Games with only male characters.
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What did you accidentally buy a shitload of visual novels? I can count on one hand the amount of games in the mainstream that contain romance in any meaningful capacity - and that's largely because I count BioWare games to a single entry with many different dresses.B-Cell said:
Honestly some games feel like they fall short when I think they've been building some kind of romance and then don't pay it off: the rebooted Tomb Raider felt like that.
When I say default, I do keep in mind situational and tonal context, as well as authorial agency with basic regards to self-expression (i.e. the right to tell narratives from gendered perspectives).the December King said:
However, pop-culture/art is a reflection and byproduct of life, and life is lived day in, day out from birth to death in the company of other genders. That pop-culture is often so habitually poor at reflecting this is pitiful. That's what I mean by default.
Why? If the sex of NPC's are a bonus, surely it means their sex was used for some purpose; what was gained by S.T.A.L.K.E.R. just including men? How would it have been different if female character models were included as well? Would the story have been different? The combat?
Women can fight and bear arms, and the game's world would've reasonably driven women into the Zone as well, for all sorts of reasons. Redo the game today and include women, and you suddenly create a more complex - ergo interesting - social framework around and within the Zone.
Looking at it in historic context I wouldn't necessarily count it as a mark against it, btw. I would find another company doing the same thing again in 2017 less excusable.Charcharo said:
How did consoles kill the sequel? Frankly I'd have loved a S.T.A.L.K.E.R. on console as I had nightmares getting the cursed thing to run on a Vista kit PC back in the day, and my laptops still rather struggled with it several years later... I loathe keys'n'mouse, too, so would've appreciated an official tailoring to a pad, so long as they kept the spirit of SoC.
Honestly, i wouldn't bother. There is a devout PC following that places the blame of everything they never got, upon the existence of consoles. The true unironic PC master-race personification in all its' glory. It's a rabbit hole best avoided.Darth Rosenberg said:
This is an easy one.Darth Rosenberg said:
Because when I grew up, the boys in my neighborhood fought and played guns, and girls... didn't. That's all there is to it. Of course women can do everything that men do, that's a default to me now, and western civilization in general (and often feels overhyped), but that's life.
If you redid S.T.A.L.K.E.R today and made sure to have everyone represented, as much as I loved the series and would likely support it out of devotion, I don't see this as a selling point for this franchise. The Zone never felt like it was about equality or fairness. It felt like a window to a time when, whether real or not, men had to do the heavy lifting.
So in summation, I guess I feel this way because it's a fantasy, and one I enjoy.
By the way, I well understand that this is not a PC position to hold, but I reckon it's an exception on my part.
If we're talking TF2, then there's the Announcer. Of course, she's only there as a voice, but I'd say there's plenty of personality and character in those lines to count.Borty The Bort said:
I'd generally agree, and that is an issue, but sometimes production cycles can be hampered or hamstrung by shifting platforms or trying to adapt, particularly if a company has little experience working with them. I don't know enough of a supposed S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2's production/would-be production, so I'm curious as to what might be to blame for it not seeing the light of day (I'd guess, as ever, several things are to blame).Xsjadoblayde said:
So it's little more than a hangover from social conditioning (fairly terrible conditioning at that, I believe)? I unfortunately grew up in that era, too, and I have no affection for it.the December King said:
Personally (re what you said about enjoying the fantasy), I feel it's a bit sad/unfortunate to wish to escape into entertainment and have a landscape bereft of about 50% of our entire species, to want to escape femininity or femaleness or simply enjoy its lack.
Again, that has nowt to do with wanting to do away with stories where the focus on a given POV makes sense, or where authorial intent is pretty brazen, but I'd say SoC is a good example today of how not to build a world with regards to recreating a living, breathing society or series of communities. When you axe half of our species you're simply axing an equally significant part that defines all of us.
If I ever played SoC again I would notice their lack, but that's about it given I have far bigger, more important beefs with its core combat and ho-hum resolution to the story.
It wouldn't be a selling point, it would just add to a more convincingly realised world.
But I do have fond affection for my childhood. Boys played guns when I grew up, and I found this game uniquely reminiscent because of it. It's not a 'hangover from conditioning', it just makes me nostalgic for my childhood. I... I have no problem with that. You do, or think it's sad, so I guess we'll just agree to disagree.Darth Rosenberg said:
Beyond that I'm largely in agreement with you.
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Well for a few years pcs were literally an afterthought. We got very few aaa ports of games and the ones we did tended to be rather gimped in the settings department. It was around that time when cod didn't have fov settings. You saw an explosion of fps games on the consoles but not many of them made it to the pc, or made it there well.Xsjadoblayde said:
Commandos: Behind Enemy lines. A female was not introduced until the expansion: "Beyond the Call of Duty".
Plenty of early Sonic games, unless we're counting the animals that get freed, but those aren't really characters.
Frogger
Gunstar Heroes
Chuck Rock
The Lost Vikings 1, unless there's an enemy I missed
Pitfall and Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure
Bubsy
Plenty of early Sonic games, unless we're counting the animals that get freed, but those aren't really characters.
Frogger
Gunstar Heroes
Chuck Rock
The Lost Vikings 1, unless there's an enemy I missed
Pitfall and Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure
Bubsy
Fair enough; nostalgia is inherently and subjectively irrational/emotive, after all, and it's not something I like (I had a good childhood, but I struggle to think of anything about society - social conditioning re gender 'norms' very much included - or pop-culture that isn't better now than it once was).the December King said:
I see what you mean, though I think my explanation is quite rational, given the circumstances, and based on emotion, which shouldn't dismiss it.Darth Rosenberg said:
As to gender norms and pop culture being 'better', well, I couldn't say- that seems subjective as well. On the other hand, I'm not really informed as to how modern kids feel about it all, either.
This is a little broadly off topic (though I'd argue the original topic wasn't much of one to begin with, other than 'reference stuff' - people have found their own things to "discuss"), but I don't feel the acknowledgement of complexity can ever be seen as anything but an objective improvement, i.e. in terms of greater equality between genders, greater awareness of the differences between male/female and masculine/feminine, normalisation/acceptance (mostly) of varied sexualities, and so on.the December King said:
As for pop-culture? Sure, that could just be seen as mostly subjective, but if we look at games their manifested potential is exponentially greater now than it ever was; more variety, more complexity, greater potential with hardware and software ('gaming' encompassing everything from mobile freebies to hi-end VR and everything in between), and obviously greater fidelity of visuals and pure grunt (which has nowt to do with realism, because greater specs and fancier visuals benefit all styles of design. No Man's Sky is a beautiful game in its own right, as is Elite Dangerous - and they couldn't be further apart in terms of aesthetic and tone). Ditto for accessibility of creativity, i.e. how easy it is to get into creating games, and the incredible breadth of resources available to all.
Relatively speaking gaming was absolute garbage in the '80's and '90's. I wouldn't trade a single favourite from back in the Amiga days or PS1 (not my first eras, but those which I'd have most misguided emotional attachment to) compared to what's on offer - and what's always just around the corner - in the present.
I won't go into any other subjects now for obvious off-topic-y reasons, but for comparison's sake re pop-culture I'd pretty much say the same about the state of cinema, too (especially in terms of potential and variety - it's never, ever been more open to as many perspectives from across the globe, and technology and its greater creative accessibility empowers everyone. ditto for TV/online content creation).
It almost seems like this thread is less about how people would react if absolutely no females were in x game, and more about B-Cell simply wanting to find that game and play it.
Well, I don't think that's necessarily true, but if that's your take away, I wouldn't argue it.BuildsLegos said:
