Wednesday, February 22, 2012
heavymetalmage asks: What are your top ten animations of all-time?
In no particular order (except that which I think of them...)
1. Ratatouille - My favourite Pixar movie, which is NOT a phrase I use lightly. There are others I love more for their action (Incredibles), emotional resonance (Up) or insane self-imposed challenge (Finding Nemo and Wall-E) but Ratatouille is the one I find the most beautiful and can just pop in and enjoy anytime. I also dig the oddball structure of the movie, very much in keeping with the setting and subject matter, and it's about rats. Rats are cool.
2. Who Framed Roger Rabbit - Holy shit. Did you know the animation in this movie was all traditional cel overlay? As in, they filmed the live-action, and then the animators were given photographs of the frames of the film, which they used to do the rough animation, and then it was all painted onto cels and composited back onto the film without the use of computers? Richard Williams is a goddamned madman, but the movie will hold up forever as a technical feat of the pre-digital era.
3. The Cat Returns - Why? I don't know. Not the prettiest, most well-written or best-directed Ghibli film, but every time I see a snippet of it, I feel compelled to watch the whole thing. I guess it's doing something right.
4. Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro - Lupin III and Miyazaki together (Miyazaki's directorial debut, in fact). A fun adventure, a more mature interpretation of the Lupin III characters, and some great music and action. It pales in comparison to later Ghibli films... but I love Lupin III.
5. Most of the Disney Goofy shorts (the "How To" and "Everyman" series) from the 40s through the 60s
6. Animaniacs - What a fantastic tribute to the old, great Warner Bros cartoons - back when the animation was expressive and full, they had as many jokes for adults as for kids, and they gleefully defied and mocked censorship and authority every chance they got. We're cycling back to being a little more liberal with the content of children's cartoons again, but it can still be surprising to see what anarchic humour Animaniacs and other WB/Amblin shows got away with. ("I Got Yer Can" springs to mind, but maybe just because I love Slappy so much.)
7. The Simpsons (earlier seasons, of course) - I don't have the knowledge of television to prove it... but if you ask me, The Simpsons DEFINED modern comedy in the early-to-mid 90s and beyond, not just for cartoons but TV in general. Made huge strides for animation being accepted as a medium for adults as well as kids in the west, and you know what? We're not crazy, the earlier seasons WERE that much funnier than the later ones. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_QCiAAUvHI
8. Futurama (seasons 1 to 3 and some episodes of 4) - Not even going to bother expanding on this one.
9. Pretty much any WW2 propaganda cartoon from either side, but especially this one - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y00ygpgALi0&feature=related
10. Ghost in the Shell (1995) - Stunning, atmospheric, cool, and has one of my all-time favourite musical scores of any movie.
You may notice I didn't mention any Disney features... this is because I couldn't pick a favourite if you put a gun to my head. But I can narrow it down to... either Fantasia, The Great Mouse Detective, Aladdin, The Lion King, Hercules, Mulan, or Lilo and Stitch.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
traitormagnus asks: What do you hope EA/BioWare does with Mass Effect post-ME3?
That's a really tough one to answer at this point, without knowing the plot of ME3 and all the potential outcomes the story might have. They've gone so deep in the "this is YOUR Shepard! These are YOUR choices!" mentality that to do anything outside of the main series becomes really awkward and difficult. In a perfect world (and what I predict will happen) is that the events of ME3, even if you get the best of all possible endings, will shake up and destroy so much of the Mass Effect universe as we know it (especially where humans are concerned) that they can jump ahead, say, 200 years, when Shepard will be dead, humans will have mostly returned to earth to recolonize, the rest of the galaxy will have been so busy with rebuilding and repopulating to have made little in the way of technological advancements, and we can establish a baseline setting not too far removed from ME1, minus a customizable Shepard running around ruining all things canon with her choices, and the looming threat of the Reapers dealt with.
That would be an ideal setup to start working on an MMO, which is something I would kill several men to see become a reality... but it's not something I'm going to lose sleep over, because the likelihood of ANY big-budget MMO actually becoming a reality is so low, the development time we'd be looking at if they started it tomorrow would be nigh-on 5 years, and it's hard to say whether ME has the penetration to be worth that kind of risk at all (Star Wars: The Old Republic is about the safest, most marketable property you could possibly base an MMO on, and the jury is still out on whether it will have the long-term success EA is counting on).
What I think is more likely, looking at the big push EA has taken to market ME3 and the inclusion (and marketing) of the multiplayer in particular, is that we'll be getting some gaiden games for a little bit while EA/Bioware decides where to take the real meat of the franchise yet. Maybe there'll be an MMO someday, maybe there'll be another trilogy on the next generation, but in the meantime I'm thinking we'll get some simpler, smaller in scope games and some expansion on the multiplayer offerings of ME3. The collective whining of the hardcore fans and RPG buffs will cause planet-wide deafness in small animals, but I would LOVE it if they took this as an opportunity to try out some different genres and make games that are smaller in scope but explore a single part of the universe in greater detail. What about an FPS like Star Wars: Republic Commando that's all about what it's like to be a grunt in various species' armies? (oh, the backlash they'd get when they announced that one.) How about an action/adventure/mystery game about being an investigator for C-Sec? A sim about managing a colony? A puzzle game about being an engineer repairing ships in the Migrant Fleet!? The possibilities are endless!
Ultimately, I'm hoping they take their time to figure out the next big step for the franchise, and in the meantime, take a chance on expanding on the interesting parts of the universe to try and turn it into the hugely popular expanded universe it's always had the potential to be, rather than cynically trying to retread the OH MAN COMMANDER SHEP SO AWESOME GOTTA SAVE THE HUMANS GO ALLIANCE! that they imagine catches the attention of the lowest common denominator.
That would be an ideal setup to start working on an MMO, which is something I would kill several men to see become a reality... but it's not something I'm going to lose sleep over, because the likelihood of ANY big-budget MMO actually becoming a reality is so low, the development time we'd be looking at if they started it tomorrow would be nigh-on 5 years, and it's hard to say whether ME has the penetration to be worth that kind of risk at all (Star Wars: The Old Republic is about the safest, most marketable property you could possibly base an MMO on, and the jury is still out on whether it will have the long-term success EA is counting on).
What I think is more likely, looking at the big push EA has taken to market ME3 and the inclusion (and marketing) of the multiplayer in particular, is that we'll be getting some gaiden games for a little bit while EA/Bioware decides where to take the real meat of the franchise yet. Maybe there'll be an MMO someday, maybe there'll be another trilogy on the next generation, but in the meantime I'm thinking we'll get some simpler, smaller in scope games and some expansion on the multiplayer offerings of ME3. The collective whining of the hardcore fans and RPG buffs will cause planet-wide deafness in small animals, but I would LOVE it if they took this as an opportunity to try out some different genres and make games that are smaller in scope but explore a single part of the universe in greater detail. What about an FPS like Star Wars: Republic Commando that's all about what it's like to be a grunt in various species' armies? (oh, the backlash they'd get when they announced that one.) How about an action/adventure/mystery game about being an investigator for C-Sec? A sim about managing a colony? A puzzle game about being an engineer repairing ships in the Migrant Fleet!? The possibilities are endless!
Ultimately, I'm hoping they take their time to figure out the next big step for the franchise, and in the meantime, take a chance on expanding on the interesting parts of the universe to try and turn it into the hugely popular expanded universe it's always had the potential to be, rather than cynically trying to retread the OH MAN COMMANDER SHEP SO AWESOME GOTTA SAVE THE HUMANS GO ALLIANCE! that they imagine catches the attention of the lowest common denominator.
Friday, January 27, 2012
heavymetalmage asks: What is that one game that you love that everybody seems to hate?
It was critically successful but everyone on the internet constantly complains about it, so I guess I can say Dragon Age II. I can dig why a lot of people (especially hardcore fans of the first one) don't like it, and I come from a much different place since I didn't reeeaally like DA:O that much, but I still think DA2 did a lot of cool stuff and showed ways RPGs can move forward in this new era where games are much more expensive and the depth of setting means more than ever.
1. Mechanics. Overall, it was dumbed down, and that sucked. But I liked that the functions of the skills were more transparent, and it felt like every new one you put a point into significantly changed the way your class played. It was also neat that every party member, while they embodied a certain class and build, also had a skill tree that was totally unique to them. I know NEEERRRDS didn't like the fact there was no real crafting and instead you simply buy poisons and bombs from a shop once you find enough "ingredient spots". They also don't like the fact that main character Hawke is the only character whose armor you change and manage, while everyone else simply wears the same clothing throughout the game, with a couple accessory slots and permanent upgrades you can purchase.
This is because those people are boring assholes. Know what the gameplay difference is between crafting and buying poisons? Or equipping a side character with four pieces of armor and three accessories that altogether give them a set bonus, versus equipping them with two rings that give them the same set bonus? Hours of flipping through shitty menus, that's what. Plus, party members now have unique body types and interesting clothing that reflects their character and personality, rather than being a distinct head sitting on top of a stock body wearing the same ugly armor as everyone else. Yes please.
2. Like DA:O, no stupid goddamned morality system, and thank God. Like DA:O, it instead had "approval ratings" for your party members which would increase and decrease depending on what you said to them or did with them in the party, and at various levels of approval they got special buffs. UNLIKE DA:O, your party members wouldn't throw a hissy fit and leave if they disapproved of you, and you weren't punished for not making them like you by a lack of buffs. Instead DA2 has a separate set of "rivalry" buffs for pushing party members further into the disapproval ratings. Holy shit, what a great system it is. It sets up natural (and logical) rivalries between characters based around important questions in the setting (mages vs. not mages) or their occupation (the captain of the guard vs. the pirate) or their backstory (the guy who was enslaved by the mages of the Tevinter Imperium vs. mages again) but it eliminates the metagaming irritant of having to keep everyone happy by ENCOURAGING you to take a stance, and, if you don't like a certain character, purposefully piss them off.
3. Narrative. This is a big sticking point for a lot of people, because the game is set in different districts of one large city for the most part, rather than all around the country of Ferelden, but I liked it. For one thing, I don't think the fact the game is a sequel means it needs to follow a similar format for setting and story as the previous, and I don't know what they would have done if it did apart from just re-treading the first game with an even BIGGER and more EVILLER threat. I'll grant that the setting is a little too small for its own good and the game makes you wander around the same copy-pasted settings a lot... but I encourage people to go back and take a close look at the two or three hallways that DA:O copy and pasted up to three times in every. single. dungeon.
What the game actually reminded me of, and I think is a format we need to start thinking about a lot more in today's RPGs as opposed to the traditional world-spanning adventure format, is the Persona games. Set in one location in which the main character becomes a major player, over a long time period, you take on a different relationship with the setting and your party members, which I liked. Rather than a bunch of people setting everything aside to follow you around the world, they're personal friends, with lives and responsibilities of their own, and favourite places you can visit them when they're not in your party. They don't all sit around in your house waiting for you to take them on a mission, they accompany you on your odd jobs as a personal favour (and ask the same of you in return from time to time).
But my favourite aspect of the narrative, which really comes as an extension of the way the rest of the game is set up, is how character-driven it all is. There's no world-threatening force that you're all banding together to stop, instead the events of each of the major story arcs are directly set into motion by the actions of your various party members, sometimes in genuinely surprising ways (see: the reason for the Qunari occupation which is set up at the start of the game and makes up the entire second act, all turning out to be the singular fault of one of your party members. To say nothing of the endgame...). And when everything falls apart, because of course everything is going to fall apart, having one of your party members, who you may like or dislike or have romanced, at the center of all of it and having to choose whether to stand by them or throw them to the wolves, is cool as hell. I'm not saying it's a better way of telling a story (and it has its problems) but it's interesting and uncommon and I found it a lot more interesting than DA:O.
4. The game was way prettier than DA:O, the character designs were way better, and there was a lot more interesting and unique character animation in the cutscenes. What can I say, I'm a visual guy.
I could go on about how I thought it handled a lot of character romances really well, or how I really loved almost all of the characters, far more than anyone in DA:O, but I think this has gone on long enough.
It was critically successful but everyone on the internet constantly complains about it, so I guess I can say Dragon Age II. I can dig why a lot of people (especially hardcore fans of the first one) don't like it, and I come from a much different place since I didn't reeeaally like DA:O that much, but I still think DA2 did a lot of cool stuff and showed ways RPGs can move forward in this new era where games are much more expensive and the depth of setting means more than ever.
1. Mechanics. Overall, it was dumbed down, and that sucked. But I liked that the functions of the skills were more transparent, and it felt like every new one you put a point into significantly changed the way your class played. It was also neat that every party member, while they embodied a certain class and build, also had a skill tree that was totally unique to them. I know NEEERRRDS didn't like the fact there was no real crafting and instead you simply buy poisons and bombs from a shop once you find enough "ingredient spots". They also don't like the fact that main character Hawke is the only character whose armor you change and manage, while everyone else simply wears the same clothing throughout the game, with a couple accessory slots and permanent upgrades you can purchase.
This is because those people are boring assholes. Know what the gameplay difference is between crafting and buying poisons? Or equipping a side character with four pieces of armor and three accessories that altogether give them a set bonus, versus equipping them with two rings that give them the same set bonus? Hours of flipping through shitty menus, that's what. Plus, party members now have unique body types and interesting clothing that reflects their character and personality, rather than being a distinct head sitting on top of a stock body wearing the same ugly armor as everyone else. Yes please.
2. Like DA:O, no stupid goddamned morality system, and thank God. Like DA:O, it instead had "approval ratings" for your party members which would increase and decrease depending on what you said to them or did with them in the party, and at various levels of approval they got special buffs. UNLIKE DA:O, your party members wouldn't throw a hissy fit and leave if they disapproved of you, and you weren't punished for not making them like you by a lack of buffs. Instead DA2 has a separate set of "rivalry" buffs for pushing party members further into the disapproval ratings. Holy shit, what a great system it is. It sets up natural (and logical) rivalries between characters based around important questions in the setting (mages vs. not mages) or their occupation (the captain of the guard vs. the pirate) or their backstory (the guy who was enslaved by the mages of the Tevinter Imperium vs. mages again) but it eliminates the metagaming irritant of having to keep everyone happy by ENCOURAGING you to take a stance, and, if you don't like a certain character, purposefully piss them off.
3. Narrative. This is a big sticking point for a lot of people, because the game is set in different districts of one large city for the most part, rather than all around the country of Ferelden, but I liked it. For one thing, I don't think the fact the game is a sequel means it needs to follow a similar format for setting and story as the previous, and I don't know what they would have done if it did apart from just re-treading the first game with an even BIGGER and more EVILLER threat. I'll grant that the setting is a little too small for its own good and the game makes you wander around the same copy-pasted settings a lot... but I encourage people to go back and take a close look at the two or three hallways that DA:O copy and pasted up to three times in every. single. dungeon.
What the game actually reminded me of, and I think is a format we need to start thinking about a lot more in today's RPGs as opposed to the traditional world-spanning adventure format, is the Persona games. Set in one location in which the main character becomes a major player, over a long time period, you take on a different relationship with the setting and your party members, which I liked. Rather than a bunch of people setting everything aside to follow you around the world, they're personal friends, with lives and responsibilities of their own, and favourite places you can visit them when they're not in your party. They don't all sit around in your house waiting for you to take them on a mission, they accompany you on your odd jobs as a personal favour (and ask the same of you in return from time to time).
But my favourite aspect of the narrative, which really comes as an extension of the way the rest of the game is set up, is how character-driven it all is. There's no world-threatening force that you're all banding together to stop, instead the events of each of the major story arcs are directly set into motion by the actions of your various party members, sometimes in genuinely surprising ways (see: the reason for the Qunari occupation which is set up at the start of the game and makes up the entire second act, all turning out to be the singular fault of one of your party members. To say nothing of the endgame...). And when everything falls apart, because of course everything is going to fall apart, having one of your party members, who you may like or dislike or have romanced, at the center of all of it and having to choose whether to stand by them or throw them to the wolves, is cool as hell. I'm not saying it's a better way of telling a story (and it has its problems) but it's interesting and uncommon and I found it a lot more interesting than DA:O.
4. The game was way prettier than DA:O, the character designs were way better, and there was a lot more interesting and unique character animation in the cutscenes. What can I say, I'm a visual guy.
I could go on about how I thought it handled a lot of character romances really well, or how I really loved almost all of the characters, far more than anyone in DA:O, but I think this has gone on long enough.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Kaz and Spyda dumpin' on blonde characters and Femshep
Kaz says:
So how about that video game news.
Uhhh... femshep poll round 2.
Spyda says:
Ugh. Saw your thing on Twitter, haven't seen it yet.
Kaz says:
The proportion of votes hasn't changed.
Like... is the fact that redhead Shepard is winning a sign that not as many people voted for "blonde bimbo Shepard" as voted for that specific hairstyle or face, or what happens when all the people who didn't want blonde Shepard are able to enact their revenge without their votes being as split, or both?
Spyda says:
I guess I understand the idea of voting style, then color, but... fuck people for being such haters for blonde. Some of the comments actually were kinda offensive.
Kaz says:
I think if nothing else it's a clear sign that not as many people voted for blonde Shepard BECAUSE she was blonde, or because she was "the hottest one", as have been accused of that.
Or else blonde Shepard would still be the one with 10,000 votes, rather than redhead Shepard, which just cleared that number.
Kaz says:
Someone made the point that ME has a canonical reason for so many people having dark hair, which is that humanity has cross-bred into a big ol' mongrel race...
But they also mention that changing skin and hair colour is as easy as applying nail polish in the ME future, so I dunno where that leaves us.
Spyda says:
Yeah... A natural blonde or redhead in ME is probably as rare as a male calico.
Kaz says:
This puts my femshep's red hair and freckles under serious scrutiny.
Still, it certainly makes Shepard stand out. And it wouldn't kill us to have one significant blond character in ME. Although we could do with some more non-whites first.
Spyda says:
"Shepard. Wake up. This facility is under attack. Your scars haven't healed up yet, but we need you to get moving."
"Wait, you didn't have time to fix the glowing wounds on my face, but you put on my favorite black lipstick and green eye shadow?"
"Well... we were bored."
Spyda says:
Ugh, I wish I had more data to back up my claims that there haven't been many female blonde characters in the past few years, and that there've actually been quite a number of redheads.
I feel like that's been the case. Mostly in secondary characters, but still.
Kaz says:
Do you refer to blondes in video games or movies or both? Because I could swear the same thing is true of movies.
Spyda says:
Mostly vidjas.
I don't feel like I could make an accurate statement about movies in either direction.
Kaz says:
Yeah, we still get the blonde bimbo, but it's mostly in comedies these days. In a lot of big-budget movies we've actually gotten a lot more brunettes and black-haired women, and when a blonde is the lead/love interest, she tends to be intellectual. In my somewhat limited memory and experience, anyway.
Or if not intellectual, at least pretty tough and independent.
Spyda says:
Just thinking of BioWare games from the last 5 years. Basically ME and DA 1 and 2.
Default femshep had redhair, but we're not counting that.
DA actually had a lot of blonde men. Alistair, Anders, Varric...
Aveline and Leliana were redheads...
Mass Effect had a few minor red and blonde NPCs, but most of your characters worth noting were brunettes.
The humans, of course... the caucasian humans. >_>
Spyda says:
Lesse... Notable video game blondes...
Well, there's the big 3 from Nintendo: Peach, Zelda, Samus. Who all actually weren't blonde in their original NES sprites. Go figure that one out.
Kaz says:
Hmm. Maybe Japan thought they needed to be more exotic? Or something?
When did Peach first become blonde? Super Mario World?
Spyda says:
I think so. MAYBE Mario 3?
Nope. Red in Mario 3.
So yeah, it was pretty much SNES for all 3.
Kaz says:
Huh.
Spyda says:
Fighting games... boy, if you're a white American, you're blonde in a lot of fighters. Ken, Guile, Cammy, Rufus, uhhh...
SNK side: Blue Mary, King, Boggards Terry and Andy...
So, Japan makes a lot of white people blonde. But that's because they make their asian people look white, so you have to find a way to make them look different.
Hell, in Dead or Alive... well, let's not get into THAT mess.
Kaz says:
I think for Japan blonde is just shorthand for American. So boisterous, boastful, rude... well-endowed...
Money-grubbing...
Spyda says:
Since blonde seems to be interchangible with white.
And monster people.
Kaz says:
And neanderthals!
Kaz says:
I'll admit we Westerners tend to oversexualize our blonde female characters a lot. Although they're usually not weak as characters. Shallow, maybe, but not inherently weak. Unless they're a princess or whatever.
Although we get a thousand points for Elena from Uncharted.
Spyda says:
Yeah, I was about to bring her up. I feel like I thought of another good example of a blonde who fit that character type.
Maybe it was Anya.
I don't even know where to put her. GOWs 1 and 2, she was just a pretty lady voice who did tech stuff and so that you didn't have to listen to gruff dudes through the whole game.
But now I guess she's a tough, battle-hardened whatever.
Kaz says:
But when I think of blonde characters in games today, what I mostly think of are characters like... uh... Archer, from Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes.
Anwen.
Spyda says:
Yeah...
Again, something about the natural blonde just makes me think "down to earth" and not... shallow and superficial who wants to be in Playboy.
Kaz says:
It just makes me think of elves. Or Eowyn from Lord of the Rings. Who wasn't an elf, but shut up.
Spyda says:
In the 90's, we had the big stereotype about blondes being dumb. The character Kelly from Married With Children was a big ...I wanna say lampshading of that, but it wasn't even doing it to be satirical. And shows like Baywatch contributed to the stigma.
I hear that it becomes a lot more true if you live near Hollywood, or other places in California where fake tits and bleach blondes are the norm...
But it feels really stupid that some people still propagate this stereotype of hair color having any affect on personality or intelligence.
So how about that video game news.
Uhhh... femshep poll round 2.
Spyda says:
Ugh. Saw your thing on Twitter, haven't seen it yet.
Kaz says:
The proportion of votes hasn't changed.
Like... is the fact that redhead Shepard is winning a sign that not as many people voted for "blonde bimbo Shepard" as voted for that specific hairstyle or face, or what happens when all the people who didn't want blonde Shepard are able to enact their revenge without their votes being as split, or both?
Spyda says:
I guess I understand the idea of voting style, then color, but... fuck people for being such haters for blonde. Some of the comments actually were kinda offensive.
Kaz says:
I think if nothing else it's a clear sign that not as many people voted for blonde Shepard BECAUSE she was blonde, or because she was "the hottest one", as have been accused of that.
Or else blonde Shepard would still be the one with 10,000 votes, rather than redhead Shepard, which just cleared that number.
Kaz says:
Someone made the point that ME has a canonical reason for so many people having dark hair, which is that humanity has cross-bred into a big ol' mongrel race...
But they also mention that changing skin and hair colour is as easy as applying nail polish in the ME future, so I dunno where that leaves us.
Spyda says:
Yeah... A natural blonde or redhead in ME is probably as rare as a male calico.
Kaz says:
This puts my femshep's red hair and freckles under serious scrutiny.
Still, it certainly makes Shepard stand out. And it wouldn't kill us to have one significant blond character in ME. Although we could do with some more non-whites first.
Spyda says:
"Shepard. Wake up. This facility is under attack. Your scars haven't healed up yet, but we need you to get moving."
"Wait, you didn't have time to fix the glowing wounds on my face, but you put on my favorite black lipstick and green eye shadow?"
"Well... we were bored."
Spyda says:
Ugh, I wish I had more data to back up my claims that there haven't been many female blonde characters in the past few years, and that there've actually been quite a number of redheads.
I feel like that's been the case. Mostly in secondary characters, but still.
Kaz says:
Do you refer to blondes in video games or movies or both? Because I could swear the same thing is true of movies.
Spyda says:
Mostly vidjas.
I don't feel like I could make an accurate statement about movies in either direction.
Kaz says:
Yeah, we still get the blonde bimbo, but it's mostly in comedies these days. In a lot of big-budget movies we've actually gotten a lot more brunettes and black-haired women, and when a blonde is the lead/love interest, she tends to be intellectual. In my somewhat limited memory and experience, anyway.
Or if not intellectual, at least pretty tough and independent.
Spyda says:
Just thinking of BioWare games from the last 5 years. Basically ME and DA 1 and 2.
Default femshep had redhair, but we're not counting that.
DA actually had a lot of blonde men. Alistair, Anders, Varric...
Aveline and Leliana were redheads...
Mass Effect had a few minor red and blonde NPCs, but most of your characters worth noting were brunettes.
The humans, of course... the caucasian humans. >_>
Spyda says:
Lesse... Notable video game blondes...
Well, there's the big 3 from Nintendo: Peach, Zelda, Samus. Who all actually weren't blonde in their original NES sprites. Go figure that one out.
Kaz says:
Hmm. Maybe Japan thought they needed to be more exotic? Or something?
When did Peach first become blonde? Super Mario World?
Spyda says:
I think so. MAYBE Mario 3?
Nope. Red in Mario 3.
So yeah, it was pretty much SNES for all 3.
Kaz says:
Huh.
Spyda says:
Fighting games... boy, if you're a white American, you're blonde in a lot of fighters. Ken, Guile, Cammy, Rufus, uhhh...
SNK side: Blue Mary, King, Boggards Terry and Andy...
So, Japan makes a lot of white people blonde. But that's because they make their asian people look white, so you have to find a way to make them look different.
Hell, in Dead or Alive... well, let's not get into THAT mess.
Kaz says:
I think for Japan blonde is just shorthand for American. So boisterous, boastful, rude... well-endowed...
Money-grubbing...
Spyda says:
Since blonde seems to be interchangible with white.
And monster people.
Kaz says:
And neanderthals!
Kaz says:
I'll admit we Westerners tend to oversexualize our blonde female characters a lot. Although they're usually not weak as characters. Shallow, maybe, but not inherently weak. Unless they're a princess or whatever.
Although we get a thousand points for Elena from Uncharted.
Spyda says:
Yeah, I was about to bring her up. I feel like I thought of another good example of a blonde who fit that character type.
Maybe it was Anya.
I don't even know where to put her. GOWs 1 and 2, she was just a pretty lady voice who did tech stuff and so that you didn't have to listen to gruff dudes through the whole game.
But now I guess she's a tough, battle-hardened whatever.
Kaz says:
But when I think of blonde characters in games today, what I mostly think of are characters like... uh... Archer, from Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes.
Anwen.
Spyda says:
Yeah...
Again, something about the natural blonde just makes me think "down to earth" and not... shallow and superficial who wants to be in Playboy.
Kaz says:
It just makes me think of elves. Or Eowyn from Lord of the Rings. Who wasn't an elf, but shut up.
Spyda says:
In the 90's, we had the big stereotype about blondes being dumb. The character Kelly from Married With Children was a big ...I wanna say lampshading of that, but it wasn't even doing it to be satirical. And shows like Baywatch contributed to the stigma.
I hear that it becomes a lot more true if you live near Hollywood, or other places in California where fake tits and bleach blondes are the norm...
But it feels really stupid that some people still propagate this stereotype of hair color having any affect on personality or intelligence.
Kaz says:
Part of the reason for me that I'm okay with more blonde characters in general, is that I feel like we actually go too far in the other direction sometimes. Any time we set out to make a female character who is meant to be taken seriously, we automatically say "Well, she should be black or brown-haired, obviously, and single, and living alone, and..."
And we often end up creating characters that, to me, really feel like non-entities and cliches. Carla from Indigo Prophecy. Madison from Heavy Rain. What's her name from Still Life. Women who are just as one-dimensional as bimbos, except instead of boys and makeup they obsess over their work, and they never joke or relax like real people.
That's a deeper issue than hair colour when it comes to our difficulties writing layered, believable female characters, but damned if there isn't a correlation.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Kaz and Spyda Dumpin' on Nintendo (now with swearing)
Spyda says:
80 dollar price drop on 3DS. Now I can afford to pick one up and play... uhh... hmm...
Kaz says:
It's okay, though. They're giving anyone who already has a 3DS 80 dollars worth of NES and a couple crappy GBA games.
So it's not like they dicked you out of your money, they just tricked you into buying 80 dollars of shit you don't want.
But hey, Ocarina of Time again. I bet that was a fun 8 hours you probably won't bother to play again.
Well, there is the Master Quest.
I think this is the fastest, most significant price drop I've seen on a Nintendo system since... well... I hate to make the obvious comparison, but the Virtual Boy.
Spyda says:
I don't want to sound like a vanor, but here it is:
No one really cares about 3D.
Not on the consumer level, at least.
Kaz says:
Pretty much.
And the WiiU... I'm sure there are lots of smart people at Nintendo in R&D and strategy who know what they're doing, but I can't help thinking someone said "Hmm. These portable games on the iPhone and such are doing great. But we're not gonna sell cheap games, it would be a waste of our valuable IPs and rabid install base. What do people like about these smartphone games besides the price?"
"I know... the TOUCHSCREEN!"
Spyda says:
It has all the inconveniences of modern video gaming, and all the inconveniences of iphone gaming!
Kaz says:
I don't feel bad about being small-minded about the potential of the WiiU, because God knows the Kinect and Move turned out to be just as useless as I predicted, but how the hell are you going to make a Mario game on the WiiU? How the hell are you going to do ANYTHING besides WiiU Sports?
Spyda says:
Other than practically ignoring the screeny controller, which... why even make it?
Kaz says:
Do you guys even know? I don't believe you do anymore. I think you're just waiting and praying and hoping a third party comes along and figures out how to do something brilliant with it you haven't thought of, like you did with the Wii and like Sony and MS did with their shit and totally failed.
God, the MotionPlus. What a fucking joke. Three years for it to come along and restore the potential we all believed the Wii would have, only to find out that that didn't actually have any fun application either.
Spyda says:
Well... uh... here comes Skyward Sword?
Kaz says:
Yay. And all the Nintendo fanboys will choke back their tears and tell themselves it was so worth it. It was so much better than stupid Red Dead Redemption and Uncharted 2 and Portal. Those fags with their other consoles just WISH they had a game as good as Skyward Sword.
Don't you understand? NINTENDO LOVES ME!
Spyda says:
They gave me a Pikachu!
80 dollar price drop on 3DS. Now I can afford to pick one up and play... uhh... hmm...
Kaz says:
It's okay, though. They're giving anyone who already has a 3DS 80 dollars worth of NES and a couple crappy GBA games.
So it's not like they dicked you out of your money, they just tricked you into buying 80 dollars of shit you don't want.
But hey, Ocarina of Time again. I bet that was a fun 8 hours you probably won't bother to play again.
Well, there is the Master Quest.
I think this is the fastest, most significant price drop I've seen on a Nintendo system since... well... I hate to make the obvious comparison, but the Virtual Boy.
Spyda says:
I don't want to sound like a vanor, but here it is:
No one really cares about 3D.
Not on the consumer level, at least.
Kaz says:
Pretty much.
And the WiiU... I'm sure there are lots of smart people at Nintendo in R&D and strategy who know what they're doing, but I can't help thinking someone said "Hmm. These portable games on the iPhone and such are doing great. But we're not gonna sell cheap games, it would be a waste of our valuable IPs and rabid install base. What do people like about these smartphone games besides the price?"
"I know... the TOUCHSCREEN!"
Spyda says:
It has all the inconveniences of modern video gaming, and all the inconveniences of iphone gaming!
Kaz says:
I don't feel bad about being small-minded about the potential of the WiiU, because God knows the Kinect and Move turned out to be just as useless as I predicted, but how the hell are you going to make a Mario game on the WiiU? How the hell are you going to do ANYTHING besides WiiU Sports?
Spyda says:
Other than practically ignoring the screeny controller, which... why even make it?
Kaz says:
Do you guys even know? I don't believe you do anymore. I think you're just waiting and praying and hoping a third party comes along and figures out how to do something brilliant with it you haven't thought of, like you did with the Wii and like Sony and MS did with their shit and totally failed.
God, the MotionPlus. What a fucking joke. Three years for it to come along and restore the potential we all believed the Wii would have, only to find out that that didn't actually have any fun application either.
Spyda says:
Well... uh... here comes Skyward Sword?
Kaz says:
Yay. And all the Nintendo fanboys will choke back their tears and tell themselves it was so worth it. It was so much better than stupid Red Dead Redemption and Uncharted 2 and Portal. Those fags with their other consoles just WISH they had a game as good as Skyward Sword.
Don't you understand? NINTENDO LOVES ME!
Spyda says:
They gave me a Pikachu!
Monday, July 4, 2011
Dumpin' on SMB3
After getting the Hammer Bros. theme stuck in my head while trying to read something earlier today, I decided the only way to restore my sanity was to boot up the ol' ZSNES and play SMB3 in Super Mario All-Stars, because that version is totally superior no matter what you've heard. And that got me thinking...
Of course the levels of World 1 fell before my mighty boot like they have since I was a kid. Hit the left side of the block so the mushroom falls to the right, fly up and get the "3" made of coins, grab the star in the last note block, get the warp whistle... until I hit 1-4 and was suddenly very lost and confused.
Of course the levels of World 1 fell before my mighty boot like they have since I was a kid. Hit the left side of the block so the mushroom falls to the right, fly up and get the "3" made of coins, grab the star in the last note block, get the warp whistle... until I hit 1-4 and was suddenly very lost and confused.
Uhh... what the hell is all this?
I'm... in the sky? Autoscrolling? With a bunch of slow-moving platforms and Ls made of bricks coming my way? I... oh no! I don't know what's coming next! This... this is difficult suddenly! And that's because in all my years of playing SMB3 since I was a little Kazmo I can't have played 1-4 more than a handful of times. And why the hell would I? The far more familiar 1-3 is the only one you need to beat to reach the first mushroom house, and then you can just go back the way you came, skipping all those stupid floating autoscrolling platforms, on to the castle, and to glory!
Later, you dumb wooden suckers!
My young mind grasped it perfectly. Why waste time and potential lives on a level that doesn't get you any closer to the end of the game? We're not here to sightsee, sparky, we're here to beat this sumbitch! But it seems somehow in these intervening years I've changed without realizing it and I reckon a lot of other people have too. Now, I just can't play through SMB3 skipping all the levels and making a beeline for the end. I have to visit every one because, for whatever reason, experiencing them all is more important to me than actually beating the game. If I lose because of my stubborn refusal to skip anything, so be it.
I put forth a couple of theories to Hutch on why this is. Have I played SMB3 so much and become so confident in my ability to finish it that I instead try to wring as much out of the experience as possible? Do I feel some kind of duty to the creators to play everything they put into the product, like a Let's Play-er trying out a community hack project? Or have all these 360 games finally broken me down and made me into an achievement whore, only able to feel pleasure by jumping through hoops and completing arbitrary challenges?
I really don't know. Hutch replied that he thinks it's more of a consequence of the way games are designed now, and pointed out that, hey, once upon a time, people didn't even have a goal they were trying to reach, they just played for the sheer fun and challenge of surviving, setting and beating high scores. And he's right. As the complexity of games has increased exponentially and the budgets have more than increased to match, almost nobody designs a game nowadays that they expect to be truly difficult to at least finish on SOME level. And for the love of God, when it costs so much and takes so many people to design and model and playtest a level, why would you include content that you're not going to force the player to experience?!
"This took 100,000 dollars and two months of our artists' lives to make
and you're going to look at it until I tell you to stop!"
So maybe that's it. And maybe that explains why some folks are so enamored with achievements, as well (I won't lie, I try to get them if they're not too far out of the way, just for the satisfaction). Us folks who cut our teeth on old-school games, where you had to practice and suffer and make a real concerted effort to finish the game, unable to find that same challenge we once craved, turn to self-imposed challenges and completionist-ism-ing to wring that last little bit of satisfaction and exclusivity out of games that are now all too happy to roll over and flash the goods to anyone with a pulse. Not that giving people the full experience they paid 60 dollars for is such a bad thing. And I guess I've gotten so used to doing it, I even do it when I go back in time to games I've played a hundred times.
But that's a cynical way of looking at it. I think what Hutch really meant to imply was that, on some level, we're all still just in it for the sheer joy of the game, even if what we think we're seeking has changed. As kids, beating the game was the way we wanted to find our fun. Now that endings are a pleasure that are not so regularly denied us we can really stop and smell the virtual roses and experience the levels - and if you're going to do that, why not do them all? Perhaps the real reason I can't stop myself from playing through every level in SMB3 is that I just love the damn game, even more than fresh-faced little me did.
Or maybe I was just drunk and didn't realize I could back out and go around level 1-4. I dunno, I'm trying to cover the full spectrum of possibility here - I don't want to generalize. I'm sure tons of folks loved to play all the levels back in the day, and some would just shoot straight for the end if they picked it up today. But I know I'm not alone in this change, whatever brought it on.
So... I guess my point is that games are easier now. Oh, did you think I was building up to some kind of interesting revelation or observation? Sorry about that. But I'd love to hear what you think.
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