I find Fist of The North Star: Ken Rage for Xbox360 to be highly addictive despite being a not so great game. I do a thing where I buy games 3-4 year after they come out so they're only 7-12 bucks and I just got the first Bioshock and Batman Arkham City and they're pretty good

Sexism in the Witcher 2 (contains very mild, early game spoilers):
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/CodySteffen/ ... cher_2.php


The problem isn't just that the sorceress has big bouncing breasts (which she does, mind you, and her breasts are so ridiculously large each one is larger than her head). It's that every female character is a sex object (except the elf), including numerous NPCs you encounter (and they've all seem to have a deer-in-the-headlight dead eyes which honestly creeps me out a bit... the princess Vivian, one of the few female NPCs who isn't overtly sexualized, is even described to be "staring blankly" at some point, haha). It's borderline softcore at this point. I mean for crying out loud, there's a mermaid who actually has a (perfectly round) human ass above her fish tail...
The funny thing is that the creepiest female NPC is fully "armoured" (with very prominent boob plate of course)... but her pose is grotesque, with her legs spread wide open revealing a chastity belt, and she's been injured of course, so she makes this nasty moaning sound... it creeps me out more than all the naked chicks, to be honest, every time I encounter her I try to skip that part as fast as possible, it's pretty .

I mean I love the game and I've been playing it for countless hours, don't get me wrong, and yes all the art style is over the top in general, but even with that excuse it's still pretty creepy and sexist.

Here are some pics (might be kinda NSFW), and with the sound and semi-animation it's a lot creepier, trust me:



So... yeah. There's male gaze pandering, and there's... this. Though at least, unlike The Witcher 2, Dragon's Crown's story and characters don't take themselves seriously...

I wouldn't exactly call this a "debate". Jim sums it up pretty well:

This author doesn't seem to understand the difference between content and intent; i.e., writing a character (even a main character) who is sexist does not make the author or her/his work sexist. Geralt, a static, decades old character is an old-world sexist who is not (and should not be) re-written to appeal to the whims of a new writer. That does not mean the game he inhabits is sexist.

Because it isn't. Saskia, an unromancable, armor-clad leader, is leagues more competent, intelligent and layered than pretty much any other character in the game, including the main protagonist. It isn't surprising the author left her out completely as she'd pretty much shatter his entire thesis.

I'm not going to disagree that there is fuckloads of sexism present in even the latest high-profile videogames on the market. However, The Witcher 2 simply is not one of them, at least when taken as a whole.

I'll back this up, too. The Witcher universe is one of inequality and discrimination in a medieval setting, so of course women would be seen as secondary. It's an ugly world and one where men are (not always) the powerful. I can't disagree with what sexism there is, but it's definitely not on the same level as say that Dragon's Crown thing - that looks like straight up hentai.

Started Dark Souls. This is one of the worst games for beginners I've ever played. Something like a learning curve is virtually nonexistent. And yes, I consider that bad game design (sorry for not being 1337 enough to see the genius in it). I hope it starts to be fun soon because at the moment it's little more than a frustrating grind. I even followed Morrigan's advice to decrease difficulty by starting as a Pyromancer with Twin Humanities - well so far Pyromancy is pretty much fucking near useless, being able to cast a weak ass fireball 8 times isn't exactly helpful. What would be useful is an armor, since of course now I end up using melee almost all the time. Are the differences between the classes supposed to show at some point or is the only difference that I can use Pyromancy from the beginning (instead of, like, having an armor for all the melee that can't be avoided)?

Jim nails it, as always.


Bollocks. If Geralt is static and pre-written, why are there even dialogue choices? And you ignored the rest of the article, such as so-called strong female characters still needing a male hero to rescue her, and the focus on looking at boobies, etc. The game is obviously pandering, and if you can't understand that it might turn off female gamers, well... *shrugs*


How does one counter-example "shatter" what is described as a trend? The presence of the elf in Dragon's Crown doesn't negate all the other objectified females.


I'm a little appalled that you'd think I'm so stupid that I can't understand the difference between a sexist setting and sexist writing. Considering I'm a huge fan of A Song of Ice and Fire, where Westeros is an obviously patriarchal society, it goes without saying that the problem the article author has isn't with the setting.


That's probably the single funniest thing ever posted in this thread. Good job. Babby gamers FTW. I suggest you give up if you're struggling with such basics as... blocking and evading.

Just to clarify, I'm talking about Dark Souls beginners, not general gaming noobs. I'm not one of those.

I figured those out rather quickly. My points still stand.

First off, appalled is quite strong. Second, I don't think you're stupid for this. In fact, I'm not even making the connection between your argument and the discussion (though I did say I was backing up darkeningday, which is worse). You just introduced me to a game called Dragon's Crown with your post, and I made the comparison between the game and The Witcher. I also don't know what A Song of Ice and Fire, so that didn't matter to me. Anyway, I'll just drop it here since I've got nothing else.

Dark Souls will be the judge of that.


Neither games are hatefully misogynistic or anything like that, but both have sexism, just in slightly different ways (though both games are guilty of obvious pandering and male gaze fan service). I'm not sure which type of sexism alienates me more, but the Witcher 2 gameplay turned me off completely, at least Dragon's Crown is fun with good combat.

To be honest with you I don't think it was a game design decision for such rampant sexism in the Witcher series, it's more to do with what the game is based off and as far as I'm aware the novels are 50% fantasy and 50% erotic novel I will agree with you there is a lot of tits in that game every female has big boobs that are to the forefront I wouldn't blame the game designers for that. Well not fully anyway

lmao, I guess the Dragon's Crown stuff is a bit more extreme than I suspected.

Dark Souls early design is just trial and error, like every single 16bit era game out there. You're going to die. Get back up, learn from your mistakes, and get better. I need more games like Dark Souls that don't hold my hands.

We aren't in the 16bit era anymore though. And those games generally had much simpler gameplay to figure out. I know dying a lot and trial and error is part of the Dark Souls experience. It's just that there isn't much to learn from fighting through the same enemies again and again just to be one or two hitted by the boss at the end. Are you seriously expecting me to have fun while doing this 30 times just to try and error all the 30 different ways one can aproach said boss (exaggerating a bit here it was more like 4 times cause I'm just that good ) just to end up tanking (as a Pyromancer) because that seems to be the only way with a slight chance of survival? I assume this will be different when I get the hang of it and start figuring out tactics to improve my chances, but the problem with that is that consequently the game is least enjoyable at the very beginning. "Hand holding" is just an vague derogatory phrase. There needs to be a minimum of "hand holding" in every game with of some complexity, otherwise there is no accessibility for anyone, not even 1337 hardcore gam0rz. But I guess you'd be happier if the "hand holding" messages in the first area - telling you how to block, attack etc. - weren't there because you'd rather figured that out through trial and error as well. Complicated = challenging = fun amirite? /rant

Really all I'm asking for is maybe a few more of those messages.

Vanillaware seemed to have a knack for putting gratuitous tits and ass in their other games(one kitsune in Muramsa had breasts rivalling the sorceress in DC) but they have outdone themselves this time lol, it borders on hentai.


GET GØØD OR DIE TRYIN
The first few times will feel like a bucket of cold water, but you will learn to adapt. I agree with Xeogred, more games need to adopt this approach.

More's the pity.

Well, to turn that around, I don't think the points of:
- A female character gets kidnapped.
- There exist pandering scenes. (though I perfectly understand it could turn woman off)
- the main character handles the topic of gender equality clumsily in conversation.
Inherently imply a trend of deep, insidious sexism either.

Personally, I think it's infinitely more sexist to automatically frame "a character gets kidnapped who is female"
as "This game is saying females are weak, pathetic damsels in distress because one gets kidnapped."

It's not that Saskia is a counter example which would rule out any possible sexism, it's the fact she's such an incredibly obvious one, yet the author doesn't even mention her. or Sile. or Ves.
It shows he's being completely dishonest.

I've read the books and they're far from being 50% erotic novels. In fact, I'd say they generally have less going on romance-wise than the games, even. I think what's going on is that, because the books actually *do* have sex and whatnot in them (compared to utterly sexless stuff like, say, Lord of the Rings), the game designers thought that those elements were ripe for inclusion in the game along with all of the other controversial elements (race relations, terrorism carried out by oppressed minorities, etc.). Like lots of other fantasy worlds (and like real life), Witcherworld is male-dominated and Geralt is a something of a womanizer. I think it's very likely that the game developers ramped up the sexual content some to seem edgy and sell more games, or maybe even because they knew that certain parts of it would get censored by some countries and thus get people talking about the game (and playing it), but I also think that on some level they were just trying to make sure that all of the facets of the books and of Geralt himself were covered in the game.

Not that I'm defending the thing as being inoffensive or anything like that. I just think that it's nowhere near the sort of blatant objectification of something like Dragon's Crown.

That makes zero sense. You could argue that it's wrong or irrational or an overreaction or whatever, but "more sexist"? Wha....?

Yeah, I'm not terribly sure what BTK's getting at there either unless he's talking about "reverse sexism" which is kind of sort of pretty much not really a thing no matter how many conservative talking heads like to think it is.

10/10, will buy and play Dragon's Crown.

Those women look like they are made of water baloons, not flesh and bones.

I blame porn.

Wow, Dragon's Crown and Dark Souls explosion! Going to have to go back and read all these comments and watch videos, but my first thoughts are:

Dragon's Crown: Can't believe this is such a big fucking deal, the over exaggerated art is nothing but comical, at least the girls have clothes on. I just started playing God of War Ascension finally and why do the GOW games never get any of this attention? They have completely NAKED overly exaggeratedly perfect female bodies. God of War games should be rated A or X because I'm sure there's tons of 10 year olds playing those games whose parents have no idea. Dragon's Crown rules, I already platinumed it and I'm still playing and leveling up other characters with my friends.

Dark Souls: It's very brutal at the beginning if you've never played it before. Once you level up a bit, get some better equipment or summon/get summoned so you can have some allies' help it will be a lot easier. PS kill the undead merchant and take his Uchigatana.

To clarify: I'm accusing sexism watchdogs of writing off female characters as weak and dependent prematurely.
To quote from that article:

Why this suggestion a female can't possibly still be strong or contributive overall when she's shown being kidnapped? How is that not belittling? Two male characters need to be rescued at a very early point in the game, yet nobody would call them weak for it.

Word on the street is there's another Dragon's Crown patch coming. The female characters are getting their boob/butt implants removed and the male characters can no longer eat food so they will gradually stop being so damn buff.

A discussion on a forum is a "big fucking deal"? Man, you privileged males sure get defensive easily.


Uh, most of them barely do... specifically the NPCs. And the one that's fully armoured, well... read what I wrote, she's somehow the creepiest one.


Yeah, no one has ever criticized God of War for its lame fan service and pandering and objectification of women. Nope, that never happened...


I suggest you look up what "undermine" means.

I was not talking about it being a big fucking deal on the forums at all, I meant all the arguments between video game companies. Also I was playing Xbox during the time all the God of War games came out so I guess I just didn't notice. Wasn't being defensive about anything and I think the whole situation is entertaining. Dragon's Crown is a badass game and that's all I care about.

"between video game companies"

Maybe you mean game creators and journalists?

yes, well the creators work at the companies no? I work at one myself and there's been a lot of talk about it here too. I have not delved to deep into what everyone is saying I just know there's been a lot of bickering and name calling going back and forth between creators/artists/writers whatever. Anyway the point is none of it matters!

Guess he's talking about Jason Schreier (sp?) from Kotaku and George Kamitani (why are these names so hard to spell?) having their little spat, but how they kissed and made up came to a polite understanding was already addressed in the Jim Sterling video on the previous page... nothing I would ever call a "big fucking deal".

You win, and thanks for that video it was funny.
Edit: I think you blew my "big fucking deal" out of proportion a bit... There have been numerous people bitching about dragons crowns artwork since the game was first announced even, not just that one case. There was another developer who posted something including swears and LOLs. All I meant was it seems to be a stupid thing for all these people to argue about. Wasnt trying to start an argument of our own In other video game news GTA IV just killed a grandmother

This a substantiated claim, something you heard from someone at Atlus, or are you just speculating/trolling? If this happens I'll just wait until DC hits the bargain bin before picking it up.

Obviously taking the piss.

I'm getting old. As a result, my internet skills are declining.

It's not much of a loss anyway.

You must not be playing very smart then, since a pyromancy fireball will kill a skeleton in one (maybe two? don't remember) hit if you time it properly, and your full arsenal of them can take the Berg's boss down to about 1/4 HP. I suck at a lot of strategic combat games, but I never found Dark Souls to be improperly structured in terms of teaching you stuff.

Admittedly, the one spot I came close to rage-quitting was Sen's Fortress, mostly because



But now that's done and I'm taking on Anor Lando and The Giant Tombs and they're both fucking awesome. Rocking the Black Iron Armor, a Divine Gargoyle's Halberd and the Great Chaos Fireball.

Anor Lando blew my face off. If only something like this kicked in when you landed there... haha. I still wish Dark Souls had a bit more music going. In fact, I thought DMC's OST stood out a ton (looked into it and turns out it was the RE1-3 composer, go figure), and kind of figured some of the stuff from that game would have been fitting in Dark Souls. Stuff like this would have been awesome:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEEhlZnTavs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IQcTcxzCyw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-AAu0Osxms

Loved this one... my friend summed it up saying it's like Berserk Eclipse stuff, haha.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbZBK-d1Ga0

I figured that too. You only got 8 of them though. No point wasting them on skeletons. They are useful against some bosses. The slow ones - since it takes so long to cast one.

You start with 8. With more attunement you can have more magic later. For now 8 is plenty without being OP.


Er... about Sen's Fortress,

I didn't think I needed to use the global Internet sarcasm font for this one

Man, Unreal Tournament '99 still kicks so much fucking ass. The music is just amazing, it has aged quite well in my opinion. I remember feeling so cool playing it when I was 12.