Ideological Whiplash and the Treatment For It

Siddown, kiddos. Uncle Salem's got the whiskey back, and the white collar's going back on. The Reverend is in. 

I have been asked a few times my thoughts regarding the recent noises that President Trump has made regarding violence and video games.

I am, frankly, unconcerned. This is hardly the first time that video games have been put through the government ringer. I'm old enough to remember the Family Entertainment Protection Act and its sponsor. I've heard the tales of Tipper Gore and the PMRC.

I'm only surprised that it took this long for Trump and Hillary Clinton to align on an issue. I'm also aware that, after analyzing (that's not something that you pay Stormy Daniels not to talk about, in case you need it pointed out) the situation, that it's more than likely this is a giant cloud of hot air that Trump is pushing to distract from the NRA.

What perturbs me about the situation is the moral vanguard of defenders that have arisen to defend the poor, defenseless art form against the big scary cheeto man.

Such as Polygon.

 
Or Feminist Frequency.


Or Vice's Motherboard.


Or any number of examples that I could dig up with a marginal effort.

See, there's something you should realize as you pull an ideological 180 so quickly that your scraggly beards crawl up to cover your prematurely-balding heads: that you're no longer welcome to defend an art form after you spend the better part of the decade bashing it.

You don't get spend five years vacillating between implying and outright declaring that video games will turn you into anything from a rapist to a murderer because the pretty Armenian girl with the teleseminar background bats her eyelashes approvingly at you, then turn around and pretend to be strident defenders of artistic freedom when the mean man in the big house on the hill says the same things she did, albeit not nearly as artistically.

It rings incredibly hollow and lends an inordinate amount of credence to the Trump Derangement Syndrome theory. You truly are pivoting on a position just because he said something you agreed with 10 minutes ago.

Video games survived government overreach once before, and yes, you played a part in that. You're not needed anymore. The internet exists, and gives a voice to each and every person that chooses to use that voice. Even people you don't like. Especially people you've spent the last 5 or so years painting as the most dangerous villains on the planet.

There is the road. Those are some rocks. Kick the rocks. At least the rocks won't kick back.

Mass Effect: Andromeda - Thoughts and Impressions

How do I start this without feeling guilty?

I've previously spoken at length about my relationship with Bioware, specifically the Mass Effect series. I'd sworn off them after Mass Effect 3, being dissatisfied with the ending, monetization, and other aspects of the way the story and game were handled. I then made an off-hand comment about a drunken tryst with Mass Effect 4 when it hit $5.

Well, technically speaking, it did. Or, rather, with the EA Access program, I forked out the $5 necessary to start the program and get the 10 hour trial of Mass Effect: Andromeda. There's been a lot of controversy surrounding this game so far, as the preview build and promotional gameplay has been met with a less than stellar reception. There's been a drastic shift in gameplay, which is good, but there's also been an alarming drop in quality when it comes to the character models and facial animations, which is not good.

The game, if you'll allow me to get technical for a moment, is built on the Frostbite engine, which powers many of EA's current games from Dead Space 3 to Star Wars Battlefront to Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2. For all I may complain about EA, the Frostbite engine is a work of art, and renders some amazingly good-looking games... but Mass Effect: Andromeda, from what I've seen so far, is not one of them.

One of the things Frostbite does best is lighting, and Andromeda falls flat in that area. Literally -- the lighting is extremely flat, as if you compared a low-budget television soap opera to a JJ Abrams film. Andromeda looks like the former when you compare it to the excellent lighting and shadows in something like Dead Space 3. The facial models on the default character are cartoonishly exaggerated, and the NPCs are largely bland and generic looking. Characters will tell you grave situations and tragic tales without even a twitch in their facial expressions, and moments later your character will have the most bizarre expressions on their face. Considering the 4-5 years of development, it's like the series is moving backwards instead of improving in these areas.

Gameplay suffers from some pretty terrible bugs as well. In the limited time I had in the campaign (the 10 hour trial cuts you short and returns you to the main menu partway through a story mission on the first planet you land on with a prompt to purchase the game),

• I got stuck in the terrain 4 times;
• I experienced pop-in (which is when an NPC spawns in the area you're standing) in a very jarring manner, with NPCs hitting a t-pose before dropping into their programmed space; and
• I experienced lots of clipping issues (where a character model will phase through a solid object). 

As for the style, it plays very much like Dragon Age Inquisition, which did not have these issues to any noticeable degree, nor did it have such problems with bland and poorly-animated faces.

There are some positives. The game has an interesting premise: a group aware of the Reaper threat in the original series constructed ark ships carrying tens of thousands of varying species of Milky Way residents to the Andromeda galaxy with plans of colonization. Something goes wrong, and only the human Ark makes it, linking up with the Nexus station that was sent ahead to coordinate immigration, and the "golden worlds" turn out to be not quite so golden. Your character, either Scott or Sarah Ryder (name changeable in character customization) is thrust into a position of authority they aren't necessarily ready for, and it's your job to scout for new worlds and ready them for colonization.

When it's not bugging out, the traversal and combat mechanics are quite good. You're far more agile and quick then previous games, and combat no longer has you hugging walls as often as the cover system has been modified and jump/boost jets have been added. Some of the characters are quite likeable so far... and some aren't. Cora, your second in command (the internet is furious that she isn't gay because of her haircut) has excellent voice acting and dialogue, and Vestra, the Turian who joins your squad on the first planetary expedition, is a charming rogue (against stereotype for the Turian race, but she's still no Garrus). The character creator is decent, and allows for a lot of variation in your version of Ryder (mine pictured below).

Justine Ryder, totally out of her depth

A tip from me: if you want to cut down on the goofy facial animations, make your character's lower facial features at least 50% smaller than the default Ryder's.

I will whole-heartedly endorse the multiplayer. Much like Mass Effect 3, it's a horde-mode layout, where you fight off waves of enemies interspersed with simple objectives, and you can play any one of a number of classes of characters from Engineers to Space Wizards (biotics). It's been trimmed from 10 waves + extraction to 7 waves including extraction which quickens the pace; this along with the improved movement and agility of your characters makes for a much more fast-paced and frenetic experience. I played the last game's multiplayer for an obscene number of hours, and can easily see myself playing this one's multiplayer as much, especially since it's also been incorporated into the story campaign as Strike Teams that you can access from the Nexus station. I had plenty of time to experience it, what with the campaign ending prematurely and I still had over half of the time left in my 10 hour trial.  If I'm completely honest, the multiplayer alone has probably raised my asking price of this game from $20 to $30.

All in all, what I'm seeing so far is a technically embarrassing game with an ambitious premise and a really solid multiplayer. It's basically an incompetently-coded Dragon Age Inquisition wrapped in a sci-fi skin, and I know why: the studio that actually developed this game is Bioware Montreal, which didn't exist until 2009, and only had previous experience assisting in the development of Mass Effect 3. It was Biowares Edmonton and Austin that did the heavy lifting on all of Bioware's previous (and good) games.

This is one of EA's flagship franchises, and it was handed to an untested, inexperienced studio that took a fantastic game engine and made a complete shambles of it. It's also receiving backlash on all sides, ranging from Cora's haircut-based sexuality to a trans character dead-naming themselves in their first conversation with you to their lead facial animator allegedly being a cosplayer with no prior experience, Andromeda's losing the PR campaign harder than someone trying to speed-run Mass Effect 2 (sorry, let me explain - if you don't take your time and prepare properly by doing loyalty missions, you lose crew members and could possibly die yourself during the final mission).

Should you buy this? No, not at this time. If the multiplayer has the legs that the previous game had, a year from now a ton of people will still be playing it, and it's absolutely not worth the $60 price tag they're asking now. Wait for a) a major patch and b) a sale. In the meantime, enjoy the plethora of comedy that's been spawned by it.

 

Edit: Bioware has announced a patch, but sounds very unsure about how to approach the much-derided facial animations.

An Open Letter to Rockstar Games

Dear Rockstar Games,

Some six years ago now, we parted ways on the Grand Theft Auto series. It broke my heart to do so, as I'd immensely enjoyed Vice City and San Andreas, but Grand Theft Auto IV was just so grim, annoying, and not fun that it put me off of sandbox crime games for a long time.

Don't get me wrong, it was a well-realized world with a lot to do and lots of depth to it. It's just that grim-faced Slavic protagonist and his annoying, omnipresent cousin, combined with the terrible vehicle handling, resulted in me not even completing the main story, let alone getting 100% like I did with Vice City and San Andreas. The fun characters and dark humour of those two games kept me coming back, and the tighter controls made driving more enjoyable.

In GTA IV, driving half an hour to a location in a vehicle that felt like it had a 500 pound cat on the hood... then failing that mission because of the poor controls... then having to drive half an hour back from the police station or hospital because there were no checkpoints... was just plain annoying. Making it to the final mission, and failing repeatedly because of terrible driving controls, was the last straw.



I even have the two expansions, The Lost and The Damned and The Ballad of Gay Tony, and I've not played more than 5 minutes of them because I can't bring myself to go back to the world of GTA IV. So I abstained from further GTA games.

Eventually, I found alternatives. Sleeping Dogs turned out to be really fantastic. Saints Row 2 was a dodgy port for PC, but still fun and had a great story, and it kept me coming back for 3 more installments in the series. I felt a great deal of vindication playing around in these sandbox worlds again and actually having the fun that I didn't have in GTA IV. Enough fun that when GTA V came out, I was smugly asking "Yeah but Saints Row IV is coming out. Who needs GTA?" while my PC brethren were waiting impatiently for the long-delayed PC port.

A month or so back, around Christmas, someone near and dear to me gifted me GTA V on Steam. It was on sale for 50% off, and I glanced at it, considered, and got a chill as I remembered that final GTA IV mission which, to this day, remains unfinished. When it showed up as a gift, I accepted it and installed it with a great deal of trepidation. The timing couldn't have been better, having recently rebuilt my computer with a new CPU, RAM, and motherboard, as well as a new video card that was barely a week installed. I started the game up, cranked up the settings, and ran the benchmarks, getting a solid 60 frames per second. I started playing the campaign and...

Okay, all right, it was fun. After a brief introduction that featured criminals yelling at each other and shooting at cops, I was greeted by characters that had depth, flaws, issues, and a sense of humour. I got a storyline that was actually really good, gripping, and fun. And unlike GTA IV, the entire world seems to radiate a sense of warmth and fun that I dearly missed from titles like Vice City and San Andreas. So that problem's solved. I finished the campaign the other night, doing most of the side missions, and I can say I'm satisfied.

Trevor Phillips, everybody. The most entertaining sociopath in the GTA series so far.

But you're not off the hook, Rockstar. We still have to talk about something. Maybe I've been spoiled by other games, but why are your controls so terrible?

I'm using a gamepad, which is what your game was designed around. Why do you click the left stick to "stealth walk" when most games use that to run? Why do I press A to jog and tap A repeatedly to sprint, when most games have you click the left stick? Why am I pressing X to jump when A has been the standard for jump since Super Mario Bros? Why do your characters drunkenly wobble around the screen when Saints Row has them leaping and sprinting effortlessly? Why do they swing blindly when attacking when Sleeping Dogs has an entirely fleshed out hand-to-hand combat system based around real-world martial arts?

It's the little things..

Truly, my only complaint about GTA V is the on-foot controls. They're terrible, atrocious, and they've not only been that way since GTA III but they've progressively gotten worse. How long are we going to let you get away with this, Rockstar? You can do better than this.

Please, fix this. If your next game controls better on-foot, I'll consider putting in a pre-order. Until then, Rockstar...

Ta,
Salem.

Salem Plays a Game: Resident Evil 7 (Demo)

I've been following the Resident Evil series for a while now, and starting with Resident Evil 4 and going through the most recent Resident Evil 6. it's slipped away from its survival horror roots that started with fixed camera angles, extremely clunky controls, and limited inventory system (all pretty much elements of the game that were required due to the limited technology of the platforms of the time) to a more schlocky B-Movie horror/action hybrid.

Therefore it was with great excitement when I heard that Resident Evil 7 was in the works. I actually enjoyed the cheesy approach of "extraordinary people doing extraordinary things to ugly monsters," and I admired that, no matter how much it stretched your suspension of disbelief, Resident Evil stayed away from supernatural horror and stuck to scientific horror. Sure, the game originated with zombies, but it also had other monsters like giant snakes and man-sized lizard hunters, all of them the results of an experiment originally intended as a sort of super-soldier serum a la Captain America. It stuck hard to that motif, no matter how improbable the results of the mutated viral victims became, instead leaving the supernatural elements to its horror brethren Silent Hill.

I think I'm done with scary mannequins.

The demo for Resident Evil 7 has been released, and it's fantastic. You're a man with a camera investigating a dingy and allegedly abandoned structure while filming documentary footage. It's all first person, interspersed with usage of the camera as an interesting mechanic to solve puzzles and find your way through the place in which you've become trapped. Long stretches pass without encountering any sort of enemies, and there are no weapons to be found; you have only your video camera at your side as a sort of security blanket. At times you're hunted and pursued by backwoods men, running desperately and hiding to avoid them, only to meet a gruesome fate at the end.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it..

Wait... wait, no, hold on. No, that's Outlast. But you'd be forgiven for mistaking the two. Resident Evil started with a semi-overhead view, moving the camera eventually to third-person over the shoulder view, and finally reaching Resident Evil 7, a first-person survival horror game that culminates, at least in the demo, as a less-scary, less-atmospheric, and more frustrating Outlast. It really looks no better than the three-year-old first-person survival horror atmospheric masterpiece that's only $20 on a regular day (there's a Steam sale on now, and you can get both the game and its excellent expansion/DLC for about $7.25, by clicking here).

As found footage goes, it's no Marble Hornets.

That's not to say that it's a bad game. There are some interesting puzzle elements going on here as you wander the abandoned and gruesome house, and what you find affects the ending you get. So far I've gotten a "Bad Ending" and an "Infected Ending." But there are some things that just certainly don't feel like Resident Evil:

• The first-person perspective is a obvious jarring change, but he lack of familiar faces doesn't help, either. Resident Evil has a rich cast of characters, and introduces new ones frequently by teaming them up with classic characters Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield, and Leon Kennedy. The new game focuses on an entirely new set of characters (or so I've heard), and the demo introduces a team of filmmakers that likely have an 11 PM slot on SyFy Network exploring abandoned "haunted" houses. 
• I've seen no evidence of the science horror from the previous game, except for one possible monster that could be inspired by the B.O.W. monsters of previous games, and in fact in playthroughs I've seen a little ghost girl that looks much more at home in a Silent Hill or other Japanese Horror game like DreadOut. The cannibalistic hillbilly trope is much more Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The Hills Have Eyes than what we've been used to so far.

The basement, where I had my first and only real scare. 

I'm giving this one a pass when it comes out. I might pick it up a year or so on when it's on a deep, deep sale, but for now I'm recommending the Resident Evil: Revelations series, which is far less action-focused and much more atmospheric than the main series, but keeps the science horror and familiar faces with games focused on Jill Valentine and Claire Redfield. Resident Evil 7 feels like it might be a decent game, but it just doesn't feel like a Resident Evil game. I feel like this one should have been spun off into a different franchise, much like Devil May Cry was originally supposed to be a Resident Evil game but just didn't fit the franchise enough.

Verdict: It's alright, but overall unimpressive. Don't pre-order it, but wait for a sale instead. If you're a Resident Evil junkie, this one's not going to scratch your itch.

The Beauty That Drives Me

(AKA "What's Salem been up to for the last week?")

Why is it that I do what I do? Why do I defend games?

I love stories. And I've never found a more immersive way of storytelling than that of a game; it's like the old choose-your-own-adventure books, but with physical input and visual feedback.

On that note, I've recently made an... extravagant purchase. I spent $400 that I could barely afford on a PNY Nvidia GeForce 1070 XLR8 OC. That may sound like a made-up string of letters and numbers, but it represents a huge leap forward in technology that's taken my computer from a struggling and aging machine to being a powerhouse contender again. And it isn't even the top-tier video card! If I had spent another $200 I could have gotten a 1080 series card, but I couldn't justify the expense.

I've decided to share a few screenshots I've taken since installation. Keep in mind that these games that I'm sharing with you are all running at maxed-out settings, with all the bells and whistles turned on, at a more-or-less steady 60 frames per second (the generally accepted benchmark for good performance) and 1920x1080 resolution -- otherwise known as 1080p, the same resolution that Blu-Ray movies are displayed at.

Arkham Knight
When this game came out, it was a mess. The framerate was limited to 30fps, and you were lucky if you could achieve that. Even after it was refunded heavily via Steam, taken off the store, patched and re-patched heavily, I could only maintain around 40 fps at 720p resolution. Now...

I had to show off how good my waifu looks

Bat and Cat. OTP. 

Grand Theft Auto V
A dear one to me gifted this to me as a Christmas present. I didn't buy it when it came out because of how badly I was turned off by GTA IV, but I'm happy to report that GTA V is a huge improvement. It's actually pretty fun to play, and it looks great. Especially at sunset: 

Sunset in Los Santos, Rush Hour. Being stuck in traffic never looked so good.

Rise of the Tomb Raider 

This is the sequel to the astounding reboot of the Tomb Raider series. It did not disappoint in any way, refining and adding on to the best parts of the first one. My old video card struggled to maintain 60 fps on low. Now, even with the ridiculous hair physics, it maintains a solid 60. 

The detail on these lost tombs is stunning. 

I genuinely can't believe this is actual gameplay. It looks like something out of a pre-rendered cutscene. 

Assassins Creed Unity

At launch, this game was an even bigger mess than Arkham Knight. At 720p and lowest settings I couldn't maintain 60 fps, and it was an incredible mess even after patches. Now, though, it looks great  and runs better. It does, however, hold the temperature record for my new video card so far at 74 degrees Celsius. My last card regularly ran in the 90s under much lower settings.

Revolutionary France, right before the shit hits the fan. Eat the rich. 

And right afterwards. Riots in the streets, and I'm only a day or so after escaping the Bastille.

Dishonored 2
The sad tale of the sequel to the stealthy oilpunk story of Corvo and Emily had serious launch issues as well, but was quickly patched to a playable state as well, but after plugging in this new card reaches an entirely new level of gorgeous, especially the Clockwork Mansion.

The ever-changing Clockwork Mansion. Probably one of the greatest levels I've ever played.

Crumbling empires make for very interesting scenery.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

This is the Sequel to Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which was the prequel to Deus Ex, which most certainly did not have any sequels no matter what anyone else tells you. It's gorgeous, but incredibly demanding; even on the lowest settings, I could never hit 60 fps. My first playthroughnever looked this good. Not even close. 

Útulek Complex, aka Golem City. Where they send the Augmented Humans they don't trust anymore.

Police brutality captured in stunning detail. 

DOOM
This is the grand finale: a reboot of  one of the games that started it all. Certainly not the first video game, and not even the first first-person shooter, but this is the one that everyone remembers when they think about old PC games. Sadly, pictures cannot fully capture just how fast-paced and hectic this game is when the demons spawn in and all you've got is a shotgun and a handful of shells between you and gory dismemberment. But I'll give it a try:

DOOM helpfully provides stats in the upper right corner. 

Go to Hell. It never looked so good. 

Tom Clancy's The Division

Did I say finale? Then consider this the post-credits sequence. I tried this for a free weekend. I've never played it before -- I'm not even sure what's going on yet -- but I've heard it's a beast to run. And yet here it is, running like a dream.

I've got a ruined city to explore this weekend. 

In short, I spent a bunch of money I probably shouldn't have on a piece of hardware I didn't technically need, but I am so in love with the results that I have no regrets.

Deleted Scenes
Deadpool very kindly lent a hand in unboxing my card, and our dear editor reminded me of this. So credit where credit is due, Deadpool. Couldn't have done it without you!

What's in the booooooxxx!?

Stand back, Chuckles, I got this! 

Homina homina it's like Bea Arthur reborn! 

It's so BIG! (that's what she said!) QUIET, VOICES! 

The Brookerin Experiment

I thought I'd posted this already, but I didn't... hence why I'm backdating this to Wednesday.  (Also, it's my blog, I can do what I regarding time and space.)

So last Satruday, someone posted to to my Facebook page a link to a "Let's Play" of a game called The Brookhaven Experiment and asked me if I was moonlighting, because "I swear the game voice sounds like you."

So I gave it a listen, and it was rather creepy how much the voice of "Kali" sounded like me. I mean, I could tell it wasn't actually me, mainly because she sounds a lot more feminine than I do, but it's close enough for me to go "OK, yeah, that's probably what I would sound like had I been born genetically female."

My podcast cohost Sean disagrees, but that's because he spends a lot of time listening to my voice (poor man) while he edits my audio every week.

Give it a listen and decide for yourself.

Hyrule Warriors: A Linkle to the Drama

For the past year or so, there's been a vocal contingent of cultural critics, industry writers, and twitter loudmouths that have been pushing for female characters. For even longer than that, there's been actual gamers that have been saying “We like the characters that we've got, but wouldn't mind a little more variety in character design.”

I've been a part of the latter group for some time, and appreciate every game that lets me play something other than the industry meme of the 'dark-haired white dude in his 30s.' From under-appreciated games like Assassin's Creed: Liberation and Remember Me to classics like Beyond Good and Evil and Tomb Raider, to imports that a lot of people very vocally hated like the Final Fantasy XIII series, I dig a good female protagonist.

Now I haven't been in Nintendo territory in a long time, but I understand there's a game out there called Hyrule Warriors, which is a Zelda-themed take on the Dynasty Warriors franchise, a sort of horde-mode spectacle fighter in which you pick a hero and take on hordes of enemies. 7 male, 8 female, and 3 monster characters fill out the roster; pretty balanced, I'd say.

Hyrule Warriors is available on the Wii U (which has just now managed to out-sell the failed Sega Dreamcast) and  is coming to the 3DS in March. (The 3DS has out-sold EVERYTHING. I mention this because it will be relevant later.)

On the 3DS version, Nintendo has announced a new character to the franchise: Linkle, a hero with long-ish blonde hair, big blue eyes, a green tunic, brown boots, and a very familiar overall style.

Good for them..?

Yep, this is a female Link. This is what Link would look like as a woman. This is literally everything that the cultural critics and Twitter-twatters have been clamoring for (short of literally making Link into a woman). And the reaction has been... mixed.

Pack it in, guys.

Now, you all know I've been paying very close attention to that alleged misogynistic hate mob, Gamergate, for the past (oh god has it been that long) 15 months, and given their reputation one would think there'd be outrage from them over a female Link. Mostly, though, the reaction has been “Hey, she looks neat. We'll give her a try” and discussion over her fighting style (and wondering how she fires crossbows without reloading them).
I can't find a single topic of discussion where people complain about a new female character being introduced, and the praise is pretty much universal.

The reaction outside of there, though; now that's where the real drama lies.

Do worms still turn?

Initially, it was very positive, but then it began to break down. The Mary Sue (bless them) cries “I love Linkle, but Linkle is not enough!” She's been criticized first for being a new female character and not a female Link, and then called a Ms. Male Character, when a literal female Link would be just that very thing.

It genuinely feels right now as if Linkle was trotted out by regressive activists as a “gotcha” who then backpedaled quickly into critical-theory-based criticism of the character as soon as they realized their targets actually kinda liked it. I almost wonder if Nintendo created Linkle just to prove that this type of people can never be satisfied, but then I remember that most of the Japanese companies really couldn't care less what Western-centric cultural critics think of them and practically print money every time they come up with something like this.

My favourite bit of criticism has to be that she doesn't count because she's on a mobile device.

A mobile device that's the Nintendo 3DS, which has outsold the X-Box One, Playstation 4, and Wii U. combined.

Linkle will have a potential reach of 55 million players (as opposed to a potential reach of only 10 million had she been released on the Wii U), and given that's she's being released on the 3DS, she'll likely cross over onto the Wii U version of Hyrule Warriors anyway.

Tits? What tits? She's wearing 
a loose blouse and flowy green tunic.

Sorry, cultural critics and twatters, Linkle is legit. She's adorable, and she's a great-looking character. You'll just have to swallow that disappointment and live with the fact that a Japanese games company gave you exactly what you wanted in a way that appealed to the rest of us as well.




Maybe one day you'll even admit that you're only in this because you're addicted to being outraged over things. Either way, the cognitive dissonance is great fun, and if I had a 3DS, I'd give her a spin.  

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised 7: I Do Actually Stand With Mustafa

Part 1: An Introduction
Part 2: A History Lesson
Part 3: Born in Fire
Part 4: Factions Form
Part 5: The Curious Tale of David Pakman
Part 6: The SPJ Airplay Bomb Threat

In Which I Say "Mustafa" a Lot
“Ooohh.. say it again!”
“Bahar Mustafa!”

It's been said that tools designed with the purpose of silencing people, any people, will eventually be turned against and used to silence marginalized people. It's for this reason that I am a strong believer in the concept -- not just the law or the amendment to the US Constitution, but the very idea -- of free speech. No matter how offensive or inane an idea, I still think you should have a right to say that idea, and nothing rustles my very jimmies more than people who take it lightly, dismiss it as a dangerous concept, or make jokes about 'freeze peach.'

Long ago, the Left won the public opinion PR battle by debate. They brought ideas that had not been challenged into the open, and debated them publicly to let the people decide which ideas could stand on merit. Now, the loudest voices in the Left are silencing not only those on the opposite end of the political spectrum ,but also those not as far Left as themselves, so that they can avoid having their ideologies dragged, kicking and screaming, into the light for an evaluation of merit.

Several months ago a 'diversity officer' for a rather upscale British university, one Bahar Mustafa (I love that name), made a bit of a row by publicly stating that white people were not allowed to a meeting with an emphasis on black and ethnic minority students, regardless of whether they were there for debate or for support. I'm sure that she did so in a mature and reasonable manner, too, given her position of responsibility as an employee of the school as opposed a radicalized student. This didn't go over well in the public eye, coupled with her frequent use of the #KillAllMen and #KillAllWhiteMen hashtags.

Come on now, you saw this coming

Either way, it all blew over, she wasn't removed from her position, and she got media attention for the incident both positive and otherwise, and got a chance to make a very public statement.

Unsurprisingly, it was not one that was in the form of a debate where those ideas could be challenged.



Fast forward several months, and the UN Broadband Commission, along with UN Women, held a summit with the focus on “Cyberviolence against Women and Girls.” The highlights of this summit included a 70-page report that covered, among other things, video games and sex work (not just sex-trafficking, but prostitution). The report was... less than comprehensive, and had lots of issues. Citations that pointed towards debunked reports that claimed Pokemon was satanic, that consumer video games were used to train military personnel, a citation that cited the report itself, several blank citations, and the much-derided citation that let to somebody's C:\ drive. The report was ripped to shreds on social media to the point that the UN retracted it, putting in its place a bare-bones version that's a mere 7 pages. It was so bad that even one of the speakers invited publicly denounced it.

Also making an appearance were Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn, who I believe you'll remember from Gamergate notoriety. You know, that terrorist organization that led hate campaigns that drove every woman from gaming... or something like that. They were there to argue that harassment isn't just, as I'm paraphrasing, what's legal or illegal, it's “you suck” or “you're wrong” or disagreement. Granted, not everything they said was without merit, but it's the equivalent of a pork spending bill where you pack in one giant scummy thing with a ton of really helpful things in the hopes of passing them all at once.

I take every so slight issue with the argument that "If you're not allowed to disagree with someone because they're a certain race, gender, or some other factor that's arbitrary to their argument, you slowly erode the concept of freedom of speech," because you end up with Gregory Elliot facing charges for disagreeing vehemently and vocally with someone on Twitter who wanted to dox and harass the guy who did the 'Beat Up Anita' game. Not that anyone did the same for the guy who did the 'Beat Up Jack Thompson' game.

Or did they? Because Ben Spurr, the guy who made the Anita game, is the same person who made the Jack Thompson game, and everyone had a good laugh at that one and never bothers to acknowledge the same person made both games.

Back on track, let's fast forward another month or so: Bahar Mustafa is now facing charges for sending 'threatening communications.' Which is absolute, utter, contemptible bullshit. Yes, it's karmic justice given her air of invincibility surrounding the incidents that caused this, and it's the seeds sown by the UN meeting, but it's also complete horse shit:

She's got a right to tweet dumb shit. People have a right to tell her she's tweeting dumb shit. If they're assholes about it, other people have a right to call them out for being assholes, and bob's your uncle, turtles all the way down.

Just like when the aforementioned cultural media critic makes a poorly researched and flawed observation, people have a right to criticize her. And if they're assholes about it, people have a right to tell them they're being assholes about it. Nothing is immune to criticism -- not even criticism. Criticism of criticism may sound silly on the face, but there's nothing more harmful to a flourishing idea than poorly thought-out or delivered feedback.

The response has been overwhelmingly similar, too. Everyone that's been painted as a villain for the past few years has pretty much stated “Yeah, she said dumb shit, but that's not a crime.” 

Because it's not. It's not a crime. And if you make it a crime to say dumb shit, who decides what shit is sufficiently dumb to outlaw? How do we grow if we're not allowed to drag ill-formed ideas and opinions into the public eye and either refine or discard them? Down that path lies madness, where we outlaw one form of speech after another, until we're all too terrified to say what's on our minds, whether it be productive or offensive.

In conclusion, I think Bahar Mustafa is a spoiled brat who lives in an entirely too large mansion and went to an entirely too expensive school with no real concept of how the real world works or what 'oppression' actually means... but I stand with her right to spew whatever idiocy she wants to so that we can all point and laugh. Never get in the way of someone making themselves look like an idiot.

A Serious and Personal Take On The Voice Actors Strike

Brace yourselves, this will contain an appeal to emotion.

There looms upon the horizon of the video game development world a strike amongst the voice actors. Negotiations between the union that represents them and the various powerhouse publishers seems to have stalled, and it's starting to look like some of the biggest names in the voice business are going to down tools shortly. What impact this is going to have on upcoming releases is unknown, but in my own selfish indulgence, at least it means Fallout 4 won't be delayed as that game is now little more than a month away.

I find myself strongly supporting this strike. I'm going to set aside the issue of unions as I'm sure I can find a dozen differing opinions on that topic (which have been discussed by some more knowledgeable than I), and it's not what I want to discuss here. In my years of gaming, I've seen the medium grow from little more than crude platform jumping with the barest of excuses being transmitted through text on-screen (if you were even that lucky – I used to play the hell out of Jumpman and I still don't know what the story behind that game was) to a point where games are rivaling – and even surpassing – film and television in their ability to keep you in suspense, touch your heart, scare you, and leave you in tears. I wouldn't have such a wistful smile when remembering my relationship with a cat-bird-lizard-alien if it weren't for Jennifer Hale and Brandon Keener. I wouldn't have sobbed my eyes out at the pain of realization of the real relationship if it weren't for Troy Baker and Courtnee Draper.

Voice acting in games has become such an amazingly versatile and essential storytelling tool, and it has to be done right. Professional voice actors are considered professional for a reason: you can't just slot someone in there who can't do the job properly. This was recently demonstrated with Peter Dinklage in the gloriously overbudgeted Destiny. Dinklage is not a voice actor. 

Don't get me wrong, Dinklage is amazing on-screen. He gesticulates and articulates and gives facial expressions that work absolute magic. His portrayal of Tyrion Lannister will be remembered for years to come, but acting isn't voice acting. You've got to carry everything in your voice, even if you've got a rendered face on-screen, and he just wasn't capable of doing that in Destiny. I liken voice acting in games to old-fashioned radio drama. Big Finish, for example, was the first light that Doctor Who fans had since the oft-derided Paul McGann movie, and they were audio-only stories that still managed to convey a sense of scale and wonder that even the show has trouble matching at times, with scenes carried by often naught more than the voices of the characters.

Game voice work has to be even harder, especially if you're doing a Mass Effect, a Dragon Age, or a Witcher where there's potentially hundreds of hours of content and a ton of storytelling that will depend on player choice, variable genders or species of characters, or simply where you walk in a world.

So, personally, I support this. Even if it brings the industry to a grinding halt until its resolved. They games industry can take a year off if it has to. We can live without next year's Assassin's Creed or Call of Duty if it means that the people providing the heart of the story don't work their voices into early failure to get there.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised 6: The SPJ Airplay Bomb Threat

Part 1: An Introduction
Part 2: A History Lesson
Part 3: Born in Fire
Part 4: Factions Form
Part 5: The Curious Tale of David Pakman
Part 6: The SPJ Airplay Bomb Threat
Part 7: I Do Actually Stand With Mustafa

In Which I Follow Up

Today is the 27^th of August, 2015. A year ago today, actor Adam Baldwin coined the term that would become the hashtag Gamergate. Over the next few days, a concerted effort by games media to shame gamers and shut down any questioning viewpoints failed to stop it, and it's grown, peaked, and leveled off since then. I've watched this story for the last year, continuing to lurk and research in both the pro- and anti-GG camps. I've seen beautiful moments of clarity as people learn to question narratives that have been fed to them by their own 'sides' (much as I had do to myself) in the pro- camp. I've seen people come so close to self-awareness in the anti- camp, only to pull back in fear. I've seen the phenomenon of “Game-dropping” occur, where major media outlets will reference the dreaded boogeyman Gamergate everywhere from marginally-related topics like Science Fiction awards to completely unrelated topics like planned off-world colonies on Mars to reprehensibly placed references to shootings nearly a year later.

Two Saturdays ago, on a day in Miami that was so hot and muggy that you couldn't pay me to be out in it, The Society of Professional Journalism hosted a talk on the subject of Gamergate. They'd had an “Ethics Week,” an event where they “recognize journalists who seek truth and report it, minimize harm, act independently, and are accountable and transparent.” To those opposed to Gamergate, “actually, its about ethics in games journalism” has become a joke, a meme, something to (somehow) discredit their boogeyman-like adversary, but to the pro- side, it's still very much an important idea. And so they flooded SPJ's Ethics Week hashtag. Regional SPJ director Michael Koretzky took notice and started talking to people -- people on both sides. What he found out can be summed up in a quote taken from an interview (linked below) with David Pakman: “I'm a journalist for 30 years, so I have the sympathy of a slot machine. Sympathy is not an issue. When someone tells me, as a journalist, all of those people over there are evil assholes, I get my antenna up and I don't believe it, because I don't believe the word “all” ever.”


“It's hard enough getting journalists to care about ethics, and here were civilians caring about ethics.” -- Michael Koretzky

So Koretzky got to work. He put together SPJ Airplay. His original intent was a debate, getting both pro- and anti-factions to the table. He reached out to prominent names on the anti-side, names that I previously wrote that I was warned against mentioning. Every one of them (as I'll speculate here), when faced with the prospect of being exposed to a rebuttal argument that can't be silenced with a twitter blocklist, declined to appear. The pro-side very eagerly found representatives, including three women and three men -- four journalists, a professor, and a youtube streamer. SPJ recruited a journalist ethics expert, journalism trainer, and an indie games developer. Anti-GG? Still no one.

The first panel went off without a hitch, with a lot of good discussion on the topic, and one of the highlights being the SPJ representatives roundly denouncing Gawker after an audience member presented a statement for their consideration that Gawker 'destroys lives.' The afternoon panel was argumentative and meandering, as you'd expect it to be with both Christina Hoff-Summers and Milo Yannapoulis present, at least until around the 1:15 mark, where the auditorium was swiftly evacuated. Despite the precautions taken by Koretzky which included notifying the police beforehand and searching and locking down the building overnight with a private security firm, a bomb threat was emailed to both the police and the Miami Herald with a specific time.

Which can't be looked at as anything but suspicious as this isn't even the first time it's happened. The #GGinDC meetup at a local bar had the same result. If you use your imagination and look at it with a very open mind these instances, coupled with an entirely one-sided narrative from the mainstream media (spurred on by the original targets of ire such as Kotaku and Polygon) it's almost as if dissent of the narrative must be silenced, no matter the cost.


“My opinion is that, after looking into this, is that most of the harassing done on both sides is being done by people on neither side.” -- Michael Koretzky

After the event, Koretzky and the SPJ reps co-opted an abandoned house and continued speaking with the panelists and members of the audience for some time after. You would think that after such a momentous event, gaming and other cultural sites would be chomping at the bit to report it, but beyond a few smaller sites and a surprisingly out of character and even-handed piece from Polygon, there was nary a peep. David Pakman, who had previously covered the story by interviewing both sides, spoke with Koretzky on the matter and, based on their discussion, they make a pretty poor misogynistic hate group. 

The cracks are showing in the narrative, mainly because the people who want better media refuse to roll over and die. They seem to have brought their tanks and medics and are fully prepared to fight this raid boss for as long as it takes, win or lose.

Trending on Twitter during the event.

The PC Master Race Salutes A Fallen Hero

On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a game developer. But in my heart, I am a gamer” - Satoru Iwata

I stand here today as a proud member of the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race. Though our jerks be circled and tongues planted firmly in cheek, we do take a certain pride in our gaming, as it's done at high resolutions and framerates thanks to hardware that we've invested in and, often, put together ourselves. Most of us are our own tech support, our own labour and assembly.

But we know when to step back and appreciate a true visionary and mourn the loss of one of the hearts of our world. Satoru Iwata was taken from us too soon, but not without leaving an impression on our world that no one will ever forget.

I began gaming on my dad's Commodore 64, but pestered my parents long enough they finally capitulated and bought me one of those Nintendos everyone was talking about. That's right, for a while I was a console kid. Had one all the way through the Nintendo 64. Nintendo has delivered some of the most memorable experiences in my gaming life. Super Mario Brothers 2, Metal Storm, Final Fantasy II. Secret of Evermore, Mega Man X, Final Fantasy VI. Mario 64, Smash Bros, Goldeneye 007 and Perfect Dark. After the N64, I went pack to PC and have stayed there since, but I've always had a strong respect for Nintendo. While the other major consoles were in an arms race to try and outdo each other with outdated and underpowered proprietary box-PCs, Nintendo broke away from that pattern early on and tried to make the gaming space a more interesting place with motion controls that worked, handhelds with touch- and dual-screens, and that adorable Wii U pad with the miniature screen. Nintendo never stopped inventing weird shit to put out, and they've always been looked upon finely from the ivory towers of PC gaming.

Iwata was seen as a figurehead, someone who really cared about what he was doing, and someone unafraid to make sacrifices. When Nintendo posted a loss, he took a cut to his own salary to keep paying the people working for him. When distrust grew with the gaming press, he brought us Nintendo Direct, which kept fans informed and entertained. But he wasn't simply a corporate figurehead. Iwata was a genius coder as well, once compressing the map of an entire Pokemon game to fit on the limited cartridge space of another one. He coded for Pokemon Stadium, which I had no idea I'd enjoy playing, but came bundled with the N64 I purchased on layaway back when I had my first job. He produced one of the most beloved RPGs ever made, Earthbound.

Mister Iwata, if there is an afterlife, and if I may humbly imply that you might notice my own post regarding your passing, I want you to know that you were instrumental in making many memories, and that's not a legacy to be taken lightly. The world weeps at your departure, but many a game will be played to honour you. I may not currently own any of your own work, but the next game that I finish, I will do so in your name. You never stopped believing in us, the gamers, and we will in turn never forget what you have left us. I say this, sir, direct to you.

Regressive Progressivism: Arkham Knight

I am vengeance. I am The Night. I am Spoilers.

I love the Batman: Arkham series. I have since I first played Arkham Asylum, the beginning of the series. I was wary of them at first, as licensed games have a long and storied history of being completely shit. Super-hero based titles in particular. One of my favourite super-hero films is Iron Man, and I was psyched when I found a clearance copy of Iron Man: The Game. Sadly, it was one of the worst games I've ever played.

Seriously how do you mess this up?

Not since Goldeneye 007 on the N64 had there been a good licensed game, and Asylum sparked the return of good licensed games, followed up with High Moon's Transformers: Cybertron titles and Deadpool. Even now, the genre hasn't recovered from the damage done, but at least there are good licensed games out there, and we owe it mainly to Arkham Asylum.

Arkham City, the sequel, may have been lacking the tightly focused narrative of the original, but it made up for it in scale of playable area and the mountains of sidequests, expanded roster of villains, and innovations in gameplay. The prequel game Arkham Origins (while not made by Rocksteady) is easily the worst of the series, but still an outstanding game. It innovated very little (expanding mainly on the Detective Mode in such a way that Rocksteady recognized and used in Arkham Knight), but it told a great story with mainly b-team villains. A mobile game, Arkham Origins: Blackgate wasn't necessarily a great game, but it wasn't terrible either, and was ported to PC and consoles later. 

It's previously been fashionable to bash the Arkham games for their treatment of women, primarily Catwoman. Despite being a playable character (both free-roam and story) and given her own motivations, agency, and the chance to rescue Batman, the game was still branded sexist because common street thugs called her 'bitch.' I'm honestly not sure how people who are locked up in a city-sized prison can be expected to treat one of the two women publicly making their residence known in said city-prison respectfully, but apparently the words of minor villains are the lesson the developers wanted us to take away from the game. Not that Catwoman is a badass capable going toe-to-toe with dozens of hardened criminals and Two-Face himself, but that she's a bitch. You've got me there.

For the most recent outrage, Arkham Knight is coming under fire for its treatment of Poison Ivy, mainly that she's a scantily clad damsel in distress. I'll grant you exactly one thing, she is scantily clad. But Ivy's so far mutated from baseline-human that her brain doesn't process human modesty the way the rest of us do. Is that an excuse? Maybe, but it's one that works in the context of the story. But that's as much leeway as I'll give those claims. 

My only assumption can be that the people writing these articles haven't played the game, but only seen a few short, selected clips. The claim is that she's kidnapped with a gun held to her head by a goon that she should be able to take out herself, Batman rescues her only to take her again and throw her in a cell, and use her when she's useful again, as a 'power-up.'

Let me tell you what really happens: Ivy is involved, as a party with agency, in a meeting of villains called to pool their resources to take out the Bat. Exercising that agency, she refuses, and is somehow rendered unconscious. It's not explained how, but she wakes up in a chamber with a gun to her head, at which point Batman enters the picture, beats up a dozen guys outside of said cell. Scarecrow gasses her and goon, but it only affects goon due to her natural immunity to toxins. She proceeds to smash his head into the glass of the chamber, and then walk out under her own power. She explains the situation to Batman before casually tossing him off of a building with her vines. Naturally, being Batman, he's waiting for her when she exits the elevator. Deciding the fight isn't worth the trouble, she allows herself to be arrested and taken to the GCPD. Batman later realizes he needs a way to purge Scarecrow's toxin and releases her from custody. She then takes control of a giant root system underneath Gotham and wreaks havoc on the Arkham Knight's tank division while Batman provides a modicum of covering fire. The game's mission objectives even reflect this by instructing you to "work with" Ivy, not "protect" Ivy. Finally, she sacrifices herself to purge Scarecrow's toxin from Gotham in a heroic redemption.

Reducing Ivy's role in the story of Arkham Knight to 'damsel in distress' is downright insulting. Insulting to the character, to her creators, the developers of the game, and her fans. She plays a major part, and Gotham would have been lost halfway through the game if it weren't for her.

Catwoman's part is being criticized as well, but that one's only partially valid. It's true, Riddler has her. She's got a bomb collar on, and Batman must complete challenges for keys to the bomb collar.. only some of those challenges involve taking direct control of Catwoman. And she's in this situation in the first place because of a character trait that's been present in Catwoman from day one: She's greedy. Riddler paid her to do a job, and double-crossed her by fitting the collar on her in the process. She even straight-up tells Batman that she doesn't want her situation to act as a motivation for him.

I'm only going to say this about Harley Quinn: She's wearing more clothes in every game and still you consider her sexualized.

Don't you go there, Kotaku.. don't you... you went there.

As for my favourite character in all of Batdom, Barbara Gordon... Kotaku, you go back and finish the goddamned game. And when you get to the part where Barbara Gordon looks Scarecrow in the eye and says “You don't scare me”, you come back and you apologize. And you replay those parts where you track her movement, where you hear about the soldiers that were taken out by a 'cripple in a wheelchair with ninja sticks.' Where you find the scene of the humvee she managed to crash by macing the driver, and how she crawled away until someone put a warning shot in the pavement a foot from her head, only to leave Batman a way of tracking her location without a trained and highly skilled villain noticing. And don't you ever call Barbara Gordon a 'professional victim' again. A professional victim is someone that milks a tragedy (real or imagined) for sympathy. Barbara Gordon took that tragedy and turned it into a legacy, becoming one of the most important characters not only in the Bat-titles, but in all of DC. 

The Ivy criticism made me sigh. The insult to Barbara Gordon made me genuinely angry.