minute, you don’t know each other and the next minute, you’re involved in an intense debate over which Call of Duty was the best. The love of gaming can really jumpstart a friendship and I really like that aspect.

But I know that for many girls, this distinction and attention can be irritating because it shows that they’re being considered as ‘different’ when all they want is to be recognised as a ‘gamer’ not a ‘girl gamer’. Which is fair enough, no-one wants to be singled out for their differences. Positive discrimination still has the word ‘discrimination’ in it. This will take a little while to change though, because we can’t change the fact that gaming is still a male-dominated activity. It’s like when women first wore trousers, the men thought they were insane and now it’s completely normal. Norms and values take a little while to change, but change they do. Eventually, I think we’ll reach the point where girl gamers are considered as normal as guy gamers.

And then at least, we’ll only have the rest of society thinking we’re weird!

Motion Capture: Where do we go from here?

I’m sure you’ve all heard of Kinect by now, Microsoft’s motion capture baby; you may have even played it. Basically, it involves you jumping around like a loony without having to hold anything at all; as Microsoft so love to say: “You are the controller”

Well Microsoft, I don’t bloody want to be.

Don’t get me wrong, the concept is fantastic and Kinect is probably one of the most advanced pieces of technology available in the home, but if this becomes the gaming standard I’m going to have to find a new hobby, like watching paint dry or making jam.



Don't take it personally.



Part of the appeal of gaming is the ability to wedge yourself firmly in the corner of the sofa, clasp that beautifully formed controller between your sweaty, eager palms and then sit there for hours mashing people until your bladder threatens to leave its mark on the upholstery.

Motion capture technology won’t replace traditional gaming but I think it can definitely compliment it. What I really want to see is an action game that fully utilizes the technology available with Kinect, because right now, it’s definitely in its infancy. I want a game where you can properly swing a sword, shoot a bow or leap over railings, where you can interact directly with objects and people. Basically I want an interactive, virtual reality style RPG. Gaming is escapism and there’s nothing more escapist than donning the virtual armour of a hero. It’s great to play the hero, but being the hero would be amazing.

That being said, for decades, the humble controller has managed to suck us into that incredible virtual world and it most certainly hasn’t needed us to get off our butts to achieve it. Kinect is asking too much and not delivering enough! At the moment, home motion capture systems stagnate firmly in the gimmicky ‘casual gaming’ market but I want to see it do so much more; I know it’s capable of it. There’s nothing wrong with casual gaming and the Wii and Kinect has admirably managed to draw in a whole new generation of gamers that enjoy the thrashing about but I just think it’s a waste not to use this technology in a more advanced manner, and draw in the more hardcore crowd too.

It shouldn’t be simply the realm of very young children and very drunk adults. Hardcore gamers should want to participate just as much and at the moment, we don’t want to. Not even petting a tiger is going to cut it. There’s nothing on offer that’s good enough to drag us away from the controller games that have better graphics and guaranteed handling and control. Not like the Wii or Kinect where your mad flailing might not get picked up by the cameras. But I do want it to sit alongside the traditional controller in a happy union of mutual respect and understanding; it just hasn’t got there yet.

And until it gets there, controller is king and Kinect can shove it. I don’t need Dance Central to tell me how much my dancing resembles the uncontrollable jerking of an electrocuted scarecrow. My family fulfils that role quite nicely, thanks.  

Why blame guns when you can blame games?

I started this post a few weeks back and I hadn’t quite got my butt in gear to finish it, but having read all about the W.R.O.N.G (Witless and Ridiculous Opinions of Non Gamers - (http://bit.ly/fOs2zC) campaign being started by CVG, I sorted my life out and finished this post.

For some reason, gamers are often subjected to abuse by non-gamers in the media, who hurl uninformed comments our way without evidence of any kind, statistical or otherwise. They cite video games as being the cause of many social problems, ranging from rape to murder to drug dealing. This would be understandable if evidence was given but in many cases, the comments made are really just superfluous falsehoods under the guise of ‘opinions’ or ‘common sense’.

Take a recent example cited by CVG from a programme entitled ‘The Wright Stuff’ where it was claimed erroneously that there was a causal link between video games and the murder of the young teenager, Agnes Sina-Inkajou in Hackney last year. (http://bbc.in/gCH55h) The two people discussing this, Matthew Wright and Stephanie Powers, for no discernable reason, blamed video games for desensitizing the murderer to violence. She claimed that video games were just "flashing, hot symbols of violence" and Matthew Wright agreed by saying: "Which you can equate with a teenage boy who almost certainly would have played just those games, spraying a machine gun without [responsability]" Not once has it been mentioned that the people responsible for her death played video games. And nor would it be relevant if it did because video games do not produce murderers.



You're doing it wrong.



This goes far beyond gamers simply being peeved that people are slagging off our hobby; the main issue is that of bad journalism and scaremongering. Evidence is integral to the acceptance and understanding of a new issue or theory and when gaming is concerned, people seem content to throw scientific evidence to the wind and rely firmly on their own uninformed and inaccurate statements. You may not think Matthew Wrights comments are much of a problem but they represent the tip of the iceberg. The Wright Show has 750,000 viewers. That's 750,000 people who are going to hear these comments and that's 750,000 people who are going to be given the impression that video games are to be blamed for the ills of the world. And all the while, not a single shred of evidence has been cited.

Take as another example, Carole Lieberman; an American child psychologist, a professional woman who should have a sound knowledge of the practises involved when making controversial statements. A scientist would never dream of claiming something they didn't have the evidence to back up and I am very much a scientist at heart, therefore I’ve chosen to judge everyone by my scientific standards; I demand evidence and it’s entirely fair of me and everyone else to do so. And what this woman said raised my scientific hackles. She claimed that: "The increase in rapes can be attributed in large part to the playing out of [sexual] scenes in video games."  (Source: Fox News: http://fxn.ws/f6M5OP)

My outrage stems more from the fact that it’s such a disgraceful claim with no evidence to support it, than it does from the fact it’s related to gaming. But on the gaming side, it’s a totally unfair comment to make that paints gamers with a shameful brush, basically implying that all rapists are gamers and have been influenced by video game sex scenes. Not abuse, or psycological issues or a troubled childhood, but video games.

When wired.com asked her to confirm which studies she was using to make these claims, Dr Lieberman replied: “There are thousands of studies. I’d have to look through them or recent ones as far as finding one that specifically speaks about rape, and I don’t have the time to do that right now.” (http://bit.ly/ezewFj). Oh fantastic. Thanks Carole.

Lieberman made her rape comment in an article talking about the game Bulletstorm, which, among its many features, implements a creative points system based on imaginative and particularly brutal kills. However, there are no sex scenes. She claimed that Bulletstorm is a violent game (which is true) but that it causes violent behavior and rape is violent behavior, “ergo, there is no question that [violent videogames] cause an increase in rape.” This is such a flawed syllogism that it beggars belief. I know I’m picking on Lieberman (she just made herself such an easy target) but she’s not the only one to make unfounded claims. It seems to happen all the bloody time in relation to video games and it needs to stop.

Gamers aren’t immature trolls unable to take criticism. We are all fully aware of the dangers associated with gaming, particularly on mental health in the form of addiction or depression etc (http://bit.ly/gRU1MH) and we are completely willing to accept new theories on video games and their effect, good or bad, on people, providing it is backed up by statistically significant evidence, performed on a representative sample of the group being studied. We're happy to accept critisism but we shouldn't have to stand for baseless comments and poor journalism. So for that reason, I respect what CVG are trying to do in their campaign.

But at the same time, we must be careful not to let this campaign degrade into mere name calling. We have to approach it maturely and not just spam these people’s inboxes with hate mail; that won’t solve anything and they’ll only use it against us. I’m particularly thinking of a comment made by Matthew Wright who, in response to a backlash following comments he and his guest made about video games being the reason young kids are stashing armaments underneath their bed, addressed gamers as “brain dead computer nerds”. Yeah, don’t sugar coat it mate.

As much as these comments are quite frankly rude, he no doubt made them because he is getting defensive over hate mail that has been received. That’s human psychology for you. Fight fire with fire and all that. If you talk something over calmly, things won’t escalate but if one party just hurls abuse at another, the other party will inevitably get nasty, case in point: Matthew Wright. And this doesn’t help out cause. So yes, these ignorant, baseless comments about video games by people with no understanding of the matter and no evidence must stop but it is of paramount importance that we conduct ourselves in a suitable manner. Gamers, let’s be the better man (or woman) and rise above this petty name calling. Let us be the ones to provide the evidence to debunk these stupid comments.

And if that all fails, let’s just send them poo in a bag!

Sex

Ahh, what a topic. I’m of course going to keep this firmly in the realms of video game sex, as if that makes it any better. People take multiple stances on video game sex; some don’t mind it, some find it utterly odd and some probably get a weird satisfaction from it. (*ahem* definitely not me.)

Video games are stories as well as interactive mediums. Sex, like violence, can be an important part of the story. But sadly, sometimes it’s just plain weird. I recently played Bioware’s Dragon Age: Origins and, being a little bit of a sappy romantic, I liked the relationships that you could have amongst the members of your party. I played as a human mage the first time round and, like many others before me, was felled by the character Alistair’s ‘awkward-verging-on-mentally-handicapped’ personality. He was cute and made the odd witty comment so I decided to pursue him relentlessly until he finally resigned himself to his fate and followed me to my tent, just like the inappropriate pervert I am in real life. What happened next was something I can describe, at best, as awkward and at worst as necessitating some serious brain bleach.

Alistair reclined on the bed with an expression that led me to believe he was about to have a vasectomy sans anaesthetic and my character was suddenly in some god awful beige underwear, sidling up to him in a way that was meant to be channelling sexy but was really channelling zombie. The camera then cuts to multiple clips of them in varying suggestive embraces, woodenly moving from one ‘position’ to the other with dead eyes and hair that continuously refused to bend to the will of gravity. Their faces remain blank throughout; either it was entirely uninspiring for both parties involved or they were actually just playing chess from the waist down. Your guess is as good as mine. It was like being forced to watch two beavers engage in semi-romantic fisticuffs. Or the puppet sex scene in Team America. I literally had to watch through my hands. (Just in case I haven't already put you off: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ay2L__RDsI (the ‘good stuff’ starts at 1.32)



This was my face throughout the scene



Now don’t get me wrong, this isn’t because I wasn’t happy about finally getting to do the dirty with Alistair, it was entirely because the scene was so awkwardly animated that it just became hugely embarrassing to watch. There isn’t any fluidity or naturalness to their movements and so the scene is entirely unconvincing. And if a sex scene isn’t convincing, it can only be awkward; that’s a fact.

The Dragon Age sex scene lands firmly in the ‘badly executed, horribly uncomfortable’ column but it’s not always that awful. The one in Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood was pretty good! Well, at least until the chick appeared because quite frankly, I was enjoying watching a shirtless Ezio have a bath. Jeez, the naked women just ruin it every time. But that one was much better because the animation was far superior, making it feel much more natural, ergo, less hideous. And it was also a scene that felt like it had a place, it was important to the story and helped it along. No one wants a random, poorly executed sex scene slotted in there to simply satisfy the hormonally over charged.

But that brings me to an important and mildly interesting point. A lot (if not the majority) of video games are made by dudes, or with a team that is largely composed by dudes. The problem with that is that sex scenes are going to be constructed and orchestrated from the male perspective, leading to far more naked ladies than men, because I think it’s largely accepted that men don’t want to see naked man crotch. This is all peachy for guys but it can leave the female gamers feeling a little weirded out. It’s not that we want some full frontal male nudity or anything; it just might be nice to have a scene that’s a little more balanced. The same goes for movies but that’s not what this blog is about!        

To sum up, video game sex scenes can be just dandy if they’re executed well but I think the developers *really* need to put in overtime to make sure that they’re as well animated and as natural as possible, otherwise it’s just god awful to watch. And no-one wants to be effectively forced to watch two pixel stick puppets bumping uglies. That’s just cruel.

Oh yeah, and give us girl gamers less boobies and more toned male torso please. That’d be spiffy.

Violence in Video Games: Why all the Fuss?!

In my day to day life, I enjoy sewing, reading, baking and cuddling puppies. While playing video games, I enjoy decimating bodies with C4, stabbing spears through people’s vertebras and repeatedly introducing my Galil assault rifle to people's faces. 

We gamers are more than used to switching personas. I’d never knock someone over in the street, but you can bet that as soon as I get on that horse in Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, it becomes a frickin’ ten pin people bowling bonanza (I struggle to get those words out my mouth...) I quite literally go out of my way to knock people over. I don’t care if every guard from Rome to Scunthorpe is on my tail because I just punched a bard right in the goolies, if there’s a guy standing surreptitiously on his own in the middle of the street… that bitch is mine.

Is this because video games skew my moral perception, blurring the line between my idea of right and wrong? Are video games making me more violent? Is the real me deep down inside actually a sociopathic bitch? Nope to the power of three. We do it because the functionality is there. Gamers always like to see how far they can push things. (And because it’s funny to watch people fall over in any medium, obviously.)

People have got to remember that how you act in a video game has no bearing upon how you'd act in real life. I mean, heck, I spent an hour nursing a bumble bee back to health with a teaspoon of honey when I found it sitting exhausted in the middle of the pavement! Yet, when I get on Red Dead Redemption, I like lassoing deer and then shotgunning them down so I can sell their pelts in some stupid, tiny mountain outpost. I do it because I can and because I am more than capable of distinguishing right from wrong, like millions of other gamers.


So instead of everyone being impressed that you can actually hogtie a bandit and drag him halfway across Mexico behind a horse or lay him in the path of an oncoming train (I'm actually too chicken to do that...) people become outraged that this functionality is available. Don’t panic, oh non-gaming public! Developers aren’t all sadistic psychos and gamers aren’t all potential murderers just looking for inspiration; violence adds a sense of realism in many ways and like sex (we'll talk about that later...), has its place in the gaming experience. 

But the most important thing to remember is: games that have violence in them are not for children. Just because it is a video game doesn’t mean it’s safe for Jimmy Junior to sit down with for twelve hours. There are video game ratings for a reason, just like movies (However galling I find it to be asked for ID when buying Final Fantasy….) and these are to protect youngsters who shouldn’t see some of the stuff that’s out there. Games with violence in them are for a mature audience; people who can deal with seeing and 'participating' in violence. They have moral boundaries that won't get warped by playing games with violent elements in them. Kids on the other hand, are more impressionable and need to have their access to such games restricted until they are mature enough to handle it.

I'm trying to think of a witty one liner to end this post with but my brain has started to ooze out my ears and the only thing I seem capable of doing now is eating coconut chocolate and watching The Borgias.



I actually wasn't joking about
cuddling puppies...

Duke Nukem and Male Fantasies...

Ahh, the fabled Duke Nukem, finally rising majestically from the ashes of video game history like a steroid abusing phoenix. I wasn’t going to make another post this speedily after the previous one but a trailer for Duke Nukem just came out and the blog fodder was just too good. And unsurprisingly this trailer contains lesbians, tight tops and boobies. And the odd strip club, obviously. It has a rather aptly named multiplayer experience; “Capture the babe” involving abducting women and slapping them on the arse when they get a little mouthy.

Oh Gearbox Studio, I see your experience of women must be fairly limited…


I'm afraid I'm just past the point of
being able to take lesbians in
school uniforms seriously.



But no really, call me a shame to my sex but I find this funny. It’s so obvious that this whole game is just a puerile boob fest that doesn’t take itself or anything else seriously. Its sexist views are so wildly over the top that it serves more to mock anyone who would be like that. I mean look at it! It’s all hot women in tight shirts with huge boobs and loose morals, along with a man who looks like a huge bundle of protein shake abuse and unresolved mummy issues. It’s a parody of being male and all the hyperbolic male behaviours. You can’t really be angry at this game; it’s too stupid to be angry at. It’s like yelling at a puppy.



I very much doubt that anyone on the developing team of Duke Nukem Forever hates women. On the contrary, many of them probably have wives and girlfriends (Haha, I know, who am I kidding?!) who they love and respect, so there’s no way to claim this as a purely sexist ideological apparatus. It’s just for laughs. And let’s face it, any guy who did act like this towards woman would most likely be immediately lynched and/or never actually pass on his genetic material because no woman in possession of a functioning brain would let him anywhere near her.   

I think the only thing we can be assured of is that the developers haven’t got the greatest grasp of what makes the fairer sex tick but they certainly know what gets a pubescent boy going and I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark here and suggest that their targeted demographic is just that….

Womb Juice and the Rise of Gaming



Excuse the face; lambing
really isn't glamorous...

Finally! A free moment to actually write something for my blog... For the last three days I’ve been all wholesome and healthy out on a farm, surrounded by hundreds of highly pregnant sheep. My job has ranged from filling up their water buckets to wrestling them to the ground so I can help them give birth. Yes, my hand has been there. Multiple times. It was a lot of fun and really rewarding; there is something lovely about yanking (and it is a little brutal sometimes…) lambs into the world.

But just you remember that the images you get when you type ‘cute lamb’ into Google is about as far from what they start out looking like as is humanly possible. I am highly qualified to testify.

But now for something a little more on topic.

I remember the first time I saw the Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood promo on TV; I just about peed my pants and choked at the same time. I was so happy that video games were being advertised in primetime slots like films and TV programmes; you know… stuff that ‘normal’ people watch. It made me realise that video games have finally gained the acceptance they deserve.

They’re not something you have to be embarrassed about playing and they’re not just the territory of sweaty, emotionally-challenged boys. In a word (or a few), they’re awesome and everyone knows it. (Admittedly there’s still a ‘gamer’ stereotype out there but there are stereotypes for everything so we’ll get over it…. *ahem* and sometimes the gamer stereotype is true…)

They have launches where people queue for hours - days even - in a way that used to be reserved for huge movie premieres. In the UK, we even have an Oscars-style awards ceremony to give the developers the recognition they’re truly worthy of. I haven’t been gaming for as long as many people but even I've seen the huge increase in popularity and quality in a pretty short space of time.

I’m not what anyone sane can class as a ‘casual gamer’. More of an ‘obsessive’, ‘fanatical’ or ‘mildly unstable’ gamer so I’m not all that qualified to talk about casual gaming, but seeing the huge popularity of the handheld console and the plethora of iPhone games, it appears that gaming has entered the mainstream. I challenge you to find anyone who hasn't played either Angry Birds or Doodle Jump!

I think that’s something that gamers should be happy with, it’s great when people share your interests and enjoy what you do, and I’ll continue to be happy with the casual gaming wave, providing developers don’t turn away from the the epic, story and graphics driven console games.

Otherwise I’ll have to find a lot more to do with my day, and that’s just not going to happen.

This is the start of something...mildly alright looking...

Blogging, like men skating down a railing and getting a solid metal bar between their bollocks, is something you’re always content to watch but never participate in. And for good reason. I don’t have balls but I feel it too. Really guys, I do. Blogging is just the same; a huge leap down some railings.

“I’d never have time to write one. I’ve got nothing interesting to say. My friends will think I’m weird. Someone will inevitably send me a picture of their penis.”

Yes yes yes and almost certainly, yes. All that and more has gone through my head multiple times but I’ve finally decided to just get on with it. I think blogging will be great fun; a chance to share my interests with the good people of the interweb, who contrary to popular belief, don’t all inhabit the darkest regions of craigslist and 4chan.

I’ve done it to primarily write about one of my biggest hobbies and interests: Gaming.

Yes, it’s true, I’m a first class, 100% super geek (in possession of ovaries) who would rather blow someone’s brains out on Call of Duty than go anywhere near a clothes shop (Quite frankly, I’d rather blow someone’s brains out in real life too. I really hate shopping.) I’ve been gaming since my brother’s dyslexia adviser suggested my parents bought him a Play station 1, saying it would ‘improve coordination’, when I was about 8 or 9.

Thinking back on it, she probably wasn’t a real dyslexia expert at all (or my brother is a lot smarter than I give him credit for) but she definitely set me up for a life filled with incredible first person shooters, emotive role playing games, and bad ass action extravaganzas and I’m eternally in her dubiously qualified debt.  

I want to talk about new developments in the gaming world, review new releases and write articles about issues that interest me within the gaming community. And with the video gaming industry being worth a cool $100 billion (around £62 billion for us brits), I think I’m going to have a lot to talk about!

I realise I’ve talked a lot about male genitalia. This wasn’t planned; it just sort of… came up.

Sorry, cheap joke, I know.