We’re back to our regularly scheduled podcast programming after the madness of E3. It’s not all back to normal though, Kev couldn’t make it so it was just Kris, Lewis and myself on this week.
We started off by talking about Prometheus for around twenty minutes. There are some extremely light spoilers in this section if anyone hasn’t seen the movie yet and is worried about that sort of thing. Probably nothing that wasn’t already spoiled in the lengthy trailers though.
Then I had to talk about the Game of Thrones RPG, which I also reviewed here. It’s dreadful and hurt my soul so let’s not go into it any more.
Lewis had similar feelings about Snow White and the Huntsman, which stars her from the Twilight movies and Thor, along with the snappy lady from Prometheus. Apparently it’s not very good but has some spectacular CGI.
Kris talked about Babel Rising, which he’s reviewed here. He likes playing God, which explains a lot, but I’m not sure his enthusiasm for the death noises made by priests is altogether healthy. We then briefly touched on Before Watchmen, the prequel comics to possibly the best graphic novel in the world.
Lewis has been playing Dirt Showdown, and loving it. I hear that he drives like that in real life though, so that’s no surprise. After smashing up some cars, we talked about Indie Game: The Movie, which I watched this week. That’s a very smart movie which follows several independent developers as they finish creation of their games.
Then we had our usual awesome quiz before some reader questions which resulted in quite a lot of ranting about gender and sexual assault depictions in video games. Something I’ve tried very hard not to talk about. I failed.
Don’t listen to this podcast if you’re offended by bad language, bad jokes or badly fact-checked statements.
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This podcast features strong language, jokes in poor taste and adult themes, if you’re offended by that then we recommend that you don’t listen to it at all.
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hazelam
there aren’t a lot of evil god games?
every god game is an evil god game when i play.
with the gender issue.
a few points.
they unrealistic way men and women are usually, though not always, represented in games is actually a problem at times.
the men being this big muscled superman type figure is pandering a male power fantasy.
and the women being big breasted, slim waisted and wearing so little clothing that the only way to see any more of them would be to become their gynecologists, is usually pandering to the male sexual fantasy.
sure, that’s not an exclusive problem to gaming, but gaming is bit of a way behind in dealing with the issue compared to most other media.
the Hitman trailer just made me roll my eyes.
i don’t know why the women had to be dressed like that, but hell, maybe 47 just shot up a bondage stripper nun assassin hideout or something.
that part was just there to provide a little bit of titillation i feel.
as for the apparent sexualising of the violence, i don’t really see it that way, i mean i’ve seen videos just like that featuring men who knows how many times, with regards to the violence rather than the outfits.
for the most part in gaming, when there’s violence against women those women have been just as capable as the men, they’re not usually weak victims, they are equals to the male characters.
at least when you have to fight women in the games, i’m not talking about innocent bystanders here who are usually just walking targets no matter the gender.
gaming does fetishise violence a bit, but not specifically against women.
and as for the rare strong female character not just there because they’re “sexy” getting acclaim.
didn’t ea get some acclaim for Faith?
and don’t bioware get plenty of acclaim for the fact the hero in their games can be male or female and it makes no difference to how capable they are?
like i said in my comment on the article about the rape, i’d love to see this industry be able to handle something like rape, or sexual assault, in a mature way.
but as i said, in some ways the industry is a bit outdated in it’s attitudes, and i don’t know if it’s ready for subjects like that, look at how it treats violence.
hey, maybe a Tomb Raider game isn’t the right platform to deal with the issue of rape.
but as the industry matures, it will have to deal with issues like that at some point, every other media has at some point.
the violence is another issue that gaming will have to deal with as it matures as well
i’m not saying there will ever be a time when there aren’t any violent games, and i don’t want there to be either.
but does almost every major non sports game have to involve killing things?
indies are leading the charge on bringing more mature content to gaming, take something like, To The Moon.
it deals with people’s deathbed regrets over something they didn’t do and wished they did.
and i’m guessing those regrets aren’t just, not stopping the bad guy from killing their family.
more personal regrets.
like not asking out that person they liked, or turning down an opportunity.
i get the feeling the first game to handle the gravity of something like rape or sexual assault properly will be an indie title.
other media tells more personal stories like that, i look forward to the day a big studio games can do the same.
i’m not claiming to be some authority on any of these subjects, these are just my thoughts, i’ll leave you to decide how informed or uninformed you think they are.
Peter Chapman
Fantastic response to a tricky issue (and some rambling, ranting opining from us!)
threelions_66
Only the second podcast I’ve listened to, really interesting thoughts
Peter Chapman
We’re often a bit more positive!
hazelam
about Prometheus, i saw this and had to post it here.
bit spoilerific for those who haven’t seen the film.
http://www.darkhorizons.com/assets/0018/2479/251848_10151018516200865_283947574_n.jpg
FalconRedux
Thanks for that. It’s obviously meant to be funny, but it does show more logic than the film seemed to!