Vinyl

@Harkat said:

I'm getting very contradictory messages regarding sexism in pop culture. On one hand I hear "Portray women as equals!" on the other I hear "Now you just made a female character who acts like a man! This solves nothing!". I don't get it. Isn't equality the whole goal of this movement? It seems hypocritical to first complain that women are being portrayed as inferior, then complain again when they they are portrayed just like the men.

What do people want women to be portrayed as? "Strong characters" is not an answer.

Speaking as a lady gamer here, the problem is you can't conflate "portray women as equals" with "female character that acts like a man", because that implies that women would behave the same way a man would. Which is patently untrue, and leads to a phenomenon The Wire David Simon called "men with tits" - men's voices coming from women's faces.

Some portrayals get it right - I'd cite Jack from Mass Effect 2 as a perfect example of a highly aggressive, rage-fueled personality, she never once comes off as anything but a woman, but that's rather because her performance and writing were such that she was given range, which many, many female characters in media are missing, and simultaneously serves as the basis for the ubiquitous "strong female character" goal. She could be pigeonholed as a bitch for the same reasons that her character can be considered strong, because the way society reacts to aggressive men is different than how it reacts to aggressive women, but it's fairly undeniable that Jack leaves an impression, good or bad. Strong female characters (a phrase which needs to die btw, and be replaced with "strong characters"), equality begins with writing a real character with fleshed out motivations instead of relying on on tired, lazy archetypes and exposed boobs and ass to sell the character.

@RobertOrri: Konami's too busy putting out classics like Otomedius Excellent, bro.

METAL GEAR!?

Well alright, but Starcraft 2 is a game in and of itself - you're just going to be connected to your free Battle.net account to play it after you buy. For WoW, I think you're on the complete wrong track, because the payment models for MMOs are so different from how games are otherwise paid for. Kinda unfair to compare payments for continued use of a persistent world vs. the finite packaging of console + DLC games as they don't remotely go for the same market.

Oh, and because I didn't mention it earlier, thanks for continuing to bring up interesting topics, Patrick :)

@Cyrisaurus: It has a lot less to do with that than it does about the idea of A) supposedly playing a central role in huge, action movie style set pieces & B) being thrown out of the experience if you make a misstep or deviate from the script. Not saying that he's right or wrong, just that it's certainly warranted discussion.

I @vinsanityv22 said:

This is fucking ridiculous. You shouldn't sue - it's a video game. Just sign the EULA and don't be a dick. It's common courtesy - not some sort of invasion of privacy. They're just doing these clauses so morons won't sue them because they can't play their Call of Duty online (one of the dumbest reasons ever to try to sue a corporation).

If these a**holes are going to be this stupid, perhaps they shouldn't be playing video games at all. There are REAL problems in the world, Patrick -- Stop making such a fuss about this crap! Someone should send you to Libya so you can get some damn perspective.

Fuck.

Remember when Giantbomb was awesome? And only Jeff, Ryan, Brad, Vinny and Alex used to post stuff? And all they did was play video games? And there wasn't a fucking, god-damn 30 second Dead Island ad in front of every video? Man...I fucking hate it when Patrick gets into "faux-journalistic crusade" mode - play some games and be cool about it, or stfu. You're part of Giantbomb!

@Rirse said:

Don't care, stop posting this crap, Patrick.

THANK YOU

Oh my god, I feel dumber for having read this "response". Do you seriously have no idea what the context of this is?

@Rebirth1337: Losing your personal information to hackers & not wanting to take responsibility for it isn't enough?

Dear god, some of you are pond scum.

RIP Mr. Jobs.

People complaining about the Joker spoiler are probably the same ones that complained about journalists reporting that Assassin's Creed is more scifi than history at the start. If they have anything to be upset about, it's the way the information is presented - Kotaku did it in the wrong, most attention hoarding way possible, so I think Brad handled it much better & I agree that if it's this early on, chances are it's less of a plot point & more of a reason to stir publicity. This is so comic book death-y; he'll be back, guys. Good on you, Mr. Shoemaker.