General gaming

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• Women In Disguise
• Booth Babe: The Inside Story
• OP-ED: Diablo III Unfairly Tests New Players' Patience With 72-Hour Approval Period
• What Catherine Got Wrong
• Quantum Conundrum Review: Portal Minus Polish
• Sex Ed 101 for Video Games
• OP-ED: Mainstream Gaming and the Male Gaze

Women In Disguise Posted: 21 Jun 2012 08:03 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JUNE 18 | GENDER, SEXUALITY, AND VIDEO GAMES Women In Disguise Cover Story: How games handle heroines posing as heroes. I t happens sometimes in video games. A fully armored warrior joins a quest, a villain looms imposingly at a level's end, or an annoying sidekick chirps unwanted tutorials in the player's ear. They're all apparently male characters. Then comes the revelation: the anonymous hero, the fearsome boss, or the boyish tagalong is, in fact, a woman. It's a thoroughly worn plot device, and it was already frayed well before video games even existed. When it comes to women posing as men, the games industry portrays them with the same scattered, often misguided treatment it shows for women in general. Some are mere gimmicks, some are plot twists, and some are downright offensive. On occasion, a game takes the cliché in a relatively intriguing direction, perhaps without even trying. For the most part, games take one of three major paths when women disguise as men. In fact, some aren't even disguised.

Booth Babe: The Inside Story Posted: 21 Jun 2012 02:44 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JUNE 18 | GENDER, SEXUALITY, AND VIDEO GAMES Booth Babe: The Inside Story Cover Story: Are E3 booth babes a blight on the industry? We go to the source: The women themselves. L ike energy drinks, over-priced lunch menus, and endless pamphlets, booth babes have always been a staple of the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Often tall and always svelte, these paragons of feminine beauty are a part of many a marketing companies' armaments: A sultry if not always respected means to an end. Gaming's female demographic may be on the rise, but for now video games remain predominantly a man's world. And little grabs male attention like a shapely derriere artfully framed in skin-tight black leather. At least, that's what the PR specialists are probably telling their clients. I can't think of a better explanation for some of the outfits on the show floor this year. Though there weren't any pretty girls chained to consoles this time around, there was also no shortage of well-endowed women in questionable attire, something that may explain the age restrictions for E3 attendees. ("Mom? That lady isn't wearing any pants.")

OP-ED: Diablo III Unfairly Tests New Players' Patience With 72-Hour Approval Period Posted: 21 Jun 2012 01:42 PM PDT Blizzard has drawn the ire of gamers a number of times with Diablo III, whether it be over its art style, its always-online requirement (resulting in many being unable to play because of errors), or the ability to spend real-world money on high-end gear that other players might spend countless hours trying to obtain. With the release of the game's most recent patch, yet another item can be added to that list of debatable offenses, as those who purchase a digital copy of the game will be forced to wait up to three days to access content beyond what is provided in a glorified demo. Diablo III's Starter Edition is a fine way of allowing people to try out the game before purchasing it. It is not, however, what you would expect to be stuck with for any length of time after handing over $60. This isn't a bug or anything of the sort; as laid out on the official forums, this is intentionality functionality implemented as part of the 1.0.3 patch. "As of patch 1.0.3, when purchasing a digital version of Diablo III through the online store or your Battle.net Account, players are restricted to the Starter Edition for the first 72 hours (sometimes less)," reads the post. It goes on to detail what restrictions this puts in place until players can have their accounts approved: Matchmaking only with other Starter Edition players, no auction house access, no global play, and most problematically, a level cap of 13 and access to content only leading up to Act I's first big boss, the Skeleton King.

What Catherine Got Wrong Posted: 21 Jun 2012 01:06 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JUNE 18 | GENDER, SEXUALITY, AND VIDEO GAMES What Catherine Got Wrong Cover Story: A few details missing from Atlus' unflinching look at relationships. Note to concerned readers: this piece might mention things you don't want to know about Catherine. L ast summer, Catherine showed that you can mix a puzzle game with an unflinching look at interpersonal relationships and end up with a pretty fantastic product -- our own Jeremy Parish gave it an A in his review. And though the game features a succubus as one of its female leads and a demon as its principal antagonist, Catherine grounds itself with the bittersweet and veracious ramblings of half-drunk, aging men; Vincent's nightly barroom excursions stood as the game's highlight, as these encounters had the player gradually getting to know a very flawed but likable cast of characters over the course of nine chapters. So, with Catherine's emphasis on player honestly with touchy subjects like infidelity, it's only natural that the few plot omissions feel strangely absent.

Quantum Conundrum Review: Portal Minus Polish Posted: 21 Jun 2012 12:57 PM PDT In 2007, Portal surprised the pants off of an unsuspecting public who thought Half Life 2: Episode 2 would stand out as the highlight of Valve's curiously named The Orange Box. This student-project-turned-retail-release offered interesting mechanics previously dabbled with in games like Prey, and its impeccable level design and dark, original humor made it one of the best gaming experiences of the aughts.

Sex Ed 101 for Video Games Posted: 21 Jun 2012 12:01 PM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JUNE 18 | GENDER, SEXUALITY, AND VIDEO GAMES Sex Ed 101 for Video Games Cover Story: Learning to build a better game from film, music, and literature. I 'm a whole lot younger than the medium of video games, but I'm confident that I have the ability to discuss the birds and the bees in a slightly more mature manner without giggling and pointing at the sight of an exposed breast. Sadly, the same can't be said of a vast majority of games, which may be growing in terms of narrative and presentation, but still remain in a stunted state of arrested development when it comes to anything sexual. Too many video games deal with sex and sexuality by using the same tact as a soft-core porno, only with slightly better music. Having the camera nearly molest an anatomically incorrect digitized facsimile of a female isn't sexy; it's just kind of pathetic. I can't help but feel like many video game developers, publishers, journalists, and even the characters themselves could use a thorough lesson in how great art deals with the vast concept of sexuality in intelligent and mature ways. This lesson could very easily resemble an introductory college course that focuses not on the titillating, but on the thought-provoking. If our medium as a whole were to enroll in Sex Ed 101, a three credit course that focused on how to maturely covey the various facets of sexuality, it would be wise to take a good look at how other forms of art tackle the subject. Specifically, how three masters of their craft were able to take topics once considered verboten, and weave them in so tightly with their own respective art.

OP-ED: Mainstream Gaming and the Male Gaze Posted: 21 Jun 2012 08:00 AM PDT Feature Share it: Tweet 1UP COVER STORY 1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JUNE 18 | GENDER, SEXUALITY, AND VIDEO GAMES OP-ED: Mainstream Gaming and the Male Gaze Cover Story: Men, women, and chainsaws meet interactivity. Are games the next frontier for how we view how men view things? (This article delves into critical theory and games. It doesn't "tl;dr" well. The opinions in this op-ed are my own, and only my own. They do not represent the opinions of my employer or my employer's publishing partners. While the temptation may be there to label the thoughts in this piece differently, please respect my opinion, and more importantly, respect the opinion of those smarter than me who disagree by properly labeling this piece as opinions from one individual. Finally, there are far more educated experts on feminism than myself, so any errors are mine alone.) T he fact that gaming is debated as art is evidence that, even at its best, games are "low" art. We do not share the history of music, the dedicated critical language developed over the last decade for film, nor do we have the accessibility of the printed page. We are also an inherently commercial art. It requires both a large, addressable market, and targeted marketing, for a game to survive. That is not to say we can't learn from other types of art. Specifically, narrative gaming shares a great deal with film in both structure and composition. We share the idea of a script, a camera, and in many cases, traditional three act structure.

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