Tue: Sep 09 2008

"What Women Want… on their screens"
3 comments, it seems

I haven’t done this in a while. Creak creak.

It’s also too late in the night for me to crank out a more thought-out post. I’m afraid it will have to be a quick link, with some brief thoughts.¹

What Women Want [in games] (Leigh Alexander, GameSetWatch) : Interesting post and consequent discussion in the comments about why women “don’t like” big console games. I think the points on packaging and media representation are valid.

Packaging, however one might like to think one is little affected by it², can influence unconsciously. I certainly find myself unattracted to a game if the cover looks too ‘macho’… muscley men in army garb, flanked by busty women in tight clothes. (If the cover’s got a sports car anywhere on it, I avoid it whatever the people on the cover, if any, are wearing.) If it’s got guns and military vehicles on it, I won’t pick it up. Yes… It seems I judge a game by its cover. Cutesify it (Katamari) or make it look a little bit artsy (Okami) - and I will consider reading the description on the back. I do doubt that I will like the latest shooter or military mission out on 360 or PS3 or whatever, but I remember that I used to enjoy watching my cousins play GoldenEye 007 when I was younger… and it does seem like a shame that I would miss out on a great game because it’s marketed as a ‘genre’ I don’t think I enjoy.

As for representation: I don’t watch enough TV or read women’s magazines to say with authority, but I certainly don’t have many recollections of seeing girls or women playing video games on TV, or articles about gaming in typical women’s mags. (I did notice the other day that the girl in Wizards of Waverly Place played a handheld console - suffice to say, she wasn’t the girly type.) It doesn’t have to be the hardcore girl gamer either - I can’t recall coming across, in my daily life, acknowledgement of casual gaming by PopCap moms (I personally know one, so these do exist!) or those with pink Nintendo DSes who raise virtual puppies.

So what’s my next step? The next flash game I come across, that receives good reviews and remarks, I will take a moment to not judge it on the number of guns, explosions or dead bodies it contains… which is kind of hard, because I believe that violent games can desentisize the gamer’s feelings about violence. Amorphous+, though, contains no dead human bodies except your own.

* * *

As for the ‘direction’ of the blog… The other day I spent a few minutes reading random blogs, and I realised something. Blogs are unique (some people may beg to differ) because there’s a different person behind each one. Sure it’s easy to generalise - that age group will always write those kind of posts, people who like that kind of music have terrible writing - but again, like judging a game by its packaging, one can miss out on good prose or thoughtful writing that way.

So I can’t be bothered sticking myself with a label. From the few comments on my last post, it seems my blog maintains its readership because of my writing, whatever crap I write. Yes they tend to be my friends, yes no one else comes here (except by accident, and then they forget about me), but what more do I really want? Can I really maintain a more regular blog, with journalistic articles? Can I really keep from revealing bits of myself through my posts? (Aren’t blogs interesting because of the type of person revealed through the writing? - Not that I am an interesting person. Not today, anyway.)

Thanks for reading, and have a nice day.

1 - This post was later edited in the morning. But even if I’d posted it at its original time, it would have still looked more fleshed-out than I hinted at.

2 - There’s a nice study, whether you’d believe its implications or not, mentioned in the book Blink (Malcolm Gladwell) regarding our opinions of products with attractive packaging.

 
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categories(?): gaming, nobody_likes_me, my_webbie, that's all :)
Tags(?): gaming, feminism, bias, blogging, girlgamers

Wed: Jan 09 2008

"point and click"
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I have discovered point-and-click escape games and I can’t get enough of them.

Typically, I discover this when procrastinating my preparation for a test tomorrow.

 
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Sat: Aug 25 2007

"Doors and Okami"
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I noticed something.

In this country people don’t open doors, or hold doors open, for you. It doesn’t matter if you are a young lady and the other party is a man, young or old or in between, they will let themselves through the door first and you may well be the one holding the door open for them. You could argue that at least it’s not sexist, but surely some type of chivalry remains in this world…

Dunno though, maybe I think too much, maybe it’s just a subtle difference between people in Brunei and those in the UK (or at least at my university).

* * *

I think I probably shouldn’t have played Okami for several hours straight this afternoon (with a few breaks). The first sign was when I went out in the evening and noticed a red lantern, and thought that a good (Power) slash could get it down in a second. Then I saw a big plain tree in a cartoon and I itched to dress it up with one of the Flora brush techniques. Also, snatches of the game’s lovely soundtrack take turns to play in my head.

It’s a good game. I was pleasantly surprised at the scale of game, and the nearly 30 hours of gameplay I’d clocked in so far since the beginning of August. (Is that too low or too high? I do have a life. :P) Also it’s the first non-Final Fantasy game I’ve stuck to since the Katamari games, and certainly the first non-Final Fantasy game with an actual storyline that I’ve committed myself to in a couple years. (I feel a little old saying ‘years’, but it’s the truth!) I love the Celestial Brush and the music, and the unique cel shaded graphics - very pretty.

What annoys me though is Issun - it’s not his personality or his patter (well, maybe sometimes), but more the feeling that despite his position as ‘helper’, he actually guides us through the game, and he knows exactly what the next step is supposed to be, and once you realize that it becomes annoying and predictable (that you know what he says next will be done to advance the story), and the game starts to feel restrainingly linear.

(It is a rather linear game, sidequests aside… but it wasn’t really as obvious to me before I started becoming annoyed with Issun.)

The other thing that bothers me is that most of the females in this story don’t seem to have much personality or spunk. (Spoiler alert!) Sure Kushi tried to confront Orochi herself, and Princess Fuse was meant to defeat Crimson Helm, and the Priestess Rao (as far as I’m playing now) may have twisted motivations… But after the whole Moon Cave incident Kushi becomes lovestruck (well, so does her man I suppose); Princess Fuse did nothing to help me with Crimson Helm, except to lend me the Orbs from her canine warriors for defense; and Rao is regularly referred to as being a pretty woman who is ’stacked’. I guess I would be pleased if Rao does turn out to be evil or something like that. It would satisfy me a bit if she were a villain using her spiritual skills and her looks to achieve her own means… Not being just another woman asking Amaterasu for help. But I guess I’ll find out.

That said, it’s not like many of the males stand out themselves, except for the ‘Half-Baked Prophet’ Kaze, as Issun calls him… What a tiring character. Susano was just plain annoying, until he revealed himself (in a fashion) at the Moon Cave, so now I have a little newfound respect for him. (Spoilers end)

But yes, a good game, if it’s your thing. Sometimes I feel really bad for not contributing directly to the makers of the game… (I’m a Bruneian, you know what I mean! $5 DVD Games…)

 
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Fri: Dec 15 2006

"Fruits and… Planets?"
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Been catching up with Fruits Basket and OMG I can’t believe it’s nearly over now. I feel happy at how things are working out, but sad at the looming ending. And OMG that was such a bland typical thing to say but in my fangirl mode my vocabulary skills drop sharply (not that they were at an admirable level anyway).

OH OH and if anyone remembers that I, being incredibly lame and at the same time being an incredible perfectionist, had yet to finish a single Final Fantasy game despite having first introduced to the charms of Ifrit and Shiva in 2000/2001, due to my insistence on playing the games ‘right’ and progressing with level-ups, and getting as many GFs, or attaining as much Materia, or completing as many side quests as was possible of myself… if anyone actually remembers that, well remember differently.

FOR I HAVE BEAT SEPHIROTH. XD

Okay fine, it wasn’t my game file, it was Yazid’s (though I contributed significantly to it, it is about a year old now). BUT STILL. And I never had to get the bloody Gold chocobo to get to the Materia caves. Just a lot of “Comet2″ and Summons and taking advantage of Limits and gawd I love “Magic Hammer” ^_^ (did I use that in the final battles though? can’t remember).

I have a brief memory of one time I stumbled into the final battle with Ultimecia in FF8: I wasn’t ready for it, I just got to the area by accident, and thought, “What the hell” and decided to do a sort of test drive, or test battle, and see how tough she was. I think I was wiped out in 5 minutes. XD The fights with Sephiroth, in comparison, weren’t easy, but not that tough, you just have to keep going at it.

…That was directed to any other poor soul who has yet to beat the game. ^^;;

Anyway, I now have an important website to work on. *sigh*

 
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Sun: Nov 26 2006

"FF3! and multiple OMGs"
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So my first reaction upon seeing the screenshots of Final Fantasy III on Nintendo DS was: “OMG does the game really look like that? It looks like FF9!” *amazed look*

In Syazana’s trademark (in our house anyway) tone: “O. M. G!”

*brief fangirl mode*

OMG OMG I miss Final Fantasy. How could I not have finished a single one of the games over the summer? How??

 
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