I might as well make a quick recommendation of a series of games I like. The Chzo Mythos series from that Zero Punctuation fellow, whatever his name is. Doesn't matter, because I personally find his reviews quite tiresome, feels like the current season of South Park. Disregarding that he currently has lost his flair for misanthropic reviewing (Proper misanthropic reviewing), the Chzo Mythos is a very good point and click series. Links below. 
 
5 Days a Stranger 
7 Days a Skeptic 
Trilby's Notes 
 
Yes, there are four games in the series, but the fourth is just completely shit and I ignore its existence entirely. For reasons that are spoilerrific, which I will post below. Let's just say that a character in the series is brought to expendable limits. Does it really matter, you won't even be playing the last one, so why should I care?!
 
*Note, if you are going to get the series, make sure to get the special editions, they are free now and you get commentary with them. Although no commentary would save the suck that is 6 Days a Sacrifice. God that one was terrible.

I'll give you a quick summary, Omelas is a utopia, there is no poverty, no crime, no hatred, no famine, and everyone is intelligent, happy and wealthy (Universal wealth, don't think of money). This town is perfect in every single way. But under one condition, and one horrible condition that would dictate who lives there and who doesn't. There is a child, locked away in a basement. That child is abused (Physically and mentally), starving, mocked at by the denizens of this town. There is no light for this child to see, nothing but darkness and stink of his own entrails. This is understood by the people as soon as they come of age. One would think that people would leave at the notion of this, but all the people of the town come to terms of the metaphysical agreement, that this child's suffering would guarantee the utopian conditions of the town.
 
Now let's look at Guantanamo Bay, before we go anywhere, we must both accept that many of the people there have obviously committed the worst crimes horrible, but yet at the same time there is an alarmingly large number of people who have not yet had charges placed on them because they have not committed crime. Understanding that, it seems as if there is a segment of the population that fool themselves into believing that the torture of people (Guilty or innocent) would somehow make a utopia of their nation. Now I doubt that these people have ever read "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas", but they seem to understand the argument presented. Although something goes right through their minds. There are mass education gaps, mass unemployment, hunger, and poverty in their nation. They seem to believe all actions that go beyond the ones that torture dictate the attempt to destroy their utopia.
 
Absolutely something is wrong with these people, just as there is something wrong with the people of Omelas. If you can picture the problem with these people, I shall give you a cookie.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 
I'm loving L4D2 by the way, I've been having trouble getting into the Scavenge mode, but the last few games I've played were so much fun. I suggest everyone here to stop playing MW2 right this moment, to pick up L4D2. Just a suggestion. 
 
Also note, writer's block sucks. I could not find a way to write anything over the past few weeks. Who to blame? Boring short stories for English class. Honestly, I don't give a crap about anything we read because it is Canadian fiction, wake me up when we go back to Margaret Atwood please. A gift which is far too few these days. Until next blog, I might actually give something worth reading if I still don't have writer's block. Until then.     

Just a quick list of movies I all want you to watch, top 10 of course. Mainly because: 
 
1) I haven't finished writing the follow-up. Stupid tests/essays to finish for this week. 
2) I'm still lazy, what can I say? 
3) These Ten Movies are really something 
 

• C.R.A.Z.Y.
• 12 Angry Men
• Les Triplettes De Belleville
• Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulin.
• The Big Lebowski
• Fargo
• Les Invasion Barbare
• One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest
• A Clockwork Orange
• *I cannot stress this enough* 12 Angry Men

 
*NOTE* 
Left 4 Dead 2 comes out soon, get your copies.

...here is your moment of zen. 
 
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Now the reason the follow up is taking a bit of time is because: 
 
A) I'm lazy 
B) I've got work to do for next week 
C) Certain things I actually need to take into account for the actual topic, like facts 
 
Until next time folks, until then.

The following is an article posted on Destructoid by Anthony Burch, enjoy. 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 

Last week, I recorded a rant in which I argued that gay characters have not been particularly well-represented in videogames. The subsequent discussion, while remarkably civil, included many variations of an argument I had not considered before: that explanations of sexual orientation of any kind should have no part in videogames to begin with.

"I don't know why a characters [sic] sexuality often even needs to be mentioned at all," commenterkefkaesque argued. "Sure everyone assumes Master Chief is straight because of how manly he is and because of the games he's in, but it's not like he ever goes around telling random characters HEY GUESS WHAT, I LIKE VAGINA."

While I can respect kefkaesque's point, I also completely disagree with it. Sexual orientation, especially in regard to narrative-driven games, is an important, honest, and useful aspect of characterization that can and should be explored whenever possible.

Firstly, I'm not arguing that every single video game character in existence needs to be clearly defined as either straight, gay, or bisexual. Some games simply do not focus on story or characterization, and thus don't really need to discuss human sexuality any more than they would the difficulties of getting a mortgage. I don't really need to know whom Pac-Man or Luigi or the pilot from Ikaruga sexually desire, because that's got absolutely nothing to do with my overall experience in those games (though it helps to know that Mario likes women because then I know why I'm trying to beat Bowser).

The sorts of characters I'm going to discuss here, and previously talked about in the Rev Rant, are those characters who exist in primarily narrative-driven games: games that, while providing entertaining, interactive situations, rely on a story of some sort to drive that gameplay forward. Games like Uncharted, Metal Gear Solid, Halo, Half-Life 2 -- you name it. These games include characters that we, as the player-slash-audience, are meant to partially understand and, ideally, care about.

Any creative writing instructor will tell you that in order to figure out who a person is and why the audience should care about them, we need to know what they want. What they wish to be, what sort of life they'd like to live. By seeing their desires, and then watching them act on those desires, we gain a greater understanding of who they are and are thus in a better position to give a shit about them.

And more often than not, that means finding out exactly what type of person they want to have sex with.

Not as a sole means of characterization, of course -- that's how you get shallow or stereotypical supporting female characters who exist only to fawn over the male lead, or vice versa -- but as one of many methods of examining a person from as many angles as possible. Sex isn't the only thing that matters in characterization, but it's pretty important. Every single person on the planet wants sex and love, and the specific types of sex and love they desire can tell us a lot about them.

This is why we like Nathan Drake. This is why we like Solid Snake. We don't define these guys solely by what they want to put their penises into, but it certainly helps our understanding of them. Nathan's dealings with Elena Fisher, especially in Uncharted 2, contextualize most of his actions -- we see how much he relies on her and how far he's willing to go for her sake, and the conversations he has with both her and Chloe are a heck of a lot more entertaining thanks to the sexual, quasi-flirtatious undertones. Same thing with Snake and Meryl in MGS1, as abrupt and awkwardly-handled as their love story was (though it did thankfully lead to a much more bittersweet, adult treatment of their relationship in MGS4).

This is also why I find it so difficult to care about Master Chief on a purely human level. Yes, I can admire what he represents to the story of the Halo universe and how cool his abilities are, but he never feels like a real person to me; his priorities are limited almost solely to stopping the baddies and saving the day, and I'm never allowed to see him in any other real context.

Not that this is an inherently bad thing. The whole minimalist characterization thing avoids all the pitfalls of having a character who wants or feels something the player does not (Prototype, inFamous). But it doesn't really work for Master Chief, who speaks with a voice which is not mine and says things I would not say, and who often appears in cut scenes doing things I would not do. He is a character -- he is not me -- and as such should feel like a believable human being.*

The funny thing is, I literally never heard the argument that sexual orientation should not be approached in videogames before doing my Rev Rant. I've never spoken to anyone who, upon finishing God of War, complained that Kratos was written as a heterosexual. I've never heard of anyone arguing that Cloud should have never had any romantic feelings of any sort for either Aeris or Tifa. Sexuality in games only becomes an issue that shouldn't be fully discussed when the sexuality in question differs from the norm, and that's disingenuous.

The characters I really, really care about, in videogames or otherwise, do not exist in a vaccuum. They want safety, freedom, happiness, victory, and, at the end of the day, an orgasm. It's not outright impossible to craft an interesting character without approaching their sexuality (if I remember correctly, Jade from Beyond Good and Evil never shows an inclination in one direction or the other), but why ignore a simple, universal aspect of the human condition?

*The whole minimalist characterization things almost only works in first-person games like Half-Life, where the player effectively is the protagonist, or third-person games like Shadow of the Colossus, which has such a minimalist story that you may as well be making up Wander's character as you go along.

Though even as I say that, I realize that both of these non-characters still have potentially sexual dimensions; the way Alyx Vance relates to Gordon, it is very difficult not to see some sort of romantic chemistry between the two, just as it's hard to imagine that Wander wasn't so in love with Whatsherface that he's willing to kill 16 giants to resurrect her.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     
 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
First things first, I hate that damn beard of his. It simply looks filthy on him, but that's just an opinion. 
 
What I find interesting in games when dealing with sexuality, is that it mainly does so through the use of sex. Let's take The Ballad of Gay Tony as an example. The amount of sex in that game is simply incredibly absurd, it almost makes it look as if it is making up for the fact that it is called The Ballad of Gay Tony, but I digress. They make a point to show that the main character is straight through sex, and a ton of it. Another strange use of sexuality in gaming is Bioware's Mass Effect (And might as well include this, Dragon Age: Origins). In Mass Effect, the sexual tension steadily increases, and what do they give us? Well it's interesting, they throw it all away at one moment when you have to choose between characters you like. Which is fine... if it weren't for the fact that by the second playthrough I didn't give two shits about either Kaiden, Liara, or Ashley because I didn't make it my goal to sleep with either of them. In the first playthrough, I would have loved the opportunity had Garrus been added in the mix (As his character was the only one I enjoyed). But that isn't necessarily an option. 
 
Bioware did the whole romance thing like this. Man/Woman, Woman/Man, Woman/Woman. There is one more combination, so they gave it to us in Dragon Age (But why not Garrus, that guy is easily the best character in the game). You now have the choice to do it with a blondish elf character, who pretty much doesn't care if you sleep around. I get that Bioware is full of geeks and all, but even geeks know what romance is. This inclusion of a Man/Man sex scene is great, but for Christ sake, that isn't romance. Romance is devout attraction and admiration for another person, sex is irrelevant to romance (It is an added benefit though). Plus don't make the other guy a whore, cause that's really lame. 
 
I just think that developers could do a better job in the inclusion of sexuality (overall) in games. That's my opinion, and the end of it for now, any questions you can simply ask. Until next time, until then.