Video Game News and Miscellany

More fun facts! Two of the switches found in the files are actually named E3_lighting and E3_rain. Also, /v/ posters who are fucking around with the mod that fixes the downgrade are also saying that the PC stuttering issues were coded in.
 
The game played like shit on my PC and I didn't bother to play more than 15 minutes. On top of that, I couldn't bind shit on the right side of the keyboard due to it being yet again an epicly bad console port.

Glad to know it's a shit port on purpose so that Microsoft's limp dick console and the limitations of the PS4 don't look horrible compared to the master race.

And this is in 2014.... and they want to go 10 years with these consoles?

HILARIOUS.

Kept the installation, gonna wait a few months and play it again when the mod community will create what is needed to unlock the goodness of the game.... if possible.
 
Anita Sarkesian is back with another Tropes vs Women video. This time, tackling women as background decoration. I'm only a third of the way through so far, but once again, she brings up some very good points about the overall portrayal of women in most video games.

 

GasBandit

Staff member
I'm only two minutes in and already have problems with the assertions. She's acting like video games invented the ornamental woman decoration. Well, it's good to know a time traveler went back with video games to invent the chorus line, and pong advertisements got Vanna White her job. :rolleyes:

5 minutes in. Now she's harping on games (like GTA) that have ... gasp... hookers and strippers in their brothels and strip clubs! /facepalm. What should have been put in there? Unicorn balloons?

Complaining that there are women in video games who have no purpose other than to stand there and look sexy loses some of its steam with me when it's obvious that the game is trying to make a believable representation of real life, where there are in fact a great number of women who have no purpose other than to stand there and look sexy.
 
Last edited:
I'm only two minutes in and already have problems with the assertions. She's acting like video games invented the ornamental woman decoration. Well, it's good to know a time traveler went back with video games to invent the chorus line, and pong advertisements got Vanna White her job. :rolleyes:
She never said that. She's saying that advertising in video games began as such and has changed little. She's talking SPECIFICALLY about video games, not acting like it's the only case.[DOUBLEPOST=1402954980,1402954686][/DOUBLEPOST]I don't, however, like that she mentions the women NPCs in, say, Grand Theft Auto, specifically when there are just as many male characters that you can kill and rob, as well. No male prostitutes, though, so that point still stands.
 
I could nitpick the video all day over minor things that don't detract from her overall point, but I guess my main one is with using Hitman as an example. In a game where literally every other person who isn't Agent 47 is completely disposable, she chooses to single out a couple of strippers in a single level, of a single game, as a prime example of literally reducing woman to sexual objects. How is murdering those woman any different than murdering anyone else in any other level? Because of their job? Because of their outfits? Because of their sex? When the principle game mechanic of the entire series basically boils down to "murder people and do funny things with their bodies", it's hard to feel like anyone is supposed to be more than an object. Agent 47 doesn't even bat an eye at what he did because he's a 6'4" bald, albino, asexual sociopath... are we supposed to feel anything more?

Her ideas are good. Her presentation is good. Her overarching point about the disposability of women and their use as window dressing is COMPLETELY valid. But she keeps making rookie mistakes in her videos that make it hard for me to take the series seriously as an academic work (which she is clearly trying to pass it off as). Does she have an editor? Is she doing this alone or does she have a team of collaborators? If she doesn't, then I think she needs to team up because it kinda feels like she's just not able to make this into what she wants it to be on her own. With her drive and passion and the backing of equally talents people, this could be event better.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Why? She's not wrong about the misrepresentation of women in the majority of video games.
Actually, in this particular video, it's wrong to call them misrepresentations. Like what you said about GTA. She splices in clips from Sunset Riders because their showgirls are eye candy, but that was a real thing in the west - and it's also a particularly bad example because the game has female enemy mooks who throw dynamite, making them an order of magnitude more dangerous than the male mooks, and there's also the sister of the delightfully tackily named "Chief Scalpem" who convinces the bounty hunters not to kill her brother with absolutely zero sexualization, overt or implied.

Her idea is good - yes, there are video games that turn women into sexual objects. But as Ash says, she picks terrible examples and delivers her points in a way that make it seem like she's never stepped foot out of Soho except to attend Women's Studies class at a nearby community college.

Just like the previous video, Sarkeesian is not particularly helping her cause. She's totally Britta'd it up.
 
I don't know if making fun of someone's appearance is the best course of action in this discussion.
It's not my fault her eyebrows look ridiculous.[DOUBLEPOST=1402963000,1402962722][/DOUBLEPOST]I just randomly clicked on her video and gave her 1 minute to try to convince me to watch her video... 19 minutes in or so... apparently games allow you to "kill women" for power-ups and money and showing footage of games like GTA. Undocumented facts galore follow suit. Someone needs to tell her that killing ANYONE in GTA gives you this. But nooooooooo.... let's assume "I know what I'm talking about".
 
I haven't watched it yet, but if it's anything like her other videos there will be some (what I think are) intentionally misrepresented things that feels to me like she puts in those videos to elicit a vitriolic response that's she's built a career around talking about.

I'm kind of cynical.
 
I haven't watched it yet, but if it's anything like her other videos there will be some (what I think are) intentionally misrepresented things that feels to me like she puts in those videos to elicit a vitriolic response that's she's built a career around talking about.

I'm kind of cynical.
If she were doing this for free, I'd say you're being cynical. But she did get a metric fuckton of money to do these.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
I haven't watched it yet, but if it's anything like her other videos there will be some (what I think are) intentionally misrepresented things that feels to me like she puts in those videos to elicit a vitriolic response that's she's built a career around talking about.

I'm kind of cynical.
She pulls out the victim card at the drop of a hat. I know women get more, and worse, hate than men on the internet, but she's antagonistic in how she states a lot of her tweets, and then calls it being attacked when anyone disagrees with her, even if it's not out-of-line. I stopped following her because she's so over-dramatic.
 
She pulls out the victim card at the drop of a hat. I know women get more, and worse, hate than men on the internet, but she's antagonistic in how she states a lot of her tweets, and then calls it being attacked when anyone disagrees with her, even if it's not out-of-line. I stopped following her because she's so over-dramatic.
Speaking as someone who still follows her, I don't see that. I see her posting a lot of positive messages or excitement about games. Almost primarily about female representation, which is to be expected, but it's almost always positive from what I've seen.

As far as her being antagonistic at times? Given that she received hundreds of rape and death threats - the prime reason she disabled comments on her videos - I honestly can't say I blame her. Poorly articulated as her arguments may be some times, there is value behind them. It just seems like the gaming community in general felt the need to viscously attack her simply for bringing up the subject of women's portrayal in games. Hell, 90% of the reason she received so much funding for her videos was because of the publicity it received not from her project, but from the rape and death threats she was receiving. People who pledged more money were doing it more for that than the actual project, I'd say, just to say fuck you to those that threatened.

At the very least, her arguments have opened discussion among gamers about the ideas, even if she presents them poorly at times.
 
I've not watched any of her videos, but pretty much any time someone says something about women and representation on Youtube (yes, that broad of a category), there are a bunch of rape and death threats in the comments. I wish someone would do a study on the psychology behind it, because it really feels like akin to the response you'd get for stepping on an anthill rather than speaking an opinion or pointing out an issue.

That said, she's not helping the cause if her arguments are grasping at straws or poorly constructed. We've seen the damage that can do with one of our own forum members who champions good causes in a bad way.
 
Oh man I thought she stopped making videos since she disappeared from the gametrailers website. Welp there goes my free time this week.
No, they still make videos occasionally. The thing is that her brother works for Gearbox and she does voice acting now, so they don't happen nearly as often.

Also? "Asking out dead dialtone" is an EPIC burn.
 
Last edited:
CD Projekt Red has released a few tracks of the Witcher 3's soundtrack and it's fucking gorgeous. This is a surprise to no one. I want this game directly hooked to my veins right now.









All of them are fucking superb.
 
Top