haggis

If I have a choice, I'll often pick a female because most games have male protagonists. But I wouldn't read much into anyone's choices on this sort of thing. I'm sure we all have multiple reasons for why we choose what we do. Sometimes we want to relate to the character. In the case of Mass Effect, I prefer Jennifer Hale's performance as Shepard. In games like Skyrim, I often play as a thief/archer, and it seems logically a good fit for a female character. The whys often vary from game to game for me, and I suspect that's true of others as well.

In RPGs, it's natural to want to model a character after yourself. It's a perfectly rational choice to choose male because you're male, or female because you're female.

EDIT: I'll just add that I find it amusing that gamers are constantly pushing for more customization and more choice in games, and then wind up all judgmental about the choices other gamers make with their characters. What's the deal?

@Meowshi said:

@haggis said:

@Meowshi said:

@YOU_DIED said:

2012 will be remembered as the year when the word 'misogyny' lost all meaning because some college grad turned 'pop culture critic' said something irksome on YouTube

Only by edgy internet kids who want to continue pretending like the problem doesn't exist.

I don't think this is so much about pretending that the problem doesn't exist as it is putting the outrage about it into some context that makes sense. The misogyny in gaming is a problem, but it's nowhere near as pervasive as everyone seems to be making it.

But we are "gamers". It makes sense that we would complain about issues directly affecting "gaming", even if these issues are much larger problems outside of our particular hobby.

I hate the word "gamer".

I don't mind that the question is raised about misogyny in gaming. I'm not sure anyone would have minded. What pissed people off was that there was quite a bit of broad-brush characterization going on. It was treated as if it was a pervasive problem, and those who questioned whether or not it was were then tarred as misogynists themselves. It wasn't a healthy discussion.

We play games. We're gamers. We're also other things as well, but I'm not sure why anyone would object to the label.

It performed far better for me after I installed it. Your mileage may vary.

I'm pretty sure the first game I ever played was Combat on the Atari 2600. It would have been 1979 or so. The first games I remember ever being excited about, though, were Empire Strikes Back and Pitfall! (both on the 2600). I would have been five or six at the time. I definitely remember enjoying it. In fact, I can trace my love of all things technological to those early gaming experiences. Within a few years, I was programming little games with sprites and a joystick on a C64. Good memories.

I liked the game. I've said before that I thought most of the other mechanics in the game (from the Homestead to the naval missions, etc.) all felt disjointed. The game felt like minigames rather than a coherent whole. On the other hand, I loved the naval missions and loved the homestead. They were great ideas, but they weren't incorporated into the main mission structure as they ought to have been.

Things were also "streamlined" in ways that made the game worse, such as the lack of manual locking on (wasn't a problem in earlier games), the simplified health and nonexistent armor systems, etc. The movement of Connor seemed a huge step backward to me. So, yeah. It's not as good as Brotherhood, because they keep screwing with things that weren't broken.

Still, I had a great time playing this game. It wasn't a horrible experience at all (well, the framerate did occasionally suck, but not as much as some people claim). My major complaint (common, it seems) is that the good stuff was all side-missions. I'd like for them to go back to Brotherhood, and basically just do that again with new characters and a new setting. They seemed to ditch everything that made Brotherhood a great game. The result is merely good, with some flaws.

Anytime you give money for something that doesn't yet exist, you're taking a risk. So while it might look a bit shady to take the money and run, it's a risk that all backers take. There's nothing stopping the developer from producing the absolute minimum that their deal with Kickstarter requires. I'd like to think that most people on Kickstarter making games are doing their best to make something cool, but there's always the possibility that the project will run out of money before it's finished, etc. Normally we buy games after they're finished, so there's no real risk of this.

Unethical? I'm not sure it quite rises to that, so long as they deliver the project they promised.

That's not to mention the fact that (whatever Kickstarter itself might say) there's no way they can guarantee that a project gets delivered at all. Depending on the circumstances, that might be unethical (if there was never an intention of delivering the project) but could also just be a matter of circumstance.

The best comparison I can find for this game is the first Assassin's Creed game. Lots of potential in some places, but also lots of room for expansion and variation. I'd love an open world, or at least a larger main hub that allowed for some exploration and some side-quests. It was a little odd--in most games, when you commit to a new story mission, you're doing the story mission. Here, what I wanted to do was run around and explore. But you can't do that, really. You either do the sidequests attached to the main mission or not. Clearly they wanted to find a way to get you to explore, and it works--but it feels like a compromise. They didn't have a full, open world, and so exploration is limited. I'm fine with it at some level, but I think a large, open, area with some hostile and some non-hostile areas needs to be a priority for a sequel.

I didn't think the story was bad in Dishonored, just very bare bones. We should get something a bit more complicated and wide-ranging. While I liked that the game changed itself based on your play-style (giving you more weepers, guards, etc., if you consistently went high-chaos) I'd appreciate some more visible and tangible changes to the world based on choices. I'd also like some light role-playing elements--character customization, some more diversity in armaments and armor, and more than just a few levels of power upgrades.

It sounds like a lot of things to change, but honestly I'm loving this game. The core of it is sound, it just needs a bit more ambition. I think the devs deliberately held back a bit here--it's a new IP, after all. They kept the scope small to avoid the risk of overreaching. I imagine a sequel is going to get a larger team, and larger budget, and probably give us most of what we really want to see.

I'm curious, rather than excited. I'm interested in seeing what features Sony and Microsoft are going to push, and how much power they have compared to the current gen. I think it will be fun to dig into the details. But we don't actually have any of those details yet, and probably won't for months.

I won't get excited until I start seeing some in-game footage from the big-budget release window games, especially some new IPs. Until then, meh.

@Deathstriker said:

I doubt very many people played it that way, perhaps people here, since odds are if someone's on a gaming forum they're a very hardcore gamer, but I'd be shocked if over 30% of people played it that way. I really only sneaked around if there were tall-boys or a ton of guards; both of which are pretty rare. I didn't see the point in sneaking past 3 or 4 guys when I could easily take them out one way or another then throw their bodies in the ocean. If you were sneaking around SO much can you really talk about the swordplay anyway? Sounds like were rarely in fights.

It seems like when someone voices a disagreement with you, you start questioning whether or not they're qualified to offer their opinion based on how much they've played. You're not going to catch much sympathy that way. Just saying. Honestly, it doesn't take long (either sneaking or swordfighting) to get a sense of how the mechanics work and to form an opinion.

@GetEveryone said:

In Dishonored, the stealth was great, but the solid gun-play gelled incredibly well with use of powers and the sword meaning that post-detection, the game didn't devolve into "better hide my ass quick-style", but opened up a legitimate, alternate play-style. Great level design (for the most part) meant that actually implementing your chosen style was a joy.

This is probably what I've liked best about the game. In most stealth games, detection means either reloading or dealing with shitty combat mechanics. There is nothing terribly complicated about the melee in Dishonored, but it's solid and most importantly, fun. I often found myself fighting just mixing up with powers, guns and swords after detection, and then going back and reloading my last save if I wanted to continue stealthily. It's the first time I remember actually enjoying the mix of options I had in such a game. I prefer a stealth approach, but more and more I'm finding that I'm equally enjoying taking every guard down with my abilities and the sword. God forbid, I'm actually thinking about playing through the whole thing again for the high chaos ending, because I know it would be a blast.