I find it interesting to compare and contrast Nier Automata and Bayonetta in terms of female portrayal. Bayo owns her sexuality, but the cinematography undermines this occasionally, where as the androids of Automata don't really have any take on sexuality that we can see yet dress in absurdly impractical ways yet the camera doesn't really emphasize this ever. Also, Bayo was designed by a woman, where as the choice of have the women in Automata dress that way was Yoko Taro's decision. Then there's the whole story behind Kaine from the original Nier that is a completely different kind of subversion.
Personally, while I understand the objections Abby has to Bayonetta, I do think she should experience the game to get the full context before making a judgement as weighty as "bad for women".
@sethmode: I think the comment "bad for women" combined with the fact that her opinion was not based on experience with the actual game took things to a point that got to people. It's one thing to say something doesn't appeal to you, another to accuse something of actively doing harm. As for Bayo the character, I'm actually in the reverse where most women I've encountered who are aware of Bayonetta like her as a character.
@aistan: 1. Bayonetta was designed by a woman. 2. You say she's objectified, but then admit she can't have her own feelings because she isn't real, so by your logic EVERY character, female, male or otherwise, is objectified simply by being unreal things made for our enjoyment. You can't have it both ways. We talk about characters as if they have agency because the point of fictional characters is that we are supposed to briefly believe they are real characters with thoughts and feelings. For this reason, since so many female characters are presented as not having the ability to make their own decisions, it's important to have female characters that visibly and actively have agency in their stories, of which Bayonetta is an example.
It's really odd to see Vinny be so dismissive of Splatoon. He seems to not know things that I feel have been discussed about the game multiple times. The map rotations and weapon variety especially seem like things he'd be more aware of. Whenever Splatoon has come up and Alex, Dan, and Abby talk fondly of it, Vinny seems uncharacteristically eager to pick it apart and make it look bad. Jeff does the same thing but I've come to expect that from him.
@jedikv: Except, where as Overwatch advises you to have different roles to a team, Splatoon doesn't really have roles. Teams in Splatoon can be entirely a single weapon and it can do fine. While there are certain weapon types that should be available earlier, it really doesn't take more than a handful of matches to get a good variety of weapons.
While I like mechanics as much as most gamers, for me an interesting story or atmosphere will pull me through a mechanically lacking game more so than the reverse. Dan's inability to relate to unrealistic fictional universes and artstyles that aren't Metal Gear also goes into him not liking most stories, since he NEEDS things to be as realistic as possible, otherwise he doesn't have the imagination or empathy to relate to fictional, unrealistic characters.
Thomas Was Alone was a game that, despite being mechanically simple, made me care about the lives of featureless colored shapes because they were well written. I didn't need them to be realistically depicted people because I have the empathic ability to imagine them as beings with personalities.
Some people use escapism to imagine themselves as realistic badasses that get to kill stuff, while some people like use escapism to see the lives and developments of characters and how different personalities play off each other.
@bigbluecheese: You are correct. Also, the movie being set during WW1 instead of WW2 with Nazis actually has a reason. Nazis were pretty unambiguously the villains, where as in WW1 the Germans were more morally grey. Wonder Woman's arc in the film is her going from being naive about the world and thinking there are evil people you can just take out and make everything good again, to realizing that humans are complex, morally grey beings.
@7x_: I don't read comics and I enjoy most of the MCU films. Even if a lot of them are safe, they are still fun movies. Being average doesn't make them bad, just average. I'm mostly interested in them because of how they all connect together, it's a feet of cinema that hasn't been seen before. While it had it's slow points, I didn't find Wonder Woman boring simply because of how rare female-superhero movies are and how it was successful at doing it. Also, I don't get how Dan found nothing about Guardians memorable, especially considering how crazy the idea of those characters were. Basically, while the individual MCU films may be safe, as franchise there has been nothing like it. The greatest praise that I can give them is that they made superhero movies without being embarrassed by the source material, which you couldn't say about the majority of superhero movies prior to 2008. Even the much praised X-men movies were too afraid to have the original comic costumes.
@charlie_victor_bravo: I remember that GOTY discussion. It was a year with many AAA games that didn't really leave lasting good impressions, and even the more well-liked ones weren't liked by a strong majority of the crew, and Mordor was a generally enjoyed game with a neat new mechanic that most of them enjoyed which is why it won.
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