I will try not to be too exclusive in my content here, so I’ll try to avoid anything that you won’t understand unless you’ve played the game, and I’ll be focussing on the game through a feminist lens. That’s what we’re trying to do over here, after all, right? One last thing to say is… SPOILERS.

"Through me, into the city full of woe; through me, the message of eternal pain; through me, the passage where the lost souls go." Yep, that's what happens if you don't heed the warning of the Spoiler Klaxon... "all hope abandon, ye who go through me."

Enough with the dramatics! To the game!

Technology, mechanics & gameplay

I thought I’d get this out of the way as I reckon there’s very little feminist critique one can offer on this side of things. I played on a PC, so some of my concerns won’t be shared with console gamers, most obviously the power required in your machine to play the game. As a PC gamer, you have keep your technology up to speed with new titles, but console versions come as-is to the standardised specifications of the machines. My computer isn’t the fastest, or the most hardworking – it’s actually just a dual-core with one graphics card, several series behind the most recent, not for lack of will but for lack of cash. Keeping a PC up to date is expensive.

My reason for telling you that is so I can tell you how well my absolutely-not-top-of-the-range PC handled a brand new, heavy-hitting title like Mass Effect 3. “Not too bad” is the answer. At times, faces looked a mite too angular, but I had no problems running the game at all.

The game mechanics are almost the same as the were in the previous instalment, and although they can be a bit frustrating to get used to for the first time, they work well within the context of the game. I have heard complaints on the overuse of the spacebar – that it is assigned to far too many actions – and although I had no issues with it, my partner did, so I suspect it’s a personally variable thing.

Combat has been streamlined slightly since Mass Effect 2, and you still have to learn how to fight with each different class you can choose for Shepard. For example, I played through first as an Adept, who enjoys a lot of long-range Biotic powers, so you don’t always need to leave cover and use guns; then I started in a different class and had problems adapting to the new style.

Some Femi-Relevant Content

As much as I could, I shouldn’t spend my entire word count talking about mechanics and gameplay here, so we’ll move on. While playing the game I had a little list of things to look out for that I could critique or criticise, and honestly, there wasn’t much I could pick out. You don’t get treated differently if you’re a male or a female character. The only notable difference I found was in a conversation with the female Krogan, Eve/Bakara, in which she says “we’ll show these men how to do things!” (or similar) if you’re a ‘FemShep’, but not if you’re male.

The only sexism we see comes from the Krogans; Urdnot Wreav claims that Eve is his and that she is obliged to father all his children as he rescued her. Eve, however, is having none of it. That’s good. Eve is awesome.

One issue many players had with Mass Effect 2 was the fact that if you wanted the ‘Romance’ achievement you had to initiate a heterosexual relationship. This has been addressed – you can now gain the ‘Paramour’ achievement through any (albeit still sexual) relationship. There are a more visibly present non-hetero characters too: at one point you console your shuttle pilot who is upset over the death of his husband. It’s never shown in a “LOOK OVER HERE! I’M GAY! HAPPY NOW?!” manner; it’s much more realistically handled in that a character may mention something that discloses their orientation, but ultimately all questions of the personal kind are of little consequence in the face of the impending problem of Total Annihilation Of All Life In The Universe.

I was very happy not to have any feminist niggles or femirage over the game – perhaps that does somewhat diminish my options for what to write for this, a feminist, blog! The best thing that I can say is that it is quite feminist-friendly and the only things I could suggest improving would be the inclusion of non-binary genders and equal cutscenes-for-sex with all races/species (I got no sexy cutscene for my (F)Human-(M)Turian coupling, but one trailer shows a (M)Human-(F)Human sexy cutscene).

The Ending

Before I conclude, I was content and pleased with the ending. Apparently, I may be in a minority there. My partner, for example, hated it. Basically – EPIC SPOILERS, look away now if you don’t want this detail! – pretty much everyone dies. BioWare went to town on the deus ex machina mechanism here. Yes, Shepard pretty much dies no matter what you do.

I was happy with that. I thought BioWare were very brave to stick behind such a potentially contentious ending, and they enacted it beautifully. Many on the interwebs were in uproar, and appeared to successfully bully BioWare into announcing that they’ll be producing alternative endings. I suppose it was difficult to respond to fan requests for a FemShep trailer, then stonewall on the Ending Issue, but it would’ve been nice if they’d held their ground and kept a smidge of artistic integrity.

But in some ways, it turns out now, they did. As the ‘Extended Cut DLC’ has been announced, BioWare has made a new statement that clarifies this will not be “…a re-imagining of the ending or a new ending.” HOORAY!

I fear the pressure of BioWare’s pact with the evil giant EA was involved in their decision to cave, however partially: after all, EA like money, and undoubtedly they can see the potential for Extra Content that a fervent fanbase will definitely pay for.

The Verdict

If we ignore the Ending Issue, I’ll give it a solid 9/10. I’d still give it that with the ending, because I liked it, but I understand how others might knock it down because of it, which is a shame – it’s a great, well-constructed and well-told story that happens to be a game.

I predict that this will not be the end of Mass Effect, as BioWare have stated, but it probably should be. Shepard died and saved the universe; that’s a good ending. The last thing you see and hear before the credits roll is a young child asking their grandfather if they can have ‘one more story’ about ‘The Shepard’. And Grandfather says that it’s getting late, but agrees to tell one more story…

Just one more story...

First off: the games.  Obviously there’s Mass Effect 3, but as I’ve mentioned before, there will be a full post dedicated to that shortly.  For now, though, I’ll say that it’s a great addition to anyone’s collection: well-constructed story, superb combat mechanics, good graphics and generally an absorbing and engaging universe.  The ending(s) have caused issues among some fans of the franchise, and although I shan’t say here what they were or why that is, I’ll just say that I had no problem with the way it ended.

Better then that we talk about the Kinect.  I got one at the beginning of March and a few little games to go along with it.  Kinect Adventures is the title that comes with every single sensor (if you’re buying second-hand, be sure to check!) and it is a simple bit of fun.  You use your body to complete little challenges on the screen, collect points and progress through various ranks of adventurer.  It’s a little bit addictive when you first get the Kinect as it’s all very new and novel and amazing, but in the long run it would probably hold the attention of younger gamers or be best suited to family-centred gaming sessions.

I also got Kinect Sports (the first game), which proved much more popular between my partner and I.  You get the option to partake in six different events: Football (Soccer), Bowling (10-pin), Table Tennis, Track & Field (which contains six events in itself), Boxing and Beach Volleyball.  Again, this is a great bit of fun and you can use it for a spot of exercise as well.  You can play against four levels of computer opponent, as well as playing against your friends (or with them) online or in the same room.  You garner points and progress towards Champion status, but really it’s all about the amusement and the potential for collective gaming.

There are another two Kinect games knocking about my living room, but I didn’t want to talk about them as they don’t have the rather pleasing feature I’m about to detail.  The Kinect games that use your Xbox Avatar in-game (especially in Sports) are also populated with lots of other Avatar people as your opponents or team-mates.  Now, this may not sound altogether too ground-breaking or interesting, but for me it was quite nice to see a fairly equal mix of – albeit randomly generated – Avatars of all descriptions.  In simpler terms, they aren’t all male.  Even on team sports that are traditionally ‘single sex’ sports (like football) you have men and women of all ages charging about the pitch with you.  I thought that was a nice little nod – particularly for games that will have a lot of younger, more impressionable gamers – just to say “Hey, women exist too!”.

Now for the depressing stuff.  The company Game went belly-up in March and already my local Gamestation (part of the group) has been stripped bare and locked up tight, never to be set foot in again.  I admit I rarely bought anything from Game or Gamestation, but as the last notable games-only high street chain, it’s sad to see it fail.  As a PC gamer at heart, I felt the group had forgotten about me over the years as it focused more on console gamers – and that’s fair enough if that’s where the money is – but apparently that didn’t bring in enough revenue to save them.

Things were not helped when EA refused to supply the group with copies of Mass Effect 3 on credit and they had to give everyone who had pre-ordered their money back.  Even a few days before they closed up shop, the Gamestation I usually wander around was begging for trade-ins of the title as not a single brand new copy was in sight.  I suspect this may have been the last straw for many customers, but the advent of the internet worked its evil glory too: after all, if you can buy a two-week-old title for £15 on Amazon when it remains £30+ in a high street store, why would you go that extra mile and pay more?

It is, nevertheless, a little saddening to see the group suffer the same fate as many other high street names.  Should they remain, in one form or another, I hope they can take a more competitive stance on the price war with the internet and stop pricing themselves out of the market. Game’s statement has more detail on the immediate results of their entry into administration.

One final word…

Coincidentally, a couple of days before Game was declared a financial black hole, my partner bought himself Skate 2.  You may remember January’s Gamer Diary, where I mentioned watching him play Skate and lamented that there were zero lady-boarders.  Well, in the second instalment, there are girls flying around on boards, and you can also choose to be one.  Super!  Also, the mechanics and graphics are much improved.  It has, however, to me been dubbed ‘Skate 2 AKA “Shut up, Reda!”’.  Don’t worry if you don’t know who Reda is; all you need to know is he talks too much.

Next Time

I’ll be honest: I don’t yet know what the remainder of April will bring for me.  Never fear!  I will locate juicy content for you and in the meantime you’ll soon be able to read all about what I made of ME3 at last.

The Trailers

You may remember that when I first burst onto the pages of BadRep I was talking about RPG advertising and the distinct lack of women in these trailers, despite the games’ built-in capability for you to play as a female protagonist. I mentioned Mass Effect advertisements, and no sooner had I criticised them than they announced they’d make a ‘FemShep’ trailer and let the fans vote on what she’d look like. So I thought it’d only be right to address the marketing of ME3 before I tell you all about the game itself.

The first glimpses we saw of Mass Effect 3 didn’t show a female Shepard; actually, they barely showed a male Shepard either (but he was still there) – we were simply teased with the knowledge that the war was coming to Earth. Notably, the voiceover doesn’t say “if he doesn’t bring help” but just says “Shepard” to avoid any issue of gender. But then you see male Shepard… so, er, kinda redundant there.

When they first showed everyone FemShep, to me, the trailer didn’t have the same production quality that it could have had, but they made this up with later offerings, such as those below.

Next we have the Take Earth Back pair of trailers; one male and one female. These two did good. They’re the same, just with a different version of Shepard in each. There’s no making one look cooler, or more badass, than the other, and that’s great. The pity is, though, that TV channels didn’t really seem to pick up FemShep’s version – I only ever saw the male version being broadcast.

Then we get to launch day and they start pushing the ‘Launch Trailer’, and as far as I can discover, there’s only one version: Male Shepard (or BroShep)’s version. This might not be too bad; there’s a lot of female characters shown – Ashley, Liara, Jack, Miranda etc – and that’s more than a lot of games can say at the moment. The thing that ruins it, though, is the (totally unnecessary) sex snapshot of Shepard bedding Ashley, who is the woman fighting beside you in the T.E.B. trailers I linked above.

Of course, it could be argued that having that in the trailer shows how you can romance your team-mates if you so desire and that it’s an all-inclusive RPG experience. But it really isn’t necessary and is completely discordant with the rest of the trailer.

The Packaging

Here I can only talk about my box when it arrived, so there may have been people receiving differently presented games. When my game arrived the sleeve insert (that paper thing that slips under the plastic on the box) was displaying a proud BroShep on the front and back. I was a bit disappointed as I’ve never really thought much about Template BroShep’s appearance as part of my gaming experience.

It wasn’t until I had to insert Disc 2 while loading the game that I discovered FemShep hiding underneath the disc! The cover is reversible, so you can have FemShep on the front and on the back (though the screenshot inserts are still BroShep) if you take the insert out and flip it around. Obviously, I did this immediately so I didn’t have to look at his smug face anymore. The reversibility is great, but you have to realise it’s available and then you have to do it yourself.

Have they done well, then?

I think they have, but there’s a bit of improving yet to do – not for Mass Effect, as the trilogy is now complete, but for other titles following in its footsteps.

The male interpretation of an either/or, binary choice, RPG protagonist is still the default in marketing, it seems. There may well be more male gamers buying these titles, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t want to see all a game can offer.

I’m really very pleased that the marketing strategy has improved – at least for this game – and I’m hoping it’ll continue to do so for other releases this year and in the future. It is a real treat to see FemShep kicking some bottoms in that Take Earth Back trailer, and I hope we’ll see lots more awesome female protagonists to come.

—

As a side note: for those of you waiting to see a review, it’s coming – I’m just being extra thorough. And yes, I will talk about that ending and the ensuing furore.

Dear Esther's artwork is deeply beautiful and will make you feel things

Dear Esther

Dear Esther was released through the Steam platform on February 14th this year as a standalone offering via The Chinese Room. This is not, however, the first incarnation of the innovative story-led first person; it began life four years ago as a mod for Half Life 2, and for its independent release it was supported by The Indie Fund, who recouped their investment within five and a half hours of the game going on sale (selling over 16,000 copies in the first 24 hours). Now, that’s pretty impressive for an extremely minimalist game in a market full of guns, cars, swords and big bad monsters!

It’s £6.99 here in the UK, which means it’ll be floating somewhere around the $10/10€ mark for other regions, but bear in mind it only has full audio support in English. As it was plastered all around Steam and was something new, interesting and completely different, I thought I’d give it a go – if nothing else I’d have a new release to tell you all about for once! My first attempted playthrough ended rather swiftly, late at night, after the game decided it didn’t want to listen to my keyboard commands.

Never fear, I came back to it the next day after I’d had some sleep and my computer had been given a chance to think about what it had done. It worked fine the second time around. You start off by a lighthouse on an island somewhere in the Hebrides; the (male) voiceover begins to read excerpts from a letter (or letters), addressed to “Esther”.

As you walk around the island, trying to find your way, he reads different excerpts at different points in the game. I’d go into much more detail, but as I finished the whole sequence in just over an hour, I wouldn’t want to spoil things for anyone yet to play it by discussing my theories. Instead, I’ll tell you about the atmosphere and the artwork, both of which are superb. You’re alone on a bleak island, battered by wind with no person or animal in sight save the odd seagull, and it is a sadly beautiful world.

I found myself a little unnerved walking around, especially when I spotted a shadowy figure in the distance who, when I approached, disappeared (this happens twice). I think, in retrospect, that I was mostly spooked because I’d watched The Woman in Black the day before and was still half-expecting some ghoulish face to pop up and scream at me.

However, personally, I found Dear Esther a little underwhelming considering the hype it was garnering; I understand every compliment given to it, but equally those amazing, clever, innovative bits are altogether a bit too brief, especially at £6.99 – about 10 minutes per £1 in my case. The art is great, the story is great (if a little too easily guessed), the concept is great and it is a brilliant injection of something different into the market. It just would’ve been better if the ‘value for money’ factor was improved.

Apologies for the lack of feminist critique, but the only thing that it could be faulted on there is the age-old “Why is it always a bloke protagonist?”. Esther, obviously, is hugely important to the entire game so although she is absent, she is constantly present as she is who you’re talking to – she is the one you love. Still, indie game + male protagonist = not all that innovative after all.

It’s a good game if you want to have some feelings, think a bit and look at pretty Scottish scenery while under no obligation to chase, fight or challenge anything. My only advice would be to make sure you definitely don’t want to use that £7 on something that might last you a bit longer.

Other Bits & Bobs

Apart from the above, I haven’t been up to much with the sole exception being Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection on PSP. Yep, I dusted off the ol’ PSP and have been button bashing during my lunch breaks on my Saturday shifts. I’ve also discovered I’ve lost all my wicked-sick skills and keep getting K.O.’d by rubbish opponents. It’s fun for portable fight-based gaming and there’s a bowling minigame too. It features the standard Arcade and Story modes as well as the potential to PvP online. As it’s a) old and b) PSP (now replaced by the Vita) it is pretty cheap to buy – best bet is probably eBay though – and presents a standard bit of amusement, providing you can ignore the panty-flashing from almost every single female fighter.

Next Month

On March 9th I will have a copy of Mass Effect 3 in my hands, so you can expect a review on that once I’ve powered through it, and hopefully I’ll be able to say it’s improved on some of the downfalls of the last game (which I explored many moons ago, elsewhere in the interwerlds). I will find other fun things to play and gabble about for you though, as I know not everyone cares about ME3.

The Girls’ Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse is a blogging collective filled with good advice on how to survive the coming apocalypse. Zombies, plague, robot takeover, these girls have got you covered! Mostly tongue in cheek and always great fun to read, there are articles on everything from weapons advice to dating, to what music to listen to when the end of the world comes along. We especially like their Know Your Idols series, with survival tips picked up from brilliant women such as Sarah Connor, Ellen Ripley and Tank Girl.

You know us. We’re the ones who’ll appear out of nowhere in the middle of the apocalypse and shout “Come with us if you want to live,” while looking fabulous.

– Lou Morgan

THAT New Trailer

Mass Effect 3 is coming out in March. My love of the series is no secret, and this new trailer increased my fannish glee to dangerous levels. *glances nervously at the calandar to see how many more days there are until March 6th*

One of the best things about Mass Effect is how much flexibility there is to create the main character, Commander Shepard, any way you want, from her appearence to her choices and actions in the game. Until now Bioware had only used a male version of Shepard in their marketing (affectionately termed ‘BroShep’ by the fans) but in what’s been called the first official story trailer for the new game, Bioware have released their first trailer to ever show Commander Shepard as a woman (now often termed ‘FemShep’).

It’s The New Planking/Owling…

Last month, author and now official BadRep-designated ‘all-round-good-sport’ Jim C Hines attempted, with the help of his wife, to recreate some of the poses of the women on the covers of books written by him and other SFF authors. He was the one striking the poses, and his wife took the pictures.The results were hilarious.

This reminded me of this Spiderman cover showing Mary Jane, um, ‘relaxing’ and drinking coffee, and the ways fans on 4chan and tumblr decided to mock the pose by recreating it themselves.

The Hines post was itself a response to a post by professional martial artist ‘Ils’, who experimented to see whether she could recreate a very common pose which superheroines are drawn in. She couldn’t, and posted the photographic evidence.

Just seriously. People. I understand artist license. I understand exaggeration. I understand suspending disbelief. But if a martial artist who is also a contortionist can’t mimic a pose you use constantly for female fighters, there might be a problem in, you know, your choices on basic anatomy.
– Ils

Are we seeing the start of a new trend? I kind of hope so… personally I think the works of a certain Mr Rob Liefield are past due for some real world parody. Don’t, er, break your back though.

If you decide to try any of this at home, don’t forget to a) send @BadRepUK the photographic evidence and b) make sure you’ve got a good friend nearby who can stop laughing long enough to help you limp to your local physiotherapist.

Batman: Arkham City

There were ‘issues’ with Arkham City (as you can read in my previous article), but there were still some good things to say as well.  The styling and the graphics were great (as they were in Asylum), and I enjoyed the noir feel that they went for, although it didn’t feel as gritty as the first game.  I suspect that may be because once you’ve seen something for the first time it loses its special impact.

City felt a bit too big coming after Asylum without the storyline longevity to really back it up.  There’re a lot of side quests and other bits to do and investigate, so the game has expanded in width as opposed to length.  Personally, I tend to let the side quests fall by the wayside as I power through the story.  It was a fairly competent and engaging(ish) story until the ending (I won’t spoiler but it sucked) despite the near ‘deus ex machina’ way in which they ended the stories of four key characters.

Playing as Catwoman was novel to begin with, but in the end wasn’t a big enough plus as one might have hoped.  Adding to the boiling pot were even more gadgets and even more complicated combat moves that you had to remember in order to beat certain baddies.  Overall, I think they over-complicated a sound concept that could’ve done a lot better.  If you played the first game and are thinking about getting City, wait until it comes down in price first or until they release a copy with the DLCs included.

Assassin’s Creed II

This may seem an odd choice considering Revelations came out at the end of last year, but I played Brotherhood before AC2 so I had a whole 22 years of story to catch up on before I went on to the newest instalment.  This is another game series I was late getting into, as evidenced by me still not having completed the first game(s), but I enjoy it nonetheless.

The graphics and world design are always fantastic with these games; they build entire cities before your eyes.  The characters are ones that you can invest in; ‘sandboxing’ can be just as fun as the main story; the controls aren’t always the easiest (on PC) but you can get there in the end.  This game is super fun, and now I’m clued in on Ezio’s pre-Brotherhood story I can look forward to Revelations.  My only quibble is that there are only so many times I can listen to passers-by shouting “He’ll break something, the idiot!” (or any of their repetitive comments) before I’ll consider risking desynchronisation just to kill a few civvies.

Machinarium

A cute little indie puzzle game, Machinarium was a little bit of a distraction in between Arkham and AC2 to cleanse the palette of my brain, as it were.  It’s a clever little offering set in a robot city, in which you have to stop some bad robots from killing the King robot and free your girlfriend from the evilbots’ grasps.  Various puzzles and stages lead you all over the city until you finally save the day.  Artistically it’s simple but charming and my only issue was the overused-in-indie trope of saving a damsel in distress.

Other gaming from January 2012

Those three are, admittedly, the only three games I have completed, but I’ve been dipping in and out of others too! Serious Sam 3: Before First Encounter has so far been good nostalgia-laden fun, but my brain really has been in Open World mode recently and my FPS-ing has suffered as a result.  Sonic Generations on PC has also been providing me with some chilled gaming – apart from when I get stuck – as it is bright, colourful and cheery, even in the face of a big baddie who is destroying time.  Finally, not one I have been playing, but Skate on Xbox 360 has been my favourite Let’s-Watch-Someone-Else game as I curl up on the sofa and watch my partner switch nollie heel something-or-other around San Vanelona – it is a good game, but the controls can be a bit pesky for a PC purist, and the complete and total absence of any female boarders is a bit dull.

Plans for February

So far, I don’t have any hard-and-fast plans on games; I might revisit Brotherhood as I enjoyed AC2 so much (and I lost my Broho save game).  I may also stretch to buying Revelations as I would like to make sure March is clear for Mass Effect 3.

What has everyone else been playing so far in 2012?

It’s not unusual to display female avatars on boxes of computer games. What is unusual here, and what wins the Found Feminism for Mass Effect 3, is that the avatar is a fully clothed human who is not posing provocatively.

Isn’t she amazing? I want to be her…

… hey, advertising works!

But more importantly, someone in the marketing department decided that this would work. They looked at some genuine facts about who plays games, and why, and decided to use this image rather than, say, an exotic blue alien lady – and yes, I know there’s an entire species of exotic blue alien ladies in the gameworld, but they aren’t selling the game on that fact. They are selling the game on the fact that you can play as this woman.

This remarkably serious and capable-looking woman.

Which rather shoots a laser in the ass of half-baked theories about women and gaming. Such as “women don’t play computer games” – we do, and some of us are really serious about it. Yes, that means we buy the stuff, we are half the target market, and we’d like games that allow us to explore the full range of our imaginations.

The world of computer games is by no means a perfect gender equality paradise. The vast majority of female avatars are still beautiful and often have implausible breasts, even allowing for zero-G environments. But Found Feminism is about hi-fiving the positive, and this shows that the gaming universe is slowly, slowly starting to change its attitudes.

For an added bonus, here’s a chirpy list of ten good female avatars (including Shepard herself).

Got a Found Feminism hi-five you’d like us to shout about? Drop Sarah C a line via [email protected].

Yessir, that does say VIP!

That’s correct, folks!  I trundled my way down to London last Thursday to insert myself into a world of new and upcoming games, developer sessions and general geekdom.  What’s even better is that Eurogamer were kind enough to give me a press pass to do so, and now, my dear readers, you get to hear all about it!

First of all, this post right here is going to be a general look at the whole experience, and I’ll give you some insight into what else I have in store for you in later posts.  Simple as that, really!  Shall we get started?

As I had to travel down from our second city in the morning I didn’t get into the Expo until close to midday. Even so, with a little ticket with the words “Press Pass” on I still got in without issue (even if they did give me the wrong wristband).  My brother had come along for the Thursday and was already inside, so I had a task trying to locate him.  In the end I gave up and darted straight to see Rage (coincidentally, so did he) as I am a mild id Software fanboi… don’t tell anyone!

After that I went to visit Special Effect‘s World Record Attempt and did my practice run – you’ll be hearing more about this in a dedicated post – in which you have to complete a racing track using nought but your own eye movements.  These guys were there trying to raise awareness for gamers with disabilities who need modified controls to enjoy the world of gaming.  Very admirable, indeed.  I had a nice chat with one of them on the Friday and I will be urging you all to give them a shout however you can.

After a bit of milling around I headed up for my interviews with Trion Worlds on their games Rift and End of Nations.  I had a good hour between the two and some interesting responses to questions, but you’ll have to wait for the interview posts to hear more about that.

Over the course of the two days I also got round to playing quite a few of the big names like Skyrim, Mass Effect 3, Battlefield 3 and CounterStrike: Global Offensive, as well as some of the more family-suited games like Sonic Generations and Ratchet and Clank All 4 One.  You’ll get to hear what I thought of all the games I played in my round-up post, which will include a series of mini-reviews for your delectation.

Another excellent facet to the Expo was the Indie Arcade and the Retro section – in which there was Wolfenstein 3D on no less than a Jaguar – where I had great fun playing with games I hadn’t seen in years on consoles and arcades that are likely part of someone’s private gaming museum.  This and EG’s Game of the Year for the past decade wall were a genuine pleasure to see.

Also upcoming from my experience at Eurogamer there’ll be a post on what I think about the prevalence of oversexualised women as a (meagre) excuse for marketing at these events – what does this say about how marketers view gamers? – with interested snippets from an overheard conversation between two stall workers (they weren’t being all that covert about the chat, either!).

Onwards to meet your heroes of geekery!

Another piece I’ve been brewing for a while, but held off just in case I could corner someone from id Software after their Developer Session to ask them about it: Dystopian Beauties.  Ever noticed how almost all the women in the post-apocalyptic world are pretty stereotypically hot?  What happened to all the ‘normal‘ women, hmm?  Is there some sort of “Kill the Trolls” global event that occurs simultaneously with the collapse/destruction of the world?  I will be exploring the many possible explanations for this.

On the overall experience front it was pretty great for me as a first time Expo-goer, with a few snagging points: the demonstrable exclusion of female gamers in the marketing; the assumption (several times) that I was clearly “new to FPS genre” or “new to war games” (so tedious) on the basis of what I looked like and the assumptions stall reps made about a) my gender and b) my personality; the ridiculous prevalence of consoles on the playable games – I am a dedicated PC gamer and trying to play things with thumbsticks drives me up the wall; and, finally, the fact it cost me £6 for a sausage in a roll and a bottle of water.  Otherwise, the punters were all very friendly with each other and it was a good environment full of like-minded individuals that I really enjoyed.

But what’s that, you say?  A competition?  Why, yes!  Yes there is a competition!  I have gathered a few little goodies at the Expo to give away… but more on that later my eager chums!  For now, I will have to leave you with feverish eyes filled with the fire of excitement – to be continued, fellow travellers…