Borderlands 2, or ‘the Accidental-on-Purpose, not-so-secret, feminist game’

There really is a lot that can be said about BL2, and although I’m not going to say it all, I’ve picked up on some points I think are more relevant for BadRep.  It isn’t, however, as hard as you might expect to find good, feminist-friendly things to say about BL2. In fact, it’s probably one of the best AAA titles in terms of its ability to give players something quite egalitarian as an overall experience.

Basic game-stuff first, though: keeping to form, Borderlands 2 is beautiful.  Hand-painted landscapes, smooth animation, great character design, brilliant monsters and, like, a gazillion-billion guns and other loot items.  It’s an FPS/RPG that combines the best of both game styles; you can recognise the colour-coded scale of awesomeness for your loot alongside the superb right-in-there combat mechanics.  You can grind, farm, explore – whatever.  It’s fun.  A lot of fun.

It’s available on the three big platforms (PS3, Xbox 360, PC) and is big on multiplayer, though frankly it’s just as great solo. However, the one thing that annoys me with these big multi-platform titles and multiplayer is that we can’t interact with each other.

While I can play through Steam with one friend, my Xbox friend can’t join in and is left to languish alone with inferior loot.  Not the fault of the game – more the big console companies trying to keep their corner of the market isolated – but it’s still a letdown.

Anyway, these things aside, why is this such a great egalitarian game?  Put simply, it takes the piss.  Out of everyone.  On the surface of things, anyone is fair game, but(!) if you listen and observe, what I’ve noticed is that there’s a bit of a slant on the piss-takings, and it’s a positive one.  I’ll give you some examples, but from here on out, beware the spoilers.

My two favourite NPCs are Ellie and Tina. They’re both great examples of powerful, self-confident, self-reliant women who aren’t your average pin-up character and who represent integral, practical and useful components of the story & mission.

They’re not decoration over in the corner of the room; they’re key to your success.  Ellie is a mechanic (and a bit of a whizz at that) and she’s a larger woman.  She loves it, and so does the game and its creators.

In the book that came with my special edition game-pack, Inside the Vault: The Art & Design of Borderlands 2, one character artist has said:

Ellie is one of my favorites… I like that we have embraced a variety of different character shapes.

Ellie’s dialogue is snappy, funny and generally awesome.  Some examples include: “…they like skinny chicks ’cause they’s pussies!” and “My mom Moxxi always told me if I slimmed down, men’d pay me more mind.  Shows what she knows – I got these boys bending over backwards…”.

And Tina.  Tina is an early-teens girl who has been orphaned and likes to spend time having tea parties and, uh, exploding stuff.  She’s the best explosives expert on the planet. Even the man leading the resistance defers to her.

Tina’s a confusing character to meet – her speech is a little discordant with her sweet appearance – but she nevertheless maintains BL2 hilarity while being totally badass.

Tina and Ellie are just two of the female NPCs (yup, there’s others!) but I gotta say, having played through, the women are very important in BL2. They’re powerful, proactive, and practical. They can fight, build, explode stuff and save the day – they are full and proper characters and they’re equal (if not more awesome) than their male counterparts.

Even a rather minor female NPC adds to the all-round feminine badassery by “accidentally” giving you coordinates to mortar a very misogynist fellow into tiny pieces.

What’s great is that while the game’s pleasing me by being fair with its female characters, it’s also very subtly passing on the message that misogyny and sexism isn’t cool and isn’t funny.  Plenty of anti-egalitarian types rear their heads in the story, but they all get punished in-game. I think that’ll go a long way to dissuading that sort of behaviour in the audience – and hopefully show other developers that women can be awesome too.

Deadlight, or ‘the obligatory, festivity-themed title that’s actually pretty awesome’

Finally, in the spirit of all things spooky, there’s Deadlight, which recently ported across to Steam from Xbox Live Arcade (released on Steam 25/10/2012). Developed by Tequila Works alongside Microsoft Studios, Deadlight is a tense indie zombie-survival offering set in post-apocalyptic 1980s Seattle.  You play Randall Wayne, who’s been separated from his wife and daughter, battling and evading the ‘shadows’ as he navigates a ruined, hazardous cityscape to reunite his family.

It’s a simple premise by all accounts, and we’ve certainly seen plenty of zombie themes in recent years across the entertainment spectrum – but don’t let that put you off.

Deadlight is a side-scroller with a dark, moody art style reminiscent of LIMBO . It doesn’t feel too distant from the survivalist title I Am Alive, which also requires you to focus on your stamina levels to avoid falling of buildings or running out of energy mid-fight.  Similarly, you have limited weaponry and ammo (only what you can salvage on your way) so a lot of the time you have to make do without, meaning you can’t go full force forward shooting everything that moves. Nor can you charge about with an axe and splatter everything, because that runs your stamina down pretty sharpish.

Running, climbing and hiding are some of the best options, but there’s also environmental elements you can use to your advantage.  Zombies aren’t smart: if you jump over a hole in the floor, they’ll just fall in it.

Without giving away too much, zombies aren’t your only problem in Deadlight, and not every moment is spent dashing about.  It’s good fun and manages to keep up the tension without being so nerve-racking you log off (I’m looking at you, Amnesia… you too, Slender!).

At under a tenner full price (£9.99) it’s not bad value either, but if you’re quick there’s 15% off on Steam until the end of today (£8.49), so it’s worth checking out for a little Hallowe’en amusement.  For those of you who prefer XBLA, it’s 1,200 Microsoft Points.

If you aren’t tickled by Deadlight, don’t forget, Thanksgiving is nigh approaching (22/11/12) so keep a look out in November for more sales all over the place from US-centric platforms and digital management systems!

So I bring you a short and sweet look at Torchlight 2  and some interesting developments re: Booth Babes.

Torchlight 2 is an adventure RPG that has a slightly more cartoon-like presentation than big-budget rivals like Diablo III. Despite this, it’s been a huge success.  It allows a lot more freedom than D3 does when levelling up your character with skill points, and there’s character points to spend where you want, not just automatically assigned.  There’s a great variety of skills to play with to suit your play style and your character.  I’m currently playing through as an Engineer, and although long-range weaponry is an option I’m sticking with my two-handed melee weapons because I much prefer bashing my way through enemies.  That’s my example, but as I mentioned, I have yet to finish the game (or test the other classes out) so all I can do is advise you on what I know so far.

My favourite feature of the game is one’s pet.  There’s more choice in this game than the first as to what species of pet you have – I picked a ferret for the novelty – and being able to dump items in Professor Furzl’s inventory when mine is full is like a gift from the gods of gaming.  No longer shall you agonise over which rare item to pick up with only one space left in your backpack! Even better, you can send the pet to town with a bag full of junk, and he’ll return to you – wherever you are – with some lovely gold coins.  Best feature ever.

The final plus-side I’ll bring for you today is Torchlight 2‘s price: £15/$20, which is half (or less) than what you’ll be paying for the big-budget, AAA+, giant developer titles (I think I paid £35 for Diablo 3 on release).  The smaller price doesn’t give you any less enjoyment, I’ve found.  It’s a great title with brilliant features, and comes in at a decent price.

Now, a brief word on Booth Babes

 
You probably know what I’m on about here; you go to a show or an expo, and the companies bring scantily clad women to sell their games.  It’s insulting to the gamers and there’s a lot of bad press about how these women are treated, too.  Well, as of next year’s show the Eurogamer Expo here in the UK will be formally enforcing a ban on booth babes.  Frankly, I am glad, but I fear that those people who really don’t get the message will still try and sell their games with a little T&A.  We will have to see what happens next year, but from my point of view, and that of others I’ve spoken to on this topic, it’s a step in the right direction!

Hopefully by the next post I’ll have completed at least one playthrough with Borderlands 2… which, as I suspected it would be, is a secret feminist game.  More later!

Unmechanical

Unmechanical is a sweet indie puzzler that is pretty darn gorgeous on the eyes too. It combines a variety of different puzzles (physics, logic, memory) on your quest for freedom through an underground labyrinth designed to feel at once organic and mechanical. You are a little blue helicopter thing that’s been abducted from the surface world and dropped into this maze. You can fly, and you have a tractor beam, but aside from bumping into things like a confused bee there’s not much else you can do. The way you navigate and solve puzzles relies on your interactions with stimuli around you, pulling levers and lifting rocks with your tractor beam to get the desired result. The puzzles range from the fairly familiar – like the remember-the-pattern puzzle involving four different coloured bulbs that make different noises – to the far-reaching and complicated. It’s great fun and a well-composed title – there’s a neat bit of thinking alongside the Aww-Factor -and it’s available through a variety of digital content platforms (Steam, Gog, Gamersgate & OnLive plus it’ll soon be coming to the AppStore (for those of you that use Apple products). Free demos are also out there on the aforementioned platforms or straight from the site.

Sometimes it can get lonely, as a little blue helicopter adrift in an underground maze…

Team Fortress: Mann vs Machine

Mann vs Machine is the new Co-op mode for Team Fortress 2 and yet another sizeable update/announcement coming from the Valve camp (could it be all a distraction to disguise a lacking of Half Life 3?). In keeping with TF2 Free to Play mantra, you can play these new Co-op maps on community servers in what is called “Boot Camp” – but, should you so desire to, you can also pay to enter “Mann Up Mode” in which you can get the chance to win rare items as a reward for completing missions and the Tour of Duty. Currently there’s only one Tour of Duty (“Steel Trap”) consisting of six missions; in Mann Up Mode you have to pay with a Tour of Duty Ticket for each mission, and these are 59p/99c each from the Mann Co Store.

Lured by the promise of rare items, I paid to get into Mann Up Mode and completed a Tour. Unlike my partner, who has now completed three Tours and hasn’t had any SuperCoolRares, I got a rare item at the end of my Tour. Woo! That’s not the best thing I want to talk about, though. The Co-op mode itself is pretty awesome, and a great addition to TF2, because for once you all have to work together, even if you aren’t Pro, with a bunch of people you have been allocated. It can create a really fun atmosphere if you get a good – and nice – team. The robot army you have to defeat presents a challenge if you don’t learn quickly how to coordinate and function as a team. Normal multiplayer doesn’t tend to require this much interaction with other humans (unless you’re a pre-formed team who know what they’re doing) and so the update has successfully added a new dimension to the experience of TF2. Needless to say, however, if you get a rubbish team with too many ill-informed egomaniacs, you won’t get far.

Unfortunately, Valve encountered some problems with this update. At times the servers die, you can’t access Multi-player or Co-op because the allocator has crashed, the store shuts and everyone gets grumpy. These issues seem to be being worked on so just have a little patience.

Other Stuff

I’ve also been playing Borderlands again, in preparation for Borderlands 2 (release date 17/09/12), but I was a bit disappointed by the ‘Girlfriend Mode’ gaffe. Borderlands is very fun, very entertaining and pretty in-yer-face; while it would be easy to criticise some of their portrayal of women in the game I think it’d also be fairly misguided. The game isn’t one to be taken seriously: it makes a mockery out of pretty much everything, so it’s a fair assumption that they’re probably poking fun when it comes to female characters too. I tell myself they’re doing it to make a point; satirise the gaming status quo, if you like.

So, with that in mind, I was disappointed to see someone from the developers being stupid enough to utter the phrase “Girlfriend Mode” in reference to the I’m New To First Person Shooters and Don’t Know What To Do mode. I admit, I take it personally when these things come up: I’ve played FPS games longer than my boyfriend (and a lot of male gamers I know) so it really does hack me off when it is assumed no female gamer ever likes FPS of their own volition. I like shooting things! What’s so weird about that?

Despite this foolishness, I haven’t cancelled my pre-order of Borderlands 2. Why? Well, there’s the reasons I’ve mentioned above, plus the fact there are more female characters – and they do look amazingly kickass. I want to get to know them. In turn, so will you, as that’s pretty much the only thing I expect to play in September – yay!

In contrast with the irritating ‘Girlfriend Mode’ story, I’d like to bring you a little Well Done story. Guild Wars 2 has gone live and ArenaNet have tried, it seems, to make the most welcoming community possible – and they’ve caught a lot of flack for it. They’ve been suspending people. Oh no! you say, why ever would they do that? Because they’re actually sticking to their own rules and upholding them for the benefit of the majority of gamers who don’t feel the need to be odious.

Let me explain. ArenaNet are upholding their Naming Policy on characters, which is pretty commendable (both the list and sticking to it), but some gamers felt the need to whine when they got banned. Admittedly, some banned-users’ names weren’t in contravention of the policy so ArenaNet took to Reddit and told them all (and in doing so shamed the perpetrators publicly) that their ban was due to their inappropriate chat, which I warn you isn’t nice. So, I say Well Done to ArenaNet for keeping horrible arsebags out of the community (even if the suspensions are only 72 hours) and trying to make Guild Wars 2 a welcoming and inclusive experience for all its gamers.

Why am I babbling about books? Because I’m trying to explain, as best I can, why I haven’t done much gaming this month. Or, at least, not much that I can bring new content to you with. There was some more Kinect – my parents are better at the bowling game than I am – and some other little bits and pieces like a quick foray onto Team Fortress 2 to craft weapons and hats.

So, my apologies for the brevity of this post! What I did play was Portal 2, on the ‘Play Day’ that marked the one year anniversary of its release. I thought it’d be a good thing to write about, so I did a Google and it turned out we (BadRep) are the second result when you search for “Portal 2 feminist”.

Look! There we are! Second in the results!

I also had a gander at that top link and presented my counter-argument over on my own blog here, which some of you who follow us on Twitter might have already seen.

I didn’t want to simply regurgitate what I’ve already written elsewhere all over BR, which is why this is such a short post, but if I may, I’ll show you what I’m excited for in the upcoming Gaming Future.

• Portal 2: Aperture Perpetual Testing Initiative – May 8th
• Diablo III – Finally being released(!) and I’m looking forward to playing as some of those kick-ass looking fem-versions (apart from those stupid heels, ugh, seriously?!) – May 15th (UK)
• Max Payne 3 – More for the technology than the (totally original – hurhur) damsel-in-distress storyline – May 15th

Later on, there’s also Borderlands 2 which I’m looking forward to, and Crysis 3 but I have to finish Crysis 2 first – oops! I’ll also endeavour to play something a bit less, er… shooty and more casual, for those of you out there who don’t really do the FPS thing. Hopefully I’ll get some new tech over the summer to help on that front.

I’ll also be writing up some interesting posts about humour and gender in games, and I might do some ‘case study’ style posts on some of the prominent female characters out there. I’ll do my best to bring you more exciting tales next month!