Representation of women in games

[H-O-W-L]

on the topic of racism, the new characterisation of suchong is overwhelmingly, blatantly racist. now transformed into something of a breakfast at tiffany's mickey rooney pastiche, he embodies something of an cranky east-asian stereotype and his english grammar and pronunciation noticeably weaker than in the original

Yeah, that is bafflingly fucked up, isn't it? They legitimately turn him from mildly-awkward to sincerely uncomfortable to listen to since it sounds like you're listening to some sort of racist-accented diatribe.

[madhair60]

Bioshock Infinite is about shooting mans.

[samadriel]

YOU'RE about shooting mans.

[Mister Six]

Thanks for the reply H-O-W-L, I'm working at the mo but will respond when I have time to read and digest that. Really appreciate you putting your thoughts down though.

(Also want to clarify that I don't think Infinite is a particularly great game or that any of its racial elements were well advised, but I'll get into that when I have time to explain my position properly.)

[shh]

Neo-Lara is unforgivably dull, a victim of the trend in certain video games for a kind of cod psychological realism.

[H-O-W-L]

Neo-Lara is unforgivably dull, a victim of the trend in certain video games for a kind of cod psychological realism.

I actually think they made her a worse representation. When I was a wee gaerl I really did want to be Lara. She was shit-hot both mentally and attractiveness wise, and had two guns and didn't take any shit and would murder any motherfucker that got in her way.  Maybe it was just because I was a kid, but still. She was hardly a negative influence or a negative model for me overall.

[Bazooka]

The worst thing Lara did was not show an ounce of sympathy to the failed experiment mutants in the London Underground in Tomb Raider 3(voiced by Michael of Alan Partridge). Sure they attack her first, but then when she hears about their ordeal,she just makes a load of quips about their horrible condition. But she helps them in the end. Also killing the endangered animals is your choice as the player, only the Dragon in TR2 is a forced kill, that weapon auto lock on is a pixel representation of a moral compass.

[Lemming]

Those guys were knobheads to be fair. Sorry you got your faces burned off but why are you chasing me through the tunnels trying to batter me?

It's much more concerning that she walks into the Natural History Museum right afterwards and starts massacring the night shift security staff. I mean, technically self-defence, but still.

I actually think they made her a worse representation. When I was a wee gaerl I really did want to be Lara. She was shit-hot both mentally and attractiveness wise, and had two guns and didn't take any shit and would murder any motherfucker that got in her way.  Maybe it was just because I was a kid, but still. She was hardly a negative influence or a negative model for me overall.

Yeah, I used to look up to her as a kid as well. Definitely a questionable role model, but I also looked up to Xena and she probably killed more people overall. Used to idolise the renowned pacifist Spock too, though, so it all evens out.

Lara's so boring in the new ones that I don't know how kids are meant to get excited about her these days, though I guess the games aren't aimed at kids anymore.

[Consignia]

I played Shadow of The Tomb Raider recently, and for all the dullness of the character she's still absolute murdering psychopath. She frankly commits genocide in Peru, in graphic detail. Not just a whack to the noggin, but plunging an axe into their throat and digging it in until they croak. And you can set bombs on their corpses, which I think is a war crime. And you've got no choice but to do it to progress.

[Bazooka]

I pretty much only used the pickaxe, it felt more humane.

[Chedney Honks]

Funnily enough, I only started to feel I could relate to Lara when she started putting a pickaxe through guys' necks 😅😅😅

When she was just a posh twat fannying around looking for her dead dad's dick, I wasn't arsed.

[Norton Canes]

Ant Attack

[H-O-W-L]

One of my other role models was Agent 47 though so I might just be a twisted little shit.

[St_Eddie]

One of my other role models was Agent 47 though so I might just be a twisted little shit.

I reckon the majority of CaBers grew up with Agent 47 as their role model, going by the sheer number of baldies.

[Mr Trumpet]

Kreia in Knights of the Old Republic 2 is a great female mentor/

Spoiler alert

villain

[close]

. And the most interesting character to come out of the Star Wars universe in at least 40 years.

[St_Eddie]

Kreia in Knights of the Old Republic 2 is a great female mentor/

Spoiler alert

villain

[close]

. And the most interesting character to come out of the Star Wars universe in at least 40 years.

A fascinating character performed majestically by a true thespian actress.  The greatest character from all of Star Wars; a character who genuinely made me question my own life philosophies.  It was so refreshing to have a morally grey character who lambasted and criticised the whole pure good/pure evil, black and white stance of the entire series.  Rian Johnson should have taken notes; that's how you successfully deconstruct a franchise whilst still maintaining and respecting its universe and characters.

[bgmnts]

Kreia in Knights of the Old Republic 2 is a great female mentor/

Spoiler alert

villain

[close]

. And the most interesting character to come out of the Star Wars universe in at least 40 years.

Yes!

[Harpo Speaks]

Recently made the mistake of reading the comments under an article about the camera angle changes in Mass Effect Legendary Edition (in relation to not practically giving Miranda a colonoscopy with said camera), and it was OVERWHELMING DESOLATION

[Blue Jam]

Thinking about Arkane's work, in their worlds, that sex, gender, skin colour and sexuality don't really seem to matter in them as they do in our world. Mostly this is ... nice? It's just sort of neat that Meagan Foster is an interesting and compelling character, because of her economic background and experiences and choices and how these are tied up with structure of power in her world, who just happens to be a black women who loved another a woman.

But at the same time, it's hard not to wonder "What does being black mean in Dunwall? What does being a lesbian mean in Serkonas? What does being a woman mean in the Empire?"

I think this is touched on a bit more in Prey. Transtar is a big corporation that recruits the brightest and best wherever they're from, and the inhabitants of Talos I are a diverse bunch. While you may not see this sort of thing at Silicon Valley, this is exactly what you'd expect on the International Space Station or in any big university research group for that matter. Race and nationality aren't an issue, all that matters is getting the work done.

The issues around sexuality are covered along with the issue of people being cooped up on a space station and getting cabin fever: it seems everyone is pretty liberated and they're all banging each other.

I have never played any of the Bioshock games and as a fan of Prey perhaps I fucking should. Do they still hold up in 2021? Which one would be a good place to start?

[St_Eddie]

I have never played any of the Bioshock games and as a fan of Prey perhaps I fucking should. Do they still hold up in 2021? Which one would be a good place to start?

Yes, they still hold up and you should start with Bioshock, which is still the best in the series.

Also, considering that you love Prey, you really ought to consider playing the System Shock games, considering they're were much more of a direct "influence" upon Prey than Bioshock was.  Prey was essentially made as an unofficial System Shock 3 and Bioshock was made as an unofficial spiritual spin-off of System Shock.  Both titles owe their very existence to System Shock.

[Zetetic]

I think this is touched on a bit more in Prey.

Or at least that Prey (2017) has a setting that doesn't immediately prompt the sort of questions that the Dishonored setting does, including for the reasons you suggest. The material conditions of a space station in the 2030s doesn't make me wonder where the sexism and racism are, not in the same way that a pseudo-Victorian "empire" does.

Having said that, the

Spoiler alert

Volunteer Programme

[close]

is interesting. Prey treats this weirdly cartoonishly - linking it mostly to the

Spoiler alert

still-extant Soviet Union

[close]

and then making most of individuals you engage with to be

Spoiler alert

rapists and murderers

[close]

- while it's hard not to imagine that in reality, a large proportion of them would be black Americans on possession charges...

[bgmnts]

System Shock has aged very badly in my opinion, I'd start with Bioshock personally.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

There's a remake of System Shock being made.

[St_Eddie]

System Shock has aged very badly in my opinion, I'd start with Bioshock personally.

As stated above, a faithful remake is coming out soon.  Also, whilst in a lot of regards the interface for the original System Shock has aged badly, I played and completed it for the first time ever last month and I fucking loved it, so it can't have aged that badly.  I'd say that the learning curve is very steep and that's the biggest barrier to entry.  Once the player gets over that initial hump, they're golden.

Also, System Shock 2 (which I also played and completed for the first time ever, straight after completing the first game) hasn't aged badly at all and besides, the System Shock series is arguably better than the Bioshock series and definitely much closer to Prey in story and setting.  I think that if someone is a fan of Prey, then quite frankly they owe it to themselves to play the series which inspired it.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

I'm playing Prey again at the moment (not inspired by this thread, just pure coincidence) and I still can't get over how bad the audio is. It's like it's been mixed by an idiot. Sometimes voices seem to be emanating from people's mouths, sometimes they're directly inside your head, it distorts all the time because they set the levels too high, and forget telling where the Typhon are judging only on the noise they're making, they seem to be everywhere at once. I'm not even sure if the game is in Dolby 5.1 or stereo. It's supposed to be 5.1.

Anyway, women.

[Blue Jam]

the System Shock series is arguably better than the Bioshock series and definitely much closer to Prey in story and setting.  I think that if someone is a fan of Prey, then quite frankly they owe it to themselves to play the series which inspired it.

I'm sure you've noticed the nods to System Shock in Prey- the "Looking Glass Technology" used in the screens, and a character called Danielle Sho as a nod to SHODAN.

The System Shock reboot was written by Chris Avellone, who also worked on Prey. Needless to say I am massively looking forward to it.

[Mister Six]

Sorry, Mister Six, but you're just wrong. How did you play a game where the introduction has you pushed to throw a baseball at an interracial couple, surrounded by cartoon monkey symbols, as a Fairground Racist Man goes "ARE YA TAKIN' YOUR COFFEE BLACK NOWADAYS, BOAH?" and not think it was about race?

Sorry for not getting back to you until now, but I've not really had the time/space (or spacetime) to properly engage with the thread.

What I meant was that the central theme of the game, what it's about at its core, is the idea that violence begets violence, and that seeking to dominate an oppressive force only inverts the paradigm, it doesn't stop it. In confronting and trying to destroy Comstock, Booker literally becomes him, in doing so creating a new timeline with a new Booker who will destroy him and take his place, then create a new timeline and so on, over and over and over forever. It only ends when Booker stops fighting back and allows himself to be killed by the Elizabeths.

Race isn't central to that. The racial stuff is there as part of the story, but regardless of what Levine says, it's not what the game is actually about. If you made all the characters British you could make the Vox Populi oppressed working class proles and the central message of the game - that violence begets violence - would remain the same.

The problems that you identify quite persuasively arise precisely because the game isn't about racism or racial politics, but a veneer of both has been pasted on top of an unconnected theme/story (although even then, the Vox are expressly not all black, and not even people of colour).

[H-O-W-L]

I suppose we ultimately come to agree then that the game is racist shitcuntery, just in different terms as to how it does that.